[nobe-l] Questions on INterning in a Special Ed Classroom

[Heather Field]

Hello Miso,
I am a blind teacher so I'm answering your inquiry from that perspective. I 
don't believe this would be a very good placement for you since most 
children in the group you have identified tend to have little or no 
language. Some may use signing and some may use a communication tray or 
board,  but many are nonverbal. While it is possible for a blind teacher to 
build up a rapport over time with such a student if they need to, working in 
a classroom with an entire class of such students and being restricted to a 
short time frame and not being in a position to implement changes which 
maximise your ability to use nonvisual communication techniques sounds to me 
like you are setting yourself up for a very difficult experience. There may 
also be record sheets and behaviour monitoring records that you're asked to 
fill out during the day based on your interactions. While all these things 
can be managed if you are in charge of the classroom as the main teacher, in 
my experience as a student teacher/inter etc. it is usually not possible to 
make the changes necessary to enable you to work well in this setting.
Obviously, there are lots of unknown factors in this scenario which I am not 
taking into account. However, it seems to me that this would not be an ideal 
environment for you to work. I would suggest that you make inquiries and see 
if there are other opportunities where the children are verbal. Of course, 
you could inquire about this particular classroom to ascertain how many of 
the children are verbal. My sense of the situation is that, if you really 
would like experience with this population of students and would like to 
work with them, then you should disclose your blindness if your are accepted 
for the position and begin immediately to work on how you can overcome these 
difficulties.
Keep us posted on how it all turns out.
Warmly,
Heather

-----Original Message----- 
From: Miso Kwak via nobe-l
Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2015 4:01 PM
To: nobe-l at nfbnet.org
Cc: Miso Kwak
Subject: [nobe-l] Questions on INterning in a Special Ed Classroom

Hello,
I am a college student, looking for an internship to complete my minor
requirements for disability studies.
One of possible internship sites is a special ed classroom in
elementary school for moderate to severe autistic students.
I would like to ask a few questions in the scenario that I get accepted
for this internship and decide to pursue it.
1. At what point of the application process, should I disclose that I
am blind?
2. What are some reasonable accommodations I could request in this
setting? Of course, it will depend on what my tasks are as an intern,
but if there is any general ones I should be aware of?
3. What are some nonvisual, alternative techniques and strategies I
could use as almost totally blind person working in this setting? -
both interacting with the classroom teacher and completing any
administrative/management tasks and interacting with autistic
elementary school aged students

I would greatly appreciate your help
Best,
Miso Kwak



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