[Sportsandrec] Blind skateboarder

[Kendra Schaber]

You have to start somewhere. I started using a cane in early elementry 
school. When I started using a cane, I was in a school district that wasn't 
willing to give fair treatment to their disabled students. I could go on for 
a while about that but I'm sure that the list moderater would put their foot 
down. One thing that they did was that they didn't allow me to use my cane 
at home. I had to keep it at the school. I didn't use a cane full time until 
I was almost 9 years old when I started my first year at the Oregon School 
for the Blind. I have never had a problem with using a cane. I feel quite 
nakid with the very idea of not using it in less I'm in a fermiliar 
location. My stubernside came out with learning braille. I resisted every 
attempt at learning braille until my teachers found something that I liked 
and so that put an end to my resistence to braille. I also did not start 
learning braille until I was almost 9 years old. I was on the recieving end 
of the firmiliar "She can see so she needs to learn large print no matter 
what it did to her eyes" card that my school district at the time played. As 
for my interest in my favorite sport, hockey, I became a hockey fan at the 
same time as I started using a cane full time and as I was starting to learn 
braille. I started to learn how to swim around the same time. I also joined 
the school running club and have not heard of goalball until talk of 
goalball turniments taking place in October or so started spreading around 
the school. I was blind before all of that took place. The moral of the 
story is that I had a good aditude without early childhood exposure plus 
when I did finally get the exposure, it took a couple of years before the 
interest to match up with what I was learning. Aditude has a lot to play in 
educating any one no matter what disability they have. So does early 
exposure along with matching interest to metereal especially in the very 
beginning. Again, you have to start somewhere even before it takes place 
before you get into any form of sports.
Kendra
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jody Ianuzzi" <jody at thewhitehats.com>
To: "'Sports and Recreation for the Blind Discussion List'" 
<sportsandrec at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, February 17, 2013 2:19 PM
Subject: Re: [Sportsandrec] Blind skateboarder


> Hi Carly,
>
> Oh yes, I remember my resistance to using a cane too.  It wasn't until I 
> had
> a dramatic wake up call I realized I needed it.
>
> I envy blind kids who grow up with a positive attitude and use a cane from
> an early age.
>
> I realiz this isn't sports related but attitude is very important to blind
> people participating in sports so you can consider it a starting point.
>
> JODY
>
>
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