[NFBMO] Looking for discussion and recommendations

[Gary Wunder]

Can any of you relate to the experience of deciding something wasn't
relevant, only to pass on learning it to your ultimate disadvantage? Here
are some thoughts I'd love you reaction to:

 

I learned the word relevant somewhere along the way, and I sometimes think I
learned it too well.

 

Once I grasped the concept, I began sorting the world into what was relevant
to me and what was not. If I could see a direct line between a subject and
my immediate goals, I paid attention. If I couldn't, I tuned out.

 

The problem wasn't a lack of capacity; it was a lack of perspective. At a
young age, I assumed I was qualified to decide what I would need to know for
a life I had not yet lived.

 

In school, my teachers tried to instill the eight parts of speech. I learned
just enough to get by, but I dismissed formal grammar. I could already write
reasonably well-mostly through reading and imitation. Why did I need to know
whether a word was an adverb or a conjunction, a preposition or an
adjective?

 

Years later, I became the editor of a magazine.

 

Suddenly, what I had dismissed as tedious became essential. As an adult, I
had to work twice as hard to master what I'd been given every opportunity to
learn as a child.

 

I don't share this because I believe children should give blind obedience to
adults. And I certainly don't believe blind children should be taught
compliance as a substitute for independence. We want blind children to ask
hard questions, challenge assumptions, take risks, and ultimately take
charge of their own destiny.

 

But independence isn't the same as omniscience. It doesn't mean assuming we
already know everything required to make good choices.

 

One of the hidden ingredients of potential is learning to weigh the
experience of those who have traveled farther down the road.

 

Parents know things their children do not. Teachers know things their
students do not. Older blind people know things younger blind people do not.
None of them is infallible. Their advice will sometimes be wrong, and what
they call wisdom may occasionally be nothing more than habit, fear, or
outdated bias. Blind people know better than anyone that adults can harbor
tragically low expectations for blind children.

 

So the lesson can never simply be "Listen to your elders."

 

It is something far more nuanced: Learn to distinguish between someone
trying to limit your future and someone trying to prepare you for a future
you cannot yet imagine.

 

That distinction matters enormously-especially for blind children.

 

A young blind person might reasonably ask: Why learn to cook when food can
be delivered? Why learn independent travel when someone is willing to drive?
Why master Braille when speech technology can read text aloud? Why learn to
manage money, organize a room, speak comfortably with strangers, or conquer
a tedious subject in school?

 

Sometimes there is an immediate, obvious answer. Sometimes there isn't.

 

Sometimes the best answer is simply: "I can't show you today exactly when
you'll need this, but those who have built the independent life we want for
you say that it matters."

 

That conversation requires humility on both sides.

 

Parents must accept that their children will eventually outgrow their
knowledge. A blind child will discover tools and methods a sighted parent
never envisioned. Technology evolves; expectations shift. No parent can
script a child's future.

 

But children need humility, too. They are being prepared for a world they
haven't yet met.

 

I wish I had understood that sooner.

 

There were things adults wanted me to learn that seemed completely
disconnected from my life. Sometimes I was right-some of those things made
little difference. But sometimes I was spectacularly wrong. I confused "I
don't see why this matters" with "This doesn't matter."

 

They are entirely different statements.

 

That is why I've grown deeply cautious of the word "relevance." Showing
relevance creates immediate motivation, and that has value. But we must
teach something deeper: You cannot always know in advance what life will
require of you.

 

Education is partly preparation for the known, and partly insurance for the
unknown.

 

This truth shapes how we ought to think about potential. We often talk about
potential as if it were merely intelligence plus drive. It isn't that
simple. What we achieve depends on what we are taught, the opportunities we
receive, the expectations placed on us, our resources, our obstacles, who we
meet, and plain good fortune.

 

Because of this, we should be slow to look at anyone and declare they have
"wasted potential." We rarely know the full weight someone else is carrying.

 

Yet acknowledging different starting points doesn't mean abandoning personal
responsibility. It gives us a better framework for it.

 

The useful question is never, "Why aren't you doing what someone else is
doing?"

 

It is, "What can you do with what you have?"

 

And the companion question for parents and mentors is, "What can I give this
child today that enlarges their choices tomorrow?"

 

Sometimes that means encouragement. Sometimes opportunity. Sometimes it
means refusing to accept low expectations born of blindness. And sometimes
it means insisting a child master something whose purpose they cannot yet
see.

 

It is a delicate balance. We want children to become the authors of their
own lives. But authors need a rich vocabulary before they can write, and
much of that vocabulary is acquired long before we know which words we'll
need.

 

At seventy-one, I cannot return to that childhood classroom. I cannot tell
my younger self to pay attention to grammar or listen more closely to advice
he was quick to dismiss.

 

Nor would I spend much time scolding him.

 

What I would ask him-and any young person willing to listen-is simply to
leave a little room for uncertainty.

 

Ask questions. Challenge assumptions. Demand reasons. Take ownership of your
life.

 

But when someone who genuinely cares about your future tells you something
is worth learning, consider one possibility: The reason you cannot see its
relevance today may not be that it lacks value.

 

It may simply be that you haven't traveled far enough down the road to see
it yet.





 

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