[Ohio-talk] FW: Final Paper

[Smith, JW]

My NFBO Family, Friends and Colleagues:

Please indulge me as I share a response from one of my students to a class I taught this semester and a particular activity.

I think that she will be fine in terms of communicating with those of us that are blind and visually impaired wich is always at least one of the goals of this class for me.

If you'd like, please read her response wich starts right aftr my signature and know that our work goes on!

Jw

Dr. jw Smith
School of Communication Studies
Scripps College of Communication
Schoonover Center, Rm. 427
Athens, OH 45701
smithj at ohio.edu<mailto:smithj at ohio.edu>
T: 740-593-4838


From: Crowley, Kelsey
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 2:26 PM
To: Smith, JW <smithj at ohio.edu>
Subject: Final Paper


Thank you for a great semester! Here is my final paper:



"

I have thoroughly enjoyed this class this semester as a whole. It was really great to get an understanding of some of the disabilities that people live with every day that I do not live with every day. I really feel like I am leaving this class with more knowledge on some disabilities.Truthfully, I really came into this class with very little experience with people with physical disabilities, so I really wanted to take this as an opportunity to learn about people who are not like me. Being a Communication Studies student, I find it extremely important to be well versed and well rounded when it comes to communicating with people. Since I did not have much experience prior to this class with people with disabilities, I really wanted to make sure that I learned as much as I could. After I graduate in a couple of weeks, I (thankfully) landed a job/internship for Walt Disney World where I know that I will be encountering all kinds of people from all over the world. For me, it is crucial to be able to go into that job with as much knowledge as possible on how to properly communicate with not only people who speak a different language, but people with disabilities as well. I will be working in attractions and the potential of me having an attraction that is ADA accessible, etc, is very high. I feel that after taking this class, I have a better understanding.

Overall, I very much enjoyed the topic of blindness. Particularly, I really enjoyed our class session about blindness when we were blind ourselves for an elongated amount of time. I have, personally, very little experience with people who are blind, so this section of our class really opened up my perspective to many things I had not thought of before. But, overall, I very much enjoyed the class topic of blindness as a whole because I went in with such little knowledge of the topic. Someone that I went to high school with was blind, so I would occasionally escort her around the school, but that was few and far in between. I have had more experience with the other topics we have discussed throughout the semester, such as physical disabilities (i.e. being in a wheelchair) and deafness, however. I took ASL for a semester last year, so I have a little bit of experience learning about the deaf community already. I am also a campus tour guide, so I've learned over the years some things about people in wheelchairs since we need to strategically plan out routes and ways that are accessible for everyone on our tours. Having the opportunity to experience something like being blind for an amount of time was truly an experience to put everything we had learned about the blind community in perspective. It was definitely tough to be blind for those thirty minutes and do everything I usually do on a daily basis. For me, the everyday things I do became obstacles. Even though I can say that they were obstacles for me, it put into perspective that these probably aren't every day obstacles for those people who are blind. It's probably all that they know and it's how they live everyday of their lives.

            I also genuinely enjoyed watching the film a few weeks ago. I firmly believe that this film, even though it's not the most up to date, really put the cherry on the cake on the topic of blindness. It was a way for us to truly see what happens when you try to make someone with a disability "normal," whatever normal is, and how different their worlds can be when that happens. It demonstrated to me that there are many people in the world who see people who are blind as blind people; as people as their disability and not just the person who happens to be blind. This also affirmed why I wanted to take this class. To learn about different ways that people handle situations with people with disabilities and what we can do to ease their minds or help them think of things in different ways. All of these things bring me to the handout that we received in class about the Courtesy Rules of  Blindness, which I found extremely resourceful both in context of this film and the exercise of being blind for class. I was afraid to use the word "see" around people who are blind or knowing if I should put my arm out for someone who is blind and walking near me or next to me. These rules were brought to light when I was blind for 30 minutes. I still found myself using the word "see," things that were out of place were a hazard for me, I wanted to know who was in a room with me and what was around me as Conor guided me to a chair or showed me a door, etc.

            This film also really highlighted the work of Elaine Bass Jenks from our class text.  I enjoyed reading her essay on family relationships with people who are blind, specifically siblings of those who are blind, because it was something that I never really thought about or gave much consideration to. When Jenks said that the siblings of those who are blind often feel neglected because the family is always taking care of the person with the disability. Also, I thought that Elaine Bass Jenks made a very good point about how some siblings will become the "carers" to the siblings who are blind to try and help out the parents. But because of this, they never really have the chance to cope with much of their own stress and problems in life. When the time actually comes for them to cope with things in their lives, it may be too late or years and years later. I really appreciated reading and learning about family dynamics with siblings that have siblings who are blind.
            As mentioned above, I think that these two exercises were extremely effective at helping me get the insiders view on what it is like to be blind. There were many things I had not thought about before we did these activities or read that material that now I try and think about. This class as whole truly did me a lot of good and I really feel a lot more confident leaving Ohio University with the education I have received. I hope that I can take what I learned these last 15 weeks and effectively apply these practices when I go to Disney World in the fall. I also hope that I can share these practices with my co-workers if they are unfamiliar to make sure that our workplace is as educated as possible. Perhaps they can even teach me a thing or two as well. Thank you for a wonderful 15 weeks and for the guest speakers, presentations, and great time."



Kelsey Crowley



Kelsey Crowley
Ohio University '16
Communication Studies & Social Media | Scripps College of Communication
Theater | College of Fine Arts
Tour Guide Coordinator | Ohio University Undergraduate Admissions