[nfbwatlk] Food for Thought

[Denise Mackenstadt]

Recently I saw on a listserve for AER (Associaiton for Rehabilitation and Education of Blind and Visually Impaired Children and Adults) a listserv for individuals working with blind children and adults a message which has bothered me for some time.  I do not typically respond to posts but I felt that a small part of this post needed to be commented on.  This is for the NFBwatlk to understand what we are dealing with in the professional area of work with the blind.  I would be interested in any of your comments. 

Recently in response to a question posted by Sheila one of the posts stated "Weaknesses: 1.  still no published research proving or disproving that poor teacher braille skills are responsible for poor braille outcomes for students.  Nevertheless,  we've gone full steam ahead addressing a "problem" that may not exist.  Assertions by advocacy groups are not evidence, nor are gut hunches.  We need DATA.  And thus   far no data exists."  I find it astonishing that an assertion is being made that teacher competency in an essential skill to be taught to students is not relevant to student outcomes.  Lack of Data  cannot   take the place of common sense or best practice.  I cannot think of another subject area, for example: Language Arts, Math, Science or Art, where a decent state licensing entity will not expect an instructor to demonstrate competence.  As a parent I would be very concerned if my child's English teacher could not read or write English.  Let us not throw out critical thinking as an alternative to non-existent DATA Collection.  I do not want to say that legitimate research and legitimate data results are not beneficial to best practices.  But let us not sacrifice common sense to the altar of statistics. 

Denise Mackenstadt
dmackenstadt at comcast.net