[blindkid] Advice needed about school incident

Fri Nov 6 03:21:12 UTC 2009

Here's another funny one on me.  I don't remember actually thinking it, but 
I remember standing on our and seeing the sun go behind a cloud and 
thinking, "How funny I was to think that the sun dimmed and brightened."  I 
used to have just enough vision to see clouds in the sky.  Obviously I 
didn't notice them when I was very small but by the time I made my previous 
observation at about eleven years of age I did know about them.
Vision is a difficult thing to understand when you are still a concrete 
thinker.  As a child learns to think more abstractly they begin to make more 
sense of it.
Barbara

The Hawkeyes are 9 and 0!  Let's go Iowa Hawkeyes!

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Richard Holloway" <rholloway at gopbc.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2009 2:24 PM
To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)" 
<blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [blindkid] Advice needed about school incident

> It is all very confusing, isn't it? The best bet is to milk dark cows  at 
> night for chocolate and white milk in the day for white milk-- that  way 
> you're doubly safe!
>
> I also thought that Lions were all boys and Tigers were all girls of  the 
> same collective species and thought to be a Lion / "boy" it have  to have 
> a mane. (Somehow I had missed that whole "loiness" concept.)
>
> I felt quite foolish when I learned differently but then my dad told  me 
> that when he was a youngster he thought that dogs and cats were the  same 
> species but that Dogs were the boys and Cats were the girls.  Felines, 
> Females? Hmm, that made a little sense.
>
> When I stopped and thought, I realized that since dad grew up to be a 
> college professor even with the whole dog / cat thing in his youth, so  I 
> figured the Lion / Tiger thing might not mean I was destined for  total 
> failure after all! LOL...
>
> Richard
>
>
> On Nov 5, 2009, at 1:31 PM, Barbara Hammel wrote:
>
>> You mean chocolate milk doesn't come from cows milked in the dark 
>> either? And the white milk doesn't come from those milked during the 
>> day? LOL!!!!
>> Barbara
>>
>> The Hawkeyes are 9 and 0!  Let's go Iowa Hawkeyes!
>>
>> --------------------------------------------------
>> From: "Richard Holloway" <rholloway at gopbc.org>
>> Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2009 9:20 AM
>> To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)" 
>> <blindkid at nfbnet.org
>> >
>> Subject: Re: [blindkid] Advice needed about school incident
>>
>>> I appreciate your feedback--
>>>
>>> Your story is interesting, in particular the notion that a blind  child 
>>> would possibly think that one grows into having vision, and  especially 
>>> so since I have heard virtually the exact same thing  from other adults 
>>> who were blind since birth. There is definitely  a tale of caution 
>>> there. One never knows what a child (vision  notwithstanding) is going 
>>> to assume. For the longest time (as a  sighted young child) I had 
>>> reached the seemingly obvious  conclusion that "white milk" came from 
>>> the predominantly white  cows and chocolate milk from the brown or 
>>> black ones. It made  total sense to me. I think I had even worked out 
>>> that cows with a  good mixture of light and dark patches would dispense 
>>> both kinds,  depending on the "spigot" used. I never really asked 
>>> anyone, I  just intuitively "knew" this. Fortunately for me, there was 
>>> no  longstanding impact from my misguided assumption in this case.
>>>
>>> We never try to withhold information of that nature and we don't 
>>> withhold much of anything at all. In fact I can only recall 
>>> withholding things that seem not to be age appropriate except in  that 
>>> we all (I would assume) sometimes try to give out information  only as 
>>> quickly as our kids can process and deal with it at  times-- For me, 
>>> this is generally related to knowing how things  work-- Kendra wants a 
>>> full and complete understanding and  sometimes it takes a while to 
>>> build enough foundation to get to  the particulars of how a certain 
>>> machine might work, for example.  Kendra would, I think, like to 
>>> understand a lot more about how and  why electricity works sometimes 
>>> (especially as related to audio  recording), but I have yet to work up 
>>> to a clear explanation of  electrical theory for ANY first graders, so 
>>> that really has little  to do with blindness-- How do I "adapt" 
>>> something that does not  exist to begin with?
>>>
>>> Thinking of not discussing the stolen food is the only thing I  believe 
>>> we have given serious thought to avoiding and that was,  again, mainly 
>>> because it was hard to see the benefit of her  learning so far away 
>>> from the actual event. Besides, it is my  nature to try and protect 
>>> anyone I know (child or adult) from  hurtful things that are sometimes 
>>> said or done in life; something  I have never quite worked out in life 
>>> in general.
>>>
>>> Kendra absolutely knows it is respectable to be blind, though I  guess 
>>> I tend to use the words "fine" or "okay" more. She  understands that 
>>> some kids can see with their eyes and some cannot  and the same is true 
>>> for adults and that is fine, just like some  kids cannot hear with 
>>> their ears or walk with their legs. In fact  one thing we have really 
>>> liked about her current and previous  school is that some kids there 
>>> use walkers or wheel chairs--  things that Kendra can notice without 
>>> any intervention so SHE can  initiate a question like why a classmate 
>>> us in a wheelchair.
>>>
>>> I have not tended to focus on the ratio, but she knows for example 
>>> that she is the only child who cannot see with her eyes at school  but 
>>> that at other places like the Center for the Visually  Impaired, many 
>>> people there are blind an she sees sighted and  blind kids away from 
>>> those places at times also. We remind her to  use her cane "like Anil" 
>>> when she is not touching her cane back- and-forth as she knows Anil 
>>> Lewis quite well and that he is also  blind. She is aware of the 
>>> distinctive sound that he as an NFB  cane user makes as he travels so 
>>> it is a great reminder for her.  (Sometimes her cane tends to "hover" a 
>>> few inches off the ground  otherwise...)
>>>
>>> We absolutely want Kendra to know not only that it is respectable  to 
>>> be blind, but to grow up knowing successful blind adults that  she 
>>> encounters just like any other "grown-ups" from time to time.
>>>
>>> Richard
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Nov 5, 2009, at 9:09 AM, trising wrote:
>>>
>>>> I had similar things happen as the only blind high school student. 
>>>> Someone took food, ate part of it, and had the whole table  laughing 
>>>> when they put the french fry back on my tray and I ate  it, not 
>>>> knowing it had been bitten off of. This was a painful  experience for 
>>>> me, as I was the social outcast that no one would  eat with at  school. 
>>>> After the incident I described, I was almost  relieved to eat  alone. 
>>>> As to being told I was totally blind and  others had vision, I  think 
>>>> at age six I thought adults could see,  because my parents  could. This 
>>>> meant they could drive, read using  eyes instead of  hands, know colors 
>>>> and read my temperature on a  glass rod when I was  sick. I thought 
>>>> kids read Braille and went  on a small bus to school.  I got told in no 
>>>> uncertain terms by  another little girl that I was  wrong. She rode on 
>>>> a bigg bus,  rode a bike with two wheels, had 26  kids in her class and 
>>>> was  learning to read with her eyes. The way  she said it made me feel 
>>>> inferior. It took until I was out of school  and found the  Federation 
>>>> and my husband who is also a part of the Federation  before I realized 
>>>> that it was respectable to be blind. It  was  sure grand to realize our 
>>>> techniques were not inferior, but just  different!
>>>>
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>>>
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