[nagdu] O&M skills

[Darla Rogers]

Hi Tracy,

	I couldn't agree more, and sadly, we will see more peo9ple without
skills perhaps as good as yours or mine, but if you can do what you need to
do, in a manner that is comfortable for you, far be it for me to judge your
independence or lack thereof.
Darla & Handsome Huck


-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Tracy Carcione
Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2014 1:03 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: [nagdu] O&M skills

While I agree that good orientation skills are an excellent thing, and make
using a dog a lot better for both partners, I've known some people who
didn't seem capable of finding their way out of the proverbial paper bag,
and yet used the dog effectively to get where they wanted to go.
A late lamented friend of mine always seemed confused about which way to go,
but he travelled all over the country and the world, going places I'm sure
I'll never go.  Was he the ideal dog user?  No.  Did he get where he wanted
to go, when he wanted to get there?  Absolutely.  Yet he was sneered at by
people who seldom stepped outside their familiar routes.

I recommend people read, or re-read, Jernigan's essay, The Nature of
Independence, which I'm sure is somewhere on nfb.org. Dr. Jernigan argues
persuasively that getting where you want to go when you want to go is the
quintessence of independence, and judging others for how they accomplish
that goal is not particularly useful.
All I'm trying to say is, we can encourage people to improve their O&M  to a
high standard, and help them find the resources they need to do so, but not
look down on them if they're unable to do it, or assume that, if their O&M
doesn't seem excellent, that they are not independent people getting where
they want to go.
Tracy



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