[nobe-l] Connie's New Eyes, blind teachers then and now

[Kayla James]

I I am impressed. Also, dare I say it, even ashamed of myself. I thought that being a blind person today would mean it would be extremely hard to teach. Especially if you are totally blind. But, Judy, I must take my hat off to you. Well, if I had one. I am impressed.

Sent from my iPad

> On May 8, 2017, at 12:54 PM, Judy Jones via NOBE-L <nobe-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi, Kayla,
> 
> I started teaching back in 1976.  I am blind and taught in a rural public
> school, grades 5 - 12.  The town had a population of 300, and there had
> never been a blind person in their town before, let alone a blind teacher.
> I had my interview shortly before graduating from the University Of Northern
> Colorado in the spring of 1975, and was offered the job on the spot.
> 
> The subjects I taught were Spanish and German, and I used to speak both
> fluently.  In one of my first classes the first day, I invited the kids to
> ask any questions regarding blindness, in order to break the ice.  The first
> question asked was, "When are we going to learn Spanish?"  After that, I
> figured kids would ask questions as they came up.
> 
> I had pre-ordered my braille texts, the ones I had used in student teaching
> and liked, and the school board ordered the print copies.  In my training, I
> had quite extensive training with AV equipment, and used lots of
> audio/visuals.  In those days, we were talking about the film strip
> projector, opaque projector, transparency overhead projector, and, of
> course, the movie projector.  The high school kids were actually the ones
> who showed me how to use those the first time out, and were great at telling
> me if something was in focus or not.
> 
> Other visual aids.  I tried to use as much of the foreign language as
> possible, so I had lots of pictures I held up that I either had purchased
> through the school, brought from college student teaching, or had been cut
> out for me from magazines.  I would mat them, and braille on the back what
> they were and enough descriptives to be able to have conversations with the
> classes.
> 
> I taught seven classes per day, and had one study hall, as did everyone
> else,  and traveled between the elementary building and the high school.  I
> filled paperwork according to the class, having the mega-huge plastic paper
> clipswith a braille 1 on one clip for the first period, 2 for the second
> period, and so on.  At the end of the teaching day, I would load up my
> backback with my clipped papers and any other materials I would need to work
> on that night, whip out the telescopic cane, and head out the door.
> 
> I had to really think about this to remember how I did it, but I used the
> slate and stylus in a spiral notebook for lesson plans.  As I can write with
> a slate as fast as one would handwrite, that worked fine.  I used my perkins
> brailler at home, because the slate was more portable and convenient.
> 
> I'm a firm believer in lesson plans, and that has carried over into anything
> I present or any workshops I plan.  I'd rather over-plan than under-plan.
> Especially with kids, one has to keep a classroom moving.  I was never at my
> desk during a class, unless I had a smaller discussion group or smaller
> class, in which case I usually perched on the corner of my desk.  However,
> when teaching, I always moved around, either back and forth in front of the
> class, or partway down the aisles.
> 
> I started off with a seating chart, until I got to know the kids' voices.
> 
> I rarely had discipline problems, and the two I can recall were not serious
> in today's standards, and had nothing to do with my blindness.
> 
> The one thing about teachers is that they always take their work home with
> them, or at least, it was true in my case.  I always had papers to grade,
> and lessons to prepare.
> 
> I hired someone to come to my house 2 to 3 times a week to grade papers.  I
> would tell the reader how to mark the papers, and what to look for.  I gave
> daily quizzes and light homework.  After all, I did not want to clog myself
> with work any more than the kids wanted tons of homework.  The object was
> for them to learn and for me to reinforce it.
> 
> Once a semester we had to turn in class averages on grades and records.
> During this time, my parents got me the new Speech Plus calculator.  (How
> many on this list remember those)?  This new piece of technology was a
> godsend when working on the grades and records averages!
> 
> Blind people of my generation knew how to use the typewriter, and I used
> mine endlessly to creat quizzes and extra paperwork for the classroom.  In
> the mornings before class, I would go to the teachers' lounge and use the
> copy machine or the ditto machine to make copies.  To this day, I braille at
> the bottom of all printed paperwork with date of receipt and what it is,
> just as I then brailled on my originals.
> 
> In my desk I kept a pad of absentee slips.  My mom made me a plastic
> template to fit over the page, just like a signature guide, and I could fill
> in what I needed to and turn in these daily to the front office.  Same thing
> with tardy slips.  Hall passes looked exactly the same as the pad of tardy
> slips, so I put staples in the back cover of the tardy slips.
> 
> I had all kinds of decorative posters, and Argus is still my favorite
> company!  Again, braille captions would be on the back of these posters, and
> I loved decorating my classroom in various ways.  At holiday times, the kids
> helped, too.  I'm not artistic by nature,but we all had fun.
> 
> The "foreign language department" was responsible for taking their turn in
> running concessions for the sports events.  I learned how to run the various
> machines at a serious concessions stand, again, from the high school
> students who had already done it.  That is where I learned how to make
> really good chili!
> 
> I had been in gymnastics in middle and high school and part of college, so
> the gym instructor asked if I would help spot girls on the team when they
> had gymnastics practice after school.  I loved it.
> 
> I tought at that school for several years before moving to get married, but
> loved it.
> 
> Several years later, one of our daughters got on the computer, looked up
> that high school, and found one of the teachers I taught with, and they had
> a great conversation.
> 
> Anyway, that is how we did it without computers, OCR technology, printers,
> or note-takers.
> 
> Judy
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: NOBE-L [mailto:nobe-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Kayla James via
> NOBE-L
> Sent: Monday, May 8, 2017 2:57 AM
> To: nobe-l at nfbnet.org
> Cc: Kayla James
> Subject: [nobe-l] Connie's New Eyes, blind teachers then and now
> 
> 
> 
> Has anyone read the book Connie's New Eyes?
> It is about a blind teacher named Connie David. It was published in the
> 70's.
> I want to know what teaching was like then compared to now for blind people.
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