[nagdu] expectations of the blind & guide dog programs' admission standards

Tue Jul 14 14:57:03 UTC 2015

Cindy, I think every school except one does require some level of O&M
skills.  I am sure it varies from school to school.  I have found that
I depend on my orientation skills a lot more with my dogs than with my
cane.  My dog may take a slight turn to guide me around an object and
I need to be aware of that very slight turn and be sure I am back on
course.  I did meet one student who used a dog to go to the convenient
store near his home and back every day.  His O&M skills were awful but
he could do that route so he was receiving his second dog when I
received my first dog.  It worked for him so it worked with the
school.

On 7/14/15, Cindy Ray via nagdu <nagdu at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Well, I have been trying to become a pastor in the Presbyterian Church for
> too long to admit, but I can't because of one exam. In that church, there
> are five tests you must pass to become a teaching elder or pastor. Although
> I have some good pastoral skills, these tests are designed to keep out the
> people who wouldn't. I cannot get in. There are going to be people who
> would
> not make it because of the kind of sytandards considered even though they
> would have been good. I wonder that they might need additional work. In my
> first class there was someone who didn't even understand the basics of when
> to tell if the light is green and much of our time was spent with the
> instructor trying to teach her that. I think that a person should have that
> kind of skills. Later on I know that some people have been told to go
> improve their mobility skills before they can have a dog. Then after a few
> months, maybe a year, they are accepted because they have done it. I am not
> sure your mobility skills have to be exemplary, but you might ought to have
> some.
> Cindy
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Tracy Carcione
> via nagdu
> Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2015 8:14 AM
> To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
> Cc: Tracy Carcione
> Subject: Re: [nagdu] expectations of the blind & guide dog programs'
> admission standards
>
> But Raven, you did graduate, and you did well.  I understand the idea that
> people should have good travel skills before getting a dog, but I've known
> enough who didn't and still have done very well with a dog that I'm not
> sure
> it should be a hard and fast rule.  Yes, it helps a lot, but it doesn't
> seem
> to be absolutely essential. Basic traffic-reading yes, but great
> orientation
> and walking straight, maybe not.
> I think more instructors are getting degrees in O&M.  I know TSE has a few,
> and so does GDB.  Leader too, I think.  I agree, it is helpful.
>
> My TSE Juno, I called the crossings.  In class, my trainer, ex-GEB, did
> advise us when to cross in the beginning, a bit, on quiet streets where we
> weren't sure of the traffic patterns.  "Is this a stop sign, or a
> light...?"
>
> As to being served meals, I agree.  I wouldn't want to deal with carrying
> food the first day or 2 with the new, very excited dog, but after that, why
> not?
> At TSE, we come and go from the dining room as we please, though
> instructors
> direct traffic a bit when everyone is coming in.  "Hold up a minute; we've
> got a traffic jam (or Kathy is reworking a clearance, or whatever).  The
> students' section is past the staff section, so a student has to walk past
> staff tables to get out.  More than once I was reminded to watch Krokus's
> big nose, walking past those tables.
> Tracy
>
>> I can't speak for all schools. But I think some schools have low
>> standards because they have low expectations. I have heard stories
>> about students who have graduated from programs and certainly
>> shouldn't have. I can't speak to them, I can only speak to my personal
>> experiences with GEB. And this is in no way bashing GEB, the
>> instructors, or the graduates. These are merely my observations and
>> experiences.
>>
>> First, I confess I should not have received a guide dog because at the
>> time I applied, I had poor mobility skills. I was never comfortable
>> crossing traffic-lighted intersections, and I hoped that the field rep
>> who came to do my home interview and video would not ask me to do any
>> street work on busy roads. Fortunately for me, the person didn't. The
>> field rep recorded me walking a route on my college campus, which was
>> pretty much like walking through a residential neighborhood because it
>> was a small campus.
>>
>> During guide dog training, I scared the hell out of my instructor. It
>> was just once, but I was ready to cross a super busy street. For a few
>> seconds nothing was coming, so I thought it was okay to go. I told the
>> Golden Guy forward. He stepped off the curb, because ... well, nothing
>> was coming. And my instructor nearly had a heart attack. I played it
>> off like I was just joking, and wanted to test the intelligent
>> disobedience thing. And I ended up getting an in-depth lecture about
>> the ins and outs of traffic training.
>> When I got home with my dog, I admitted to my O&M instructor that I
>> struggled to cross busy streets by myself, and we needed to work on
>> it. I mean, before the dog, it was just me. But after training, I
>> wasn't just handling some inanimate object while crossing the street,
>> I was using a living, breathing creature whose life and well-being I
>> was responsible for. If anything horrible happened to him because of
>> poor judgment on my part, I wouldn't be able to forgive myself. So I'm
>> one of the people who faked it to make it.
>> It's great that I was responsible enough to admit my weakness and
>> improve my travel skills before even daring to put my dog's life at
>> risk, but at the time, I really felt I shouldn't have graduated with a
>> guide dog.
>>
>> In my class, a few other people shouldn't have graduated and ended up
>> leaving with dogs, or at least shouldn't have left with their specific
>> dog. One guy was a previous student of Leader and had been sent home
>> without a dog. So GEB takes him in and gives this guy a dog. This guy
>> has horrible orientation skills. I mean, maybe he's one of those
>> people who was well-oriented outside and completely lost indoors, but
>> ... I didn't understand. It was a 26-day program, and 3 weeks in, this
>> guy acted like he knew where absolutely nothing was located in the
>> building where we waited while other teams were out on route. He acted
>> like the place was rearranged everyday. And there was no excuse. There
>> were 2 deaf-blind students there whose orientation skills were pretty
>> flawless, and this guy ... I guess he didn't care. Idk. He graduated
>> with a dog, and the dog ended up going back to GEB and was rematched
>> with someone else all within a year.
>>
>> This is to say that I don't think the trainers are well-versed in
>> appropriate or sufficient orientation/travel skills. Their job entails
>> training dogs and telling people how to work with them, I'm willing to
>> bet most guide dog schools' trainers know little about O&M training
>> and what level travel skills someone should have when they are working
>> a guide dog. They see when a person makes a mistake, but don't know
>> how to recognize when to crock it up to poor traveling skills.
>>
>> In addition, I think certain schools want to give people or the dogs
>> the benefit of the doubt. They're under stress, so they did this.
>> They're in a new environment, so can you really expect them to do this
>> well? You're just here to learn to work a dog, the other stuff will
>> come later when you get home. No one has said these things, but by
>> their actions and attitudes, they may as well have.
>>
>> Again, not knocking GEB, but some of the things they did during
>> training pretty much screamed, "We got low expectations." If they have
>> changed any of this, please correct me. I would be delighted to know
>> that this is no longer the case.
>> 1. During the 2 Juno-walks, the instructors didn't require us to
>> decide when to cross the street. They said: "Tell Juno forward," or
>> something along those lines.
>> During those walks, we were not expected to judge traffic or make
>> calls. Those who have done Juno walks with dogs might have had a
>> different experience.
>> 2. The instructors served us our meals.
>> This was incredibly shocking to me. I've been to a training center for
>> the blind twice, and I expected that at GEB, we would line up at a
>> counter and someone would serve food onto our plates and we would have
>> to find our way to a table while carrying our food. Nope. We all sat
>> down, the instructors actually brought us our plates, and even poured
>> our drinks! How old are we?
>> I mean, I get that it could get a bit disastrous with people not
>> knowing the lay out, some people having multiple disabilities, and
>> when you throw dogs in the mix, it could get complicated and
>> stressful. But that's life. If the rehab training centers do it, the
>> guide dog schools should, too.
>> 3. There was one day where I was the last person eating in the dining
>> room, and a staff member who was there with me had to run downstairs
>> to do something. This person told me to stay in the dining room until
>> he came back. I piped up because I thought it was ridiculous that I
>> couldn't just leave when I felt like it. Nope.
>> I never really noticed or thought about it before, but whenever a
>> student got up from the table to leave the dining room and go
>> downstairs, an instructor or staff member would magically appear to
>> watch you go down those eleven steps because God forbid you might
>> fall. For people who have balance issues, I understand. But for your
>> regular blind Joe, I don't see the need for it.
>>
>> That is just some of the things I noticed during training. It's
>> possible that the things I discussed simply depend on the staff
>> manning a certain class. It could also happen at other guide dog
>> schools, but I can only speak to the one I attended.
>> Maybe I'm making mountains out of molehills. But it is little things
>> like this that show what the schools think we are capable of doing
>> successfully. I mean, what am I supposed to think when people are
>> reluctant or refuse to let me get my food and successfully carry it
>> back to a table to find a seat? How should I feel when I'm not allowed
>> to descend a single flight of stairs on my own. It makes me feel like
>> a liability.
>>
>> I'm not trying to paint a bad picture of GEB by any means, but I'm not
>> a loyal client who won't acknowledge the school's flaws. If I had to
>> get a guide dog again for the first time, I'd choose GEB. They were
>> able to give me what I was looking for in a guide dog school at the
>> time and matched me with the perfect guide dog, and I appreciate the
>> foundation they instilled in me for dog training and canine care.
>>
>> All this to make my point that guide dog schools likely have low
>> expectations of their blind clients, and so they have low standards of
>> who they are willing to accept and graduate. They don't know what it
>> looks like or means to be an independent blind person, nor do they
>> understand the ways in which they are robbing us of our independence.
>> And because they don't allow us to fully demonstrate the extent of our
>> responsibility and independence, they exercise paternalism in varying
>> degrees.
>> How do we as graduates change this? How do we demonstrate that we are
>> not liabilities? How do we bring about a change in attitude so that
>> schools treat us as independent individuals.
>> --
>> Raven
>>
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-- 
Marianne Denning, TVI, MA
Teacher of students who are blind or visually impaired
(513) 607-6053