[nagdu] Social Acceptance of Disability (was Re: update on my workquestion)

Julie J. via nagdu nagdu at nfbnet.org
Fri May 16 12:44:39 UTC 2014


I think acceptance of disability, or really anything, is related to 
resiliency.   I see being resilient as the ability to bounce back or to 
quickly take in new information and adjust your perceptions based on that 
info.  It is having a strong ability to adapt to whatever comes your way. 
Perhaps mental flexibility is a good description.

I don't really think intelligence, as in IQ, affects resiliency much.  I 
think it's more character or temperament, practice, positive mentors and the 
desire for self improvement.  Maybe a healthy dose of curiosity helps too. 
Wanting to understand, asking questions and being curious helps us to be 
open to and assimilate new information into our world view.

When I tell people I've trained Monty myself the reactions can be split into 
one of two categories, curiosity or incredulity.  There are variations on 
these themes, but I can't think of anyone that has fallen completely outside 
of one of these two responses.  The curious people ask questions with an air 
of interest and wanting to understand.  Generally they are excited, happy 
and non judgmental about what I'm doing.

The incredulous folks ask questions too, but they generally follow the theme 
of interrogation.   They have pretty much decided I couldn't possibly have 
trained the dog and they are trying to find support for their belief.  They 
don't want to change their perception of blind people.

I've found pretty much the same responses  in regard to blindness in 
general.  When I had my first house totally on my own, my Mom was curious 
about how things were going.  However my dad was an interrogator.  He wanted 
to know if I knew I had a lit candle in the bathroom, where the food in the 
refrigerator came from, how I could have possibly gotten myself to the mall 
on the bus and on and on and on.  It's how they've always been.

My theory on this has changed over the years.  this is just my current take 
on it.  It's really interesting though.

Julie




-----Original Message----- 
From: Buddy Brannan via nagdu
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2014 7:20 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: [nagdu] Social Acceptance of Disability (was Re: update on my 
workquestion)

Of course, how smart someone is isn’t really determined by GPA. I know some 
pretty dumb people who have high GPA’s. I was talking with someone this 
afternoon, and she theorizes that it’s not so much to do with that as it is 
to do with some feeling of being “special” or some such thing, somehow above 
us mere mortals. Back to high school, she mentioned the jocks, who seemed to 
have the same sort of problem with acceptance as the crowd I mentioned, and 
that would definitely fall in line with her theory. We decided we likely 
wouldn’t solve it today, but that someone should do a study or something. 
There’s probably some organization that would fund such a thing.
On May 15, 2014, at 8:14 PM, Nicole Torcolini via nagdu <nagdu at nfbnet.org> 
wrote:

> I don't know, but I am inclined to not think so. I think that what matters
> most is personality , and personality, at least in my experiences, does 
> not
> tend to influence or be influenced by how smart someone is. Okay, yes,
> perhaps some people who are not as smart are nicer because they are not 
> self
> centered and obsessed with being the best, but, that being said, I have 
> met
> smart people who are nice and not so smart people who are not nice, so it
> goes either way.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Buddy Brannan 
> via
> nagdu
> Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2014 9:33 AM
> To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
> Subject: Re: [nagdu] update on my work question
>
> Hi,
>
> Education by action is the best kind of education. Clearly, in your case, 
> it
> works a treat. And, more importantly, they're as educated as they need to
> be. The how and why doesn't matter, clearly your coworkers see results, 
> and
> that's what they care about. That's the best thing ever.
>
> To tell you the truth, I think it's possible to be *too* educated.
> Sometimes, it's those smart people that often have the hardest time.has
> anyone else ever noticed that? Like, in school, it seemed like it was 
> easier
> to make friends with the people who was the more average students, maybe 
> the
> ones that weren't really academic? Seems that those were the people who 
> had
> more common sense going on upstairs, the ones who, if they wanted to know
> something about you, they'd just plain old ask, and otherwise everyone got
> on with life. The so-called A students, the ones in the AP classes that 
> did
> really well, you know, the ones who would argue about why they got a 95
> instead of a 97, coincidentally, the ones I was in lots of classes with,
> just didn't know what to do with us. This of course has absolutely nothing
> to do with education or, I guess, much of anything else, but I still 
> wonder
> if it's really a thing or not.
> --
> Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV - Erie, PA
> Phone: (814) 860-3194 or (814) 431-0962
>
>
>
>
> On May 15, 2014, at 12:16 PM, Julie J. via nagdu <nagdu at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>
>> Thanks to all of you!  Yes, my employer is super supportive of me as a
> blind person, but really it isn't a big deal.  I know this sounds kind of
> backwards, but I have never had in depth conversations with anyone in my
> office about Braille, guide dogs, accessible technology or general
> blindness.  I just do what I need to to do and take care of my job
> responsibilities and it's all good.  I guess perhaps that's education by
> action?  I don't know.
>>
>> I'm not sure how educated any of them are about blindness and what guide
> dogs do exactly.  I'm not sure that it matters to them.  I show up and get
> stuff done, so they are happy.  It works.   I don't think the details of 
> the
> how are so important as the results.
>> Julie
>>
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