[Ohio-talk] Work Tolorence

Thu May 22 14:41:16 UTC 2014

Kaiti, I love your messages so keep them coming.

You write very well!

Jw

Dr. JW Smith
Associate Professor
Interim Director of Honors Tutorial Studies
School of Communication Studies
Lasher Hall, Rm. 112
Athens, OH 45701
smithj at ohio.edu
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F: 740-593-4810

*Ask me about the newly revised Ohio Fellows Program or visit http://www.ohio.edu/univcollege/ohiofellows.cfm

"Regarding the past, change what you can, and can what you can't."
"Our minds are like parachutes. They work best when they are open."

-----Original Message-----
From: Ohio-talk [mailto:ohio-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Kaiti Shelton via Ohio-talk
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2014 10:21 PM
To: NFB of Ohio Announcement and Discussion List
Subject: Re: [Ohio-talk] Work Tolorence

Hi Colleen and all,

I never really understood that notion of how a person can decide they're not going to hang out with someone with a different amount of vision from them personally.  I think I too have a good set of blind friends and acquaintances, but I have about the same amount of friends and acquaintances who are sighted thanks to my involvement in various organizations at school.

I think when I was younger, around the time I was still rejecting braille and the cane, etc, blindness was a stigma.  It probably didn't help that my well-meaning parents used the threat of sending me to the state school for the blind to get me to act more independently.  Their reverse psychology worked, and I know now that they were told when I was much younger that I needed to stay in public schools if I were going to be academically challenged, and that I could learn the independent living skills at home.  I am glad that they followed the advice they had been given.  I would have never been able to take advantage of honors and AP courses if I were not in a public school, and I don't think I would have developed socially either.  OSSB did have a marching band by the time I was marching in high school, but I didn't know about it when I first started.  I was also on the Academic Quiz Team for two years, and participated in a two-year teacher prep program when I was considering music education as a career.  I had so many opportunities that I wouldn't have otherwise had, and those allowed me to flourish with bandmates, quiz team members, and with classmates in general.

I actually have a pretty funny story about how I came to know of the OSSB marching band.  I still wasn't very connected to blind people outside of my small circle of friends, and only really knew one person who attended OSSB.  I was sitting in Wind Symphony before class, and my director comes in and says to the entire class, "I got this email last night about the Ohio State School for the Blind.  They have a marching band that is going to the Rose Parade."  Most people in Wind Symphony were also in marching band, so people were interested.  Then he said, "I thought they wanted Kaiti to go march with them, but they wanted money."  I don't know whether he donated anything from our band program or not, or why he would have thought OSSB would follow his methods of pulling students from the middle schools into the ranks of the high school band to increase numbers, but it was a total surprise to me that there was an entire band of students who might be using the same techniques I had found through trial and error.  It was kind of cool because I felt like I had found my own way to participate with my sighted peers, yet I also wasn't the only blind person to be doing it.

On 5/21/14, Colleen Roth via Ohio-talk <ohio-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Hi Kaiti,
> When I was growing up post of the people in my life were sighted.
> When I went to OSSB for sixth grade it was very traumatic for me.
> I was used to being around sfghted people and some of the blind people
> I encountered had some strange behaviors.
> I also think I didn't want to befriend my classmates and those in the
> dorm because I didn't want to be there.
> I went home every weekend and I hated being there. Looking back I am
> glad I had the experience but I didn't even find some of the blind
> teachers very inspiring.
> I do not want to offend anyone but I just didn't know how to cope.
> When I attended a summer program in 1969 it was better because I had
> spent some time with blind adults by that time.
> I cannot tell you if I have more blind or sighted friends. I have been
> asked this many times.
> I think that the important thing is that I do not decide if I am going
> to be friends with someone based on their Visual Acuity.
> I like to think that I have several people who are both blind and
> sighted who are part of my family in the Federation.
> For me my lack of travel skills was a distinct drawback for quite a while.
> Dr. Jernigan's speech on the Nature of Independence helped me to
> accept myself in this area whether others do or not.
> At this point it doesn't matter because of other physical problems.
> I know that I can call many of you at any time if I need to do that
> and this is a blessing.
> On the other hand, I know that many of you know that you could call me
> at any time.
> I will even include those who hate cats. Please do not tell me how
> they should expire however.
> Let's promote Braille and anything we can use to write it.
> Colleen Roth
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Kaiti Shelton via Ohio-talk <ohio-talk at nfbnet.org>
> To: NFB of Ohio Announcement and Discussion List
> <ohio-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Date: Wednesday, May 21, 2014 01:21:25 AM
> Subject: Re: [Ohio-talk] Work Tolorence
>
>>
>>
>> Hi Colleen, Marianne, and all,
>>
>> I totally agree on the role model front.  I had only one really
>> strong role model for most of my childhood, and while she is a
>> fabulous role model to have and someone who is still a great mentor
>> figure to me now, I wish I had been exposed to more blind adults when
>> I was 6, 7,
>> 10 years old.  I still have some residual vision that I can use, and
>> it was a heck of a lot better 15 years ago than what it is now.  I
>> think that, because when I was really young I didn't hang around with
>> many blind kids and had mostly sighted friends from Girl Scouts,
>> dance class, etc, that I really didn't think I was different in any
>> way from my classmates.  I don't remember how I perceived myself as a
>> six year old, but I knew the fact that I took eye drops and had an
>> aid in class didn't phase me so much as mobility lessons and braille
>> time in school did.  I could have very well thought that the way I
>> saw things was the same way everyone else saw things.  I think that
>> that was what made switching from large print to braille as a first
>> grade student really difficult for me.  My braille literacy story is
>> neither here nor there for this particular thread, but I really did
>> think that braille was the end all thing that would make me different
>> from my classmates, and the thing that would keep me from continuing
>> to fit in.  I really didn't start regularly talking to or hanging out
>> with other blind kids my age till I was about thirteen or fourteen,
>> and having peers who were blind was really what I think helped me to
>> gain some perspective about myself.  I also started meeting more
>> blind adults at around that same time through the mentoring program,
>> so that contributed to my understanding too.
>>
>> I actually have met all three kinds of people Marianne
>> described---those who don't want to associate with other blind
>> people, those who do it to an extreme and either spend a lot of time
>> on a computer chatting with them or who almost exclusively talk to
>> blind people, and those who are in the middle and are well-adjusted.
>> I'm happy to say that the first two types of people are minorities,
>> but they are out there.  I have a hunch that these communication
>> styles are linked to how well adjusted a person is, and how accepting
>> of their blindness and independence they really are, but I don't
>> exactly have a clear argument to back it up.
>>
>> On 5/20/14, Marianne Denning via Ohio-talk <ohio-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>> > There was a time when blind people all hung together, then a time
>> > when we were almost discouraged from associating with other blind
>> > people and now I think we are somewhere between the two extremes
>> > and that is good.  I also think that technology makes it easier for
>> > blind people all around the world to communicate with each other
>> > and that is a good thing. I agree, that adult roll models are
>> > important for blind children and their parents.  I wish I had that opportunity growing up.
>> >
>> > On 5/20/14, Colleen Roth via Ohio-talk <ohio-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>> >ar Hi Kaiti,
>> >ar For those of us who were raised mostly around sighted people we
>> >do  not ar have ar as much experience with the blind culture.
>> >ar I only attended first grade and sixth grade with blind students.
>> >In  high ar school there were only 2 blind students at St. Ursula
>> >Academy.
>> >ar My contacts with blind role models were very limited.
>> >ar Therefore I didn't learn all of the cultural nuances and phrases.
>> >I  was ar strongly encouraged to behave in ways which would make
>> >more more ar acceptable ar to sighted people.
>> >ar I think it is important for blind children to have good adult
>> >role  models ar so ar that they know ar what blind adults can do.
>> >ar Sometimes people around blind children or blind adults who have
>> >had ar little ar or no experience with blindness think we do so well
>> >when in fact we  are ar ordinary or even less than ordinary in the
>> >things we do.
>> >ar Colleen Roth
>> >ar
>> >ar
>> >ar
>> >ar
>> >ar ----- Original Message -----
>> >ar From: Kaiti Shelton via Ohio-talk <ohio-talk at nfbnet.org> ar To:
>> >NFB of Ohio Announcement and Discussion List  <ohio-talk at nfbnet.org>
>> >ar Date: Tuesday, May 20, 2014 05:07:08 AM ar Subject: Re:
>> >[Ohio-talk] Work Tolorence ar
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> Hi all,
>> >>>
>> >>> I'm a bit late on the conversation, but the cultural stuff is
>> >>> kind of interesting to me.  While I totally agree that BSVI needs
>> >>> some serious changing, I have limited experience with them
>> >>> because I am still working towards my degree.  So, I will speak
>> >>> about the culture stuff.
>> >>>
>> >>> I think that although the blind do not have such an organized
>> >>> culture as the deaf, that there are certain things we do when
>> >>> we're in groups that we wouldn't normally do with sighted peers.
>> >>> For example, I usually dumb down my explanations of braille,
>> >>> notetakers, etc for sighted people who are curious enough to ask
>> >>> about them.  When I'm with a group of blind people about my age,
>> >>> we freely talk about the stuff we use on a daily basis.  A really
>> >>> popular thing for us to do when we were about 16 or so was to
>> >>> write BrailleNote documents which made weird sounds.  One of our
>> >>> friends was so good at it that he could make Keynote Gold sound
>> >>> like it had a southern accent, and he also could make it sound
>> >>> like it was beat boxing.  It sounds incredibly childish, but we
>> >>> thought it was the funniest thing for a while.  It was something
>> >>> unique to our group, that sighted kids our age just would not
>> >>> have understood.
>> >>>
>> >>> I have also heard some very interesting terminology in various
>> >>> social circles such as the NABS list.  I have heard the term
>> >>> "blink" before too, and though personally I think it is a bit
>> >>> weird, I know people who use that term.  I also know people who describe canes as "sticks"
>> >>> and that is a different matter because it doesn't accurately
>> >>> teach sighted people those "stick" sayers come into contact with.
>> >>> One person on NABS has consistently referred to sighted people in
>> >>> kind of a condescending way, calling them "Old sighty."  I know
>> >>> there are groups out there who really don't like to be around
>> >>> sighted people for perceived injustices towards them, and that's
>> >>> a cultural thing.  Not to mention that I've seen the blindisms of
>> >>> rocking actually come into play, not because the blind people
>> >>> wanted them to but just because it's weird for a sighted person
>> >>> to see, so they're less likely to socialize with someone who
>> >>> can't sit still and have a conversation.
>> >>>
>> >>> I guess it really depends on how you look at it.  Definitely, we
>> >>> are not as culturized as the deaf, but I do think that groups of
>> >>> blind people have quirks which create a sort of culture
>> >>> surrounding their blindness.  And, Colleen, I agree about the
>> >>> ASL.  I took a sign-singing choir class that used pigeon for both
>> >>> semesters last year, and it was much less efficient than ASL.
>> >>> Pigeon is basically only the ASL symbol signs with no finger
>> >>> spelling at all, but the main drawback to it is that the
>> >>> translations are very weird.  I know enough that a deaf person
>> >>> could have a simple conversation with me using it, but they would
>> >>> probably have to think about what I was saying to make sense of
>> >>> it.  It would be like if a person speaking to you only knew
>> >>> certain words, and didn't use conjunctions at all, or could not
>> >>> add endings like ING or ER to the endings of words.  My favorite
>> >>> translation happened when we were signing My Favorite Things from
>> >>> The Sound of Music for our Christmas concert.  The line that
>> >>> says, "Doorbells and slaybells and schnitzel with noodles," was
>> >>> translated to Doorbell ring, Christmas spaghetti.  This was due
>> >>> largely in part to the lack of a sign for schnitzel, but
>> >>> Christmas spaghetti became a catch phrase in the class whenever
>> >>> we had a translation which was particularly weird.
>> >>>
>> >>> On 5/19/14, COLLEEN ROTH via Ohio-talk <ohio-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>> >>> >  Hello,
>> >>> > Well I wouldn't say that blind people have a disability culture.
>> >>> > I think deaf people have a deaf culture because of the fact
>> >>> > that they have had to find different ways of communicating. I
>> >>> > do think that some people who are deaf may feel isolated due to
>> >>> > the challenges they have in communicating with others. There
>> >>> > are also some people who want to use a system to communicate
>> >>> > which other deaf people might not agree with. I know that there
>> >>> > are some deaf people who want to spell each word when they
>> >>> > communicate and some want to use ASL while others prefer total
>> >>> > communication. I thin that the pendulum is swinging toward the
>> >>> > middle now and ASL is more accepted than it was in the mid
>> >>> > sixties to the mid seventies for example.
>> >>> > I can't remember what the communication system is called which
>> >>> > has people communicating with each other by spelling each word.
>> >>> > I for one am glad that ASL is more accepted now for ease of
>> >>> > communication.
>> >>> > We could probably compare this to Braille.
>> >>> > Deaf people in different parts of the country have their own
>> >>> > little short-hand which is understood by those they spend time with.
>> >>> > I think some blind people may have had some of that kind of
>> >>> > lingo and cutesy sayings particularly at schools for the blind.
>> >>> > I was aghast the first time I heard someone refer to themselves
>> >>> > as a Blink.
>> >>> > I had no clue what they were talking about and to this day I
>> >>> > never use that term.
>> >>> > Colleen Roth
>> >>> >
>> >>> >
>> >>> >
>> >>> > ----- Original Message -----
>> >>> > From: Arlie Ray via Ohio-talk <ohio-talk at nfbnet.org>
>> >>> > To: ohio-talk at nfbnet.org
>> >>> > Date: Sunday, May 18, 2014 8:51 am
>> >>> > Subject: [Ohio-talk] Work Tolorence
>> >>> >
>> >>> >ar
>> >>> >ar
>> >>> >ar Hi List Viewers,
>> >>> >ar
>> >>> >ar Your concerns about this work tolorence matter are completely
>> >>> >valid.
>> >>> >ar Consequently, I am trying to become a job developer because I
>> >>> >think ar counselors and employment specialists are missing one
>> >>> >key  resource;  they ar do ar not understand disability culture.
>> >>> >Not having this understanding  means ar that ar all jobseekers
>> >>> >with disabilities get treated the same. Hence the  need  for ar
>> >>> >a ar "work tolorence" program. A blanket program for counselors
>> >>> >who  only ar understand disability from a "how fast can you get
>> >>> >the job done"
>> >>> > point
>> >>> > of
>> >>> >ar view.
>> >>> >ar
>> >>> >ar Blanket programs are wrong, cause too many inconsistencies,
>> >>> >and  are ar antiquated ways of thinking. There is no unified
>> >>> >theory for  assisting  any ar job seeker. Everyone needs help in
>> >>> >different areas, from soft  skills ar training to resume
>> >>> >writing. Some people only need a piece of  assistive ar
>> >>> >technology and they can hit the ground running. As blind people,
>> >>> >we  just ar can't see, but without an understanding of
>> >>> >disability culture we  are  all ar to ar often treated as if we
>> >>> >can't think.
>> >>> >ar
>> >>> >ar I hope this did not sound to preachy.
>> >>> >ar
>> >>> >ar Cheers,
>> >>> >ar Arlie Ray
>> >>> >ar _______________________________________________
>> >>> >ar Ohio-talk mailing list
>> >>> >ar Ohio-talk at nfbnet.org
>> >>> >ar http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/ohio-talk_nfbnet.org
>> >>> >ar To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account
>> >>> >info  for ar Ohio-talk:
>> >>> >ar
>> >>> >
>> >>> >http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/ohio-talk_nfbnet.org/n8tnv%40a
>> >>> >tt.net
>> >>> >
>> >>> > _______________________________________________
>> >>> > Ohio-talk mailing list
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>> >>> > To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account
>> >>> > info for
>> >>> > Ohio-talk:
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>> >>> > elton%40gmail.com
>> >>> >
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> --
>> >>> Kaiti Shelton
>> >>> University of Dayton 2016.
>> >>> Music Therapy, Psychology, Philosophy President, Ohio Association
>> >>> of Blind Students Sigma Alpha Iota-Delta Sigma
>> >>>
>> >>> _______________________________________________
>> >>> Ohio-talk mailing list
>> >>> Ohio-talk at nfbnet.org
>> >>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/ohio-talk_nfbnet.org
>> >>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info
>> >>> for
>> >>> Ohio-talk:
>> >>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/ohio-talk_nfbnet.org/n8tnv%40at
>> >>> t.net
>> >ar
>> >ar _______________________________________________
>> >ar Ohio-talk mailing list
>> >ar Ohio-talk at nfbnet.org
>> >ar http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/ohio-talk_nfbnet.org
>> >ar To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info
>> >for ar Ohio-talk:
>> >ar
>> >
>> >http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/ohio-talk_nfbnet.org/marianne%40de
>> >nningweb.com
>> >ar
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Marianne Denning, TVI, MA
>> > Teacher of students who are blind or visually impaired
>> > (513) 607-6053
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Ohio-talk mailing list
>> > Ohio-talk at nfbnet.org
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>> > for
>> > Ohio-talk:
>> > http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/ohio-talk_nfbnet.org/kaiti.shelto
>> > n%40gmail.com
>> >
>>
>>
>> --
>> Kaiti Shelton
>> University of Dayton 2016.
>> Music Therapy, Psychology, Philosophy President, Ohio Association of
>> Blind Students Sigma Alpha Iota-Delta Sigma
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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--
Kaiti Shelton
University of Dayton 2016.
Music Therapy, Psychology, Philosophy
President, Ohio Association of Blind Students Sigma Alpha Iota-Delta Sigma

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