[nagdu] teaching the public

[Star Gazer]

Holy cow, 500 second graders at once will not be effective for you or them.
The crowd is too big. 
I'd see if you can break it into smaller chunks. 
Also, you want to find out why they want you to talk. Are they reading a
book about blindness or guide dogs? If so, what book? You may want to read
it. 
I talked to a group of first graders a long while back. They'd been reading
about Helen Keller. Some of the things they took away from their reading
were "If you're blind, then you're also deaf" and "You always have someone
to help you". 
Not really the message the teachers wanted to send. 
They also didn't grasp that the world is a very different place from when
Helen Keller lived in it. They knew she was dead, but nobody explained to
them that canes weren't invented. Braille was very new. Daily living was
vastly different from what it is now. They didn't realize that it isn't
needed or desirable to have a sighted caretaker. 
Even more interesting, the teachers had no idea that what they thought
they'd taught their students, wasn't what they ended up teaching their
students. My presentation wasn't very effective because I had to spend so
much time getting the students away from the Helen Keller lesson. I didn't
realize until they started asking questions that we were not approaching
from the same direction, nor did we expect to accomplish the same things. 
 You'll have a lot of research before you do this talk. 

To contrast, one of the most fun talks I did was to a group of sixth
graders. They'd read a more current book. We ended up spending most of the
time talking about baseball and politics. It was great. At the end of the
talk, the teacher mentioned that she was disappointed that we hadn't spent
more time on blindness. I told her we probably did mmore good the way we'd
done it because the kids learned I'm human.  I mentioned something about
baseball, I think comparing it to a pitcher needing to learn how to pitch,
then being good enough at pitching he can advice through the different
layers of the sport, and even after doing that, he still needs to learn how
to pitch against different batters. One boy awkwardly asked me something
about baseball, and then we all got talking about players we liked and teams
we liked, and the awkwardness went away. I have no idea how we got into a
political discussion, I think it had to do with if I watch tv, and I said
something about watching one of the presidential debates.
The best advice I can give you is do your research and skill down the
groups.  
-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of A.J. LaPointe
Sent: Saturday, April 06, 2013 7:58 AM
To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] teaching the public

I would like to also hear from others that do presentations with their dogs.

I am going to do a presentation this month for the Triton School System here
in Mass for about 500 2nd graders.  Please send me your comments as to it
will be appreciated and help me do the best I can.  Andy and Shubert

-----Original Message-----
From: Eve Sanchez
Sent: Saturday, April 06, 2013 12:35 AM
To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: [nagdu] teaching the public

Tomorrow there is a canine fashion show being put on as a fund raising event
for a new K--9 for the Yavapaih County Marshalls. There are many silly
things going on to get the community happy. There also some educational
things going on to enlighten the community. First on the agenda is a
presentation by yours truly on guide dogs. I did a presentation with my dog
just last week during a dinner and know that there is an upcoming
presentation on the schedule with a local church group. In other words, I am
busy becoming an ambassador and educater about guide dogs and guide dog
users. I am sure that many of you have done these types of things also and
would love to hear about your experiences. It is not that I am some great
speaker or anything. I just get asked. Also, in my community, there are a
total of three guide dogs. WE JUST DONT HAVE THE NUMBERS I would really like
to hear about what you all do with your dogs, not to compare, but to get
more ideas of how we could all get involved and what others do that might be
good ideas to borrow on. Thanks, Eve

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