[nabs-l] On Getting Lost

[Arielle Silverman]

Hi all,
I agree with all the above comments. I would also like to make an
observation which I think many of you can relate to. I think that many
O&M instructors and other authorities (parents, aides etc.) have
taught us to believe that getting "lost" means we have failed. I
certainly remember when I was growing up, if I messed up a route I was
taught to memorize or did a street crossing incorrectly, it was a
failure. Since these things tended to happen to me a lot, I soon came
to think of myself as a poor O&M student and a poor traveler. However,
there is another way to think about getting "lost". We can think of
the times we went the wrong way as learning opportunities. After all,
in order to get back to where you want to go, it is necessary to
gather some additional information or at least to find out where you
went astray. By discovering the sources of errors you are less likely
to make the same mistakes again. When I am learning a route to a new
place, I often find I don't fully understand the route until I mess up
and get myself back on track. By remembering what I did to correct
myself, I have a better mental map of where my destination is. We can
choose to think of getting lost as either a sign of weakness or a
chance to improve both our knowledge of the place where we are
traveling and our general travel skills.
This issue reminds me of research done by a well-known psychologist,
Dr. Carol Dweck. She observed children's reactions to failures (like
getting the wrong answer to a math problem) and found that children
tended to react in one of two ways. Some children would become
frustrated and give up or perform poorly on subsequent problems.
However, other kids would redouble their efforts after a failure
experience and would ultimately end up doing better. Dr. Dweck
eventually showed that the children's responses to failure depended on
their beliefs about their abilities. Kids who thought that their
abilities were fixed or that they could never improve tended to give
up after failures because they concluded they were just not very good
at the task. But kids who believed that they could build up their
abilities through practice were motivated to try harder after failures
because they viewed them as learning opportunities.
As blind students we are often told that our abilities are fixed by
our blindness and that there are certain things we just can't do as
well as the sighted. We are often subjected to evaluations from
professionals that put labels on us telling us what we are or are not
good at. I think this kind of environment can push us in the direction
of seeing temporary setbacks, like getting lost, as indicators that we
are not good travelers. Yet we also have the option to view ourselves
as capable of improving through effort and practice. The NFB training
centers exemplify this philosophy by requiring students to undertake
challenges where they are likely to mess up-i.e. address searches-and
to practice skills like Braille over and over again. The instructors
at our training centers understand how much we can learn and grow from
temporary "mistakes". After all, the very purpose of training is to
improve our skills and to be better at something than we were before.
While getting lost is definitely frustrating, the next time it
happens, try to think of it as a chance to learn something new-and to
become a better traveler in the end.
Best,
Arielle