[nagdu] cane skills as prerequisite for guide dog

Tue Apr 6 19:23:47 UTC 2010

Mark,

Great!  I am so glad you have had those options and that your parents were
able to fight to provide them for you when they needed to!  I have another
young friend who has had those same oppportunities and is continuing to use
them very well in her adult life.  It is *so* great to see!

And you are absolutely right about the fire drill!  It should not require an
attorney and law suits to make the state do what you are paying taxes for it
to do!  It is not in the state's best fiscal interest to go out of their to
avoid spending money on the next generation of working, contributing
taxpayers, either!  It ain't charity, folks!  Often, the problems blind
students face is reflected across the range of disability groups and other
special needs kids....  The future lost revenue alone when those kids grow
up to be dependent upon the social security and other social safety net
systems instead of contributing to them is way more than would be spent per
student, even if you factor in the ratio of future successes to
non-successes (if I may say it that way, even though I'm not sure that's a
word).  Same with VR for adults with disabilities...  Not all will use those
services to move into the big money -- and therefore big payer -- end of the
workforce; some may never be able to work at all for one reason or another.
But the system will still pay for itself, at least, if it spends the money
to get people paying back.

Then there are those of us who were taxpayers and contributors to social
security and involved in community service and all that kinda stuff for 20
or 30 years before we needed to call upon the social safety net
ourselves....  One -- this one, at least -- gets a bad attitude real, real
fast when some obstructionist state agency treats her like an ungrateful
beggar when she asks for information and adaptive tech to keep her job and
career....

By now, BTW, I have been paid more in SSD payments than the cost of the
adaptive tech I began requesting 10 ;years ago so that I wouldn't have to go
on SSD...  Yet last time I asked just in case something had changed, I got
the whole shock and guilt trip (attempted) about how much I was asking them
to give me...

So we soldier on in all areas, providing what we can for ourselves, and
trying to improve the system collectively and individually, and I am
sounding just annoyingly preachy, aren't I?  /lol/

Mark, stories like yours are encouraging as they are discouraging, since
your education so far has required so much struggle just to be allowed to
take advantage of what your parents and all of us have already paid for....
Your obvious exceptional literacy and intelligence and knowledge show that
you are one of that "next generation" to make real strides for the one after
you simplyl by using the tools you've been given to demonstrate that your
education was simply something society "gave" you to make you feel better.
It's something you will have full opportunity to pay back in for the next
batch of kids, just as fully as the students who don't have to fight for
their educations.

Off soapbox now...  /grin/

Tami Smith-Kinney

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Mark J. Cadigan
Sent: Saturday, April 03, 2010 6:21 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] cane skills as prerequisite for guide dog

I have been lucky in that my parents were able to get me the required 
training and adaptations and whatnot in school. If they couldn't get the 
school system to pay for it, they would pay for it out of pocket. I know 
that not everyone is in a situation to do this, but for me, it has worked 
out grate! My parents are able to get the school system to do most 
everything, because when they refuse, if my parents have any sort of law or 
precedent on there side, there attorney will badger the school and the 
department of education into submission.

We should not have to go threw this Chinese fire drill any time we want to 
accomplish anything. The school should stop pinching pennies and do it 
correct the first time.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Albert J Rizzi" <albert at myblindspot.org>
To: "'NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users'" 
<nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, April 03, 2010 8:04 PM
Subject: Re: [nagdu] cane skills as prerequisite for guide dog

> You do not even want to hear the terrible ordeal one family has been going
> thru for a year to get their daughter cane training for her in school.
> They just today announced she will be getting  60-120 minutes a week.
> Unbelievable
> Albert J. Rizzi, M.Ed.
> CEO/Founder
> My Blind Spot, Inc.
> 90 Broad Street - 18th Fl.
> New York, New York  10004
> www.myblindspot.org
> PH: 917-553-0347
> Fax: 212-858-5759
> "The person who says it cannot be done, shouldn't interrupt the one who is
> doing it."
>
>
> Visit us on Facebook LinkedIn
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
> Of Tamara Smith-Kinney
> Sent: Saturday, April 03, 2010 6:30 PM
> To: 'NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users'
> Subject: Re: [nagdu] cane skills as prerequisite for guide dog
>
> Yeah, from what I hear, too many parents have to work really hard for 
> their
> little blind kids to use canes!  I had no idea!  Don't know how many still
> have to fight the school systems or even the legislature to have laws to 
> use
> to fight the school system these days, but apparently there's a way to go
> there.  Probably depends a lot still on where you live.
>
> To me it seems to nonsensical to deprive children of canes, since their
> brains are developing still and doing it so quickly that the tool 
> obviously
> becomes second nature to them.  /smile/  I still have to really 
> concentrate,
> if not as much as I used to, to walk around a crowded convention hall or
> dining room with my cane and stay oriented.  While a group of little kids,
> one or two with canes, all of them laughing and shrieking, will whiz right
> on by, around the adults and their canes and the dogs and purses on the
> floor and you name it that I just spent five minutes walking 10 feet past,
> without touching a hair of anyone or anything.  Born total, but baby, she
> was born to run!  Love it!
>
> Tami Smith-Kinney
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
> Of Albert J Rizzi
> Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 1:20 PM
> To: 'NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users'
> Subject: Re: [nagdu] cane skills as prerequisite for guide dog
>
> You have never been on the parents division chat line, many are precluded
> from using canes  while in school and it disturbs me. the nfb is one place
> in the blind movement where that is an option for kids. Not enough 
> mobility
> instructors or TVI's think that way, at least that is what I hear when
> listening to parents. Albert J. Rizzi, M.Ed.
> CEO/Founder
> My Blind Spot, Inc.
> 90 Broad Street - 18th Fl.
> New York, New York  10004
> www.myblindspot.org
> PH: 917-553-0347
> Fax: 212-858-5759
> "The person who says it cannot be done, shouldn't interrupt the one who is
> doing it."
>
>
> Visit us on Facebook LinkedIn
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
> Of cheryl echevarria
> Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 3:57 PM
> To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
> Subject: Re: [nagdu] cane skills as prerequisite for guide dog
>
> Albert you have never been to a convention, there are tons of blind kids
> using canes.
>
> Cheryl Echevarria
> Independent Travel Consultant
> http://Echevarriatravel.com
> 1-866-580-5574
>
> http://blog.echevarriatravel.com
> Reservations at echevarriatravel.com
> Affiliated as an Independent Contractor with Montrose Travel 
> CST-1018299-10
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Albert J Rizzi" <albert at myblindspot.org>
> To: "'NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users'"
> <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 4:02 PM
> Subject: Re: [nagdu] cane skills as prerequisite for guide dog
>
>
>> Why is it a requirement for being considered getting a guide dog anyway? 
>> I
>> would like to understand the rationale. I am not agreeing or disagreeing
>> just wondering about the reasons. Then too, if cane mobility is so
>> integral
>> to independence, why are there some schools of thought on not introducing
>> the cane to toddlers or blind youth as soon as they can hold one?
>>
>> Albert J. Rizzi, M.Ed.
>> CEO/Founder
>> My Blind Spot, Inc.
>> 90 Broad Street - 18th Fl.
>> New York, New York  10004
>> www.myblindspot.org
>> PH: 917-553-0347
>> Fax: 212-858-5759
>> "The person who says it cannot be done, shouldn't interrupt the one who 
>> is
>> doing it."
>>
>>
>> Visit us on Facebook LinkedIn
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On 
>> Behalf
>> Of Tracy Carcione
>> Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 2:33 PM
>> To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
>> Subject: [nagdu] cane skills as prerequisite for guide dog
>>
>> Marion, I don't necessarily agree that good cane skills should be a
>> prerequisite for getting a guide dog.  It's a nice theory.  It would
>> certainly be helpful.  But I know too many people who don't have
>> spectacular cane skills, but do great with a dog.  Some of them are older
>> people, who started getting dogs when cane training was not very
>> available.  Some of them are from places where services for blind people
>> are not very good.  Some of them went blind as senior citizens, and quite
>> a few agencies don't serve that population very well, since they won't be
>> employed.  Should we tell these people they have to wait until they can
>> somehow get cane training?  I don't think so. I've met enough people for
>> whom the dog was the thing that got them back out, living their lives, 
>> and
>> I think getting out and living one's life is a great thing. I'm not
>> willing to stand in someone's way over whether or not their cane skills
>> measure up to some philosophical mark.
>>
>> Should we take good orientation as good enough?  Or should the guide dog
>> schools offer cane training to prospective applicants who they feel 
>> should
>> have it? They seem like reasonable approaches to me, and I believe they
>> are
>> the ones being carried out. Encouraging good cane skills is fine, but I
>> wouldn't make it a prerequisite for a guide dog.
>> Tracy
>>
>>
>>
>>
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