@turtlepower, I didn't say training centers didn't exist in the Uk, only that the way they are organized and structured is rather different. They aren't so much "do this course as we set it out and pay for it" the way the Nfb are, as they are just individually setup by local authorities or charities.
For example, several local associations for the blind do run training assistance classes or braille classes (like I believe the ones Cx2 attends), and both guide dogs and the local authorities of various councels, as well as the Rnib employ people who's job it is to teach living skills etc. It is just that it changes from area to area, and isn't centralized, also a large percentage of what the Rnib does is heavily aimed at over 60's as I said, ---- for example I know there is a national blind knitting association run through the rnib with braille magazines, and a blind ramblers (although according to one chap i met they spend more time feeling the pretty trees than actually cross country walking). However, blind roleplaying society? no way!
Well, in the Uk at least the number of specialist schools s declining, ironically because of money, indeed the Tapton Mount school where I went closed in the late 90's. This is principley because local authorities no longer want to shell out the cash to send disabled kids (any disability), to a specialist school outside the county area, as opposed to educate them in a standard mainstream school with provision.
For blind students this is mostly a good thing, but like everything else depends upon the staff, the school and the level of interaction, for example I've heard of blind kids who pretty much spend all their time at school with a classroom assistant, never interact with sighted kids etc. In my first primary school I was lucky enough that firstly my classroom assistant was very good at talking to kids and teaching me the same games other kids played on the playground and getting me included, the fact that it was a very good school helped as well.
I will also say that only wanting to hear the good isn't just tied to specialist schools either. With my secondary school, the local authority decided to setup a unit for blind kids in a normal school, so blind kids would be in the class with everyone else and have all the resources to produce braille maps etc but have the experience of lessons with other kids and interacting with everyone else, indeed I went on the local news speaking about how successful I'd been.
This would have been a good idea in a decent school, however Nottingham county counsel decided to use it as an excuse to keep open one of the worst schools in the county. There was definitely at that point an ethos of "don't tell anyone anything bad" because the head master and governers were so bent on keeping the school open, despite the fact some of the things that happened on a dayly basis at said school were horrendous.
Of course, once I went to a decent school (which took a major fight in itself), everything was fine, albeit I had to relearn how to interact with people decently again.
On the school level, in the Uk at least there are people (including blind people), looking into education, the main problem however is still the social perception that if your blind your a different species, despite the fact we've had blind pop stars, blind mps etc, a perception which the current climate of accusing anyone disabled of being a scrounger (whether employed or not), doesn't help either.
I wouldn't say it's a matter of "only listening to people who are employed" in the Uk at least (sinse loads of people are unemployed0, as changing the general perception surrounding blind people and getting legislation passed which helps alleviate general exclusion whether from jobs, leasure activities, school activities or whatever Specialist schools for blind people exist because there is a perception that if a person is blind, they need a specialist system and environment. To an extent this is true, a blin person will not live the same, do the same things, perform basic tasks such as cooking in the same way as a sighted person, but where the system falls down is the general perception that this makes blind people inherently different sorts of beings.
This is why I am against the ethos that I believe people like the Nfb have of "blin pride" sinse we need to be letting people know that being blind is no different from being in a wheel chair or having depression. This has occurred to a large extent for other disabilities such as paraplegia or quadraplegia, ie, being in a wheel chair, walking with assistance etc, however due to the small amount of blind people under 60 and the general otherness that seems to cling to perceptions of blind people it hasn't occured yet. After all, when is the last time you saw a blind person on tv who's character wasn't! automatically defined by the fact that she/he was blind?
That is one reason I was attempting to publish a phd thesis on the redefinition of disibility and communicate via academic credentials, sinse it does rather pay to be considered something of an expert, though to what extent this will happen i don't know at this point.
With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)