[nfbmi-talk] Fw: FYI, Michigan Commission for the Blind in today's Herald-Palladium

Tue May 3 17:26:16 UTC 2011

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Turney, Susan (DELEG) 
To: MCB2020-L at LISTSERV.MICHIGAN.GOV 
Sent: Friday, April 29, 2011 2:20 PM
Subject: FYI, Michigan Commission for the Blind in today's Herald-Palladium

FYI, the Michigan Commission for the Blind is in a story in today's Herald-Palladium (St. Joseph).  The article link is http://www.heraldpalladium.com/articles/2011/04/29/local_news/4546476.txt and the complete text of the article is pasted below my signature.

Susan Turney

Communications & Outreach Coordinator, Michigan Commission for the Blind

Michigan Department Licensing and Regulatory Affairs 

direct line:  517-241-8631; fax:  517-335-5140

MCB toll-free: 1-800-292-4200

201 N. Washington Square, Second Floor, 

P.O. Box 30652; Lansing, MI 48909

www.michigan.gov/mcb

A new world

Photo: Linda McLane of Niles explains how she works with her leader dog Disney on Thursday to a group of Bridgman Elementary School students. 
John Madill / H-P staff

Bridgman students learn what it's like to be blind
By MARK FONTECCHIO - H-P Correspondent
Published: Friday, April 29, 2011 1:08 PM EDT

BRIDGMAN - Perhaps one of the best questions a Bridgman Elementary School student asked John Sleder was whether he can dream.

"I told him that I had my sight for 50 years," Sleder said. "So I know what colors are like. I know what a sunset over Weko Beach looks like. And when I dream, I can see."

Such were the inquiries for Sleder and a group of legally blind people, all of whom visited the school to teach children what it's like to be blind. The event was sponsored by the Lions Club. Bridgman resident Kay Cornwell was one of the main organizers.

Cornwell, who is legally blind, got the idea for the program while undergoing training at the Michigan Commission for the Blind in Kalamazoo. There she learned ways blind people can get by in society, and it gave her an idea.

"A lot of people don't know what it's like to be blind," she said. "So I thought that we could teach people that blind people can do whatever they want to do."

On Thursday the group set up five stations in the library that the students rotated through. The stations included how to use a white cane, Braille, computer use, guide dogs and scanning devices. The scanning device, which allows blind people to attach tags to items and later identify them by using the scanner, was the favorite of two 9-year-old students, Haley Goff and Brandon Feole.

"We saw how people could use it to tell what everything was even though they're blind," Haley said.

"It seemed useful for someone who's blind who doesn't know how to read Braille," Brandon said. "And we got to use the pen and record messages."

Sleder manned the computer station, showing students how he uses a program called JAWS, a screen reader application that stands for Job Access With Speech. Sleder uses JAWS to run the Stevensville tax preparation business he owns.

Linda McLane, also legally blind, brought her leader dog, Disney, with her, and taught the children about how the dog is trained, what it does, and some guidelines for how non-blind people should interact with the dog. When one student asked her if she could pet Disney, McLane said it wasn't a good idea.

"If you pet the dog, then it may become distracted and not do its job," McLane said. McLane is a field representative for Leader Dogs for the Blind, a Rochester Hills-based company that provides leader dogs to people who are legally blind.

McLane, a Niles resident, has traveled all over the United States representing Leader Dogs.

"They're curious," she said about the students. "This is the right age to get them and teach them about what it's like to be blind." 

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