2018-07-12 02:24:34

Hi everyone,,

Has anyone ever noticed that blind schools are sheltered areas? Example: My school that I went to [California school for the blind] was sheltered and all that. Also about education, have you noticed any education problems with blind schools? Just wondering. For me, their was not really any education system and lack of math, Science, history, ETC. But anyway, shoot out all your opinions guise. Good thing I left CSB, it was a nightmare and a fraud!!

The music program  was bad as well. the teacher yelled at the students. And this is why I also switched to midi instruments and music software like Logic, but anyway. Thanks.

2018-07-12 04:24:26

I never went to one of those places and I'm happy for it. I did public school, and mainstream classes from 6th grade up. I also started doing most things like cooking since the age of 10 and laundry and stuff since 13. When I went off to college, I already knew a lot of the general things for keeping up with myself and so forth, while some of the people there didn't really know how to do laundry. My one room mate couldn't cook, I mean could not cook to save his life. It was so bad we had to unplug the smoke alarm every time he tried. It was good that he had a girlfriend, or he might have starved lol.

I don't see why you ever need to put your kid in a place like that. To me, its dead wrong, and on the part of the parent or parents, I think its laziness. They don't want to teach, maybe they don't understand, so they let this place do it, the problem is, who knows what they do, what that place is really like.

If there were a blind school that would be acceptable to send someone to, I'd have to say it should have the following qualities.
Freedom - Apart from classes and meals, the students should be free to move about he campus until the curfew which would be 10:00. But even then, don't say oh you have to sleep, etc, just say you have to be in. Don't try to take things like phone or shut off the internet. If I give my kid a phone or something, that's my business, you don't get to tell him he can't have it.
Life skills training - Kids should be trained to be self-sufficient. This means learning to cook, at least basic things, learning to clean effectively, which includes doing dishes, wiping up the table and counters, swiffering the floor, etc. Also they should teach at least basic money management techniques, as well as how to shop for grocieries at an actual store. Even though things like Amazon and Walmart are delivering now, its still good to have that experience just in case you need to call on it.
Work study or college preparation - If you want to be a proper school, you need to be guiding students in their junior and senior years towards work or college, which ever they choose to do. Seniors who want to go straight into the workforce should have the opportunity to do a work study, or co-op program where half their day can be spent at a job. Kids looking to go to college (university) for higher education should have the opportunity to fill out college applications and scholarships, PEL grant applications and so on.
In short, like a program that doesn't encourage shelfering, coddling, that teaches academics as well as practical subjects.

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2018-07-12 05:45:00

Hi Erick.
I also went to CSB for a time. If he's still there, I remember the music teacher very well, wayne something or other. He was a mean, foul-tempered son of a bitch! I had been playing guitar for about a year by then, and I went to him for lessons, and each time he screamed at me, and told me that everything I was taught had been wrong.
But to answer your question, I think the place was very sheltered. You had to do everything a certain way, and exactly the way it was taught to you, or you were doing it wrong. You didn't have freedom, I went out one night to get my medicine from the medical building, I was only gone about five minutes, but when I got back to the dorm, I was screamed at for not telling anybody where I was going. I had many bad experiences there, homesickness being a small part of it which is why I left. I did fine going to a mainstream middle school and high school, everybody told me I would never make it but I did.
@Ironcross, I'm not sure all parents don't want to teach their kids that are blind. For me, my parents got suckered into sending me there. My busy-body of a mobility teacher, played up how good the school would be for me, and they would teach me everything my parents couldn't, which was all lies. She constantly mentioned how it would be the best thing for me until they started to believe it. I went along with it, not realizing how hard it would be for me. When I look back, I think the main reason I went was to make my parents happy and proud of me. However when I did leave it turned out a lot better for me then if I had stayed. My parents have taught me so many things, things that I don't think they would've ever taught me at CSB.

Guitarman.
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2018-07-12 13:16:33

They do get pressured that is true, but my parents told them to fuck off when they stepped over that line.

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2018-07-12 14:42:55

Hi.
Well the school where I was and still am in Germany is a double edged sword.
The plus factor is that they are trying to achieve independence for every student they have.
You don't live on a huge campus with school buildings, mess hall and dormatorys, the school buildings and all school or work related building are on one campus mostly, students live in flats over the whole city. A flat normaly contains 7 to 8 students, together with one or two overseers which are there if you need help or to organize everything.
You are responsible on your own how you get to school, with more time progressing, you are moving into further away flats because you will get more independend that way.
The problem I am having, or rather one of the problems I am having is that they try to raise you in a certain way. like every school they have their plans on what their students shal learn or not, I can't fully explain what this is now, in a nutshell, they want to have that you say yes and sure thing to everything an older person says.
Well, but luckily for me, I didn't take that and went my own way, even though that got me into trouble with the groups personell and the schools officials quite a lot of times, I was even thrown out of one of those flats ... the best thing that can happen.
Now I live in a self organizing flat together with six others, it basically means we won't have an official here all day, someone is coming only ones or twice a week for general questions and help, the rest of the time we are on our own.
And hel, I love it.

Greetings Moritz.

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2018-07-12 14:47:35

@Iron:

Yeah but not every parent is like that though.
@Guitarman:

I'll add my thoughts...

1. Pushing people to do things one certain way isn't limited to blind schools, I can point to high school math classes in mainstream schools yelling that people who showed their workings and got the answer right but got there by a different method were somehow wrong. One of those guys went on to eventually go to Oxbridge, by the way. That being said I do feel blind everything ramps it up to a huge, huge level though, I do think it's a mindset and culture thing though and a generation thing. I do think there's still the attitude of 'oh blind people are helpless and we gotta save them from themseles' attitude.

@Iron: I've heard tales of kids threateneing having their funding pulled if they didn't go to those  schools, and that happened on both sides of the pond, Much as I adore the hell out of the woman who ran the visual services team, which is the new name for the VI tieam...politics dictated her team pulled the 'you go to this school or your funding and welfare gets cut' argument. By the way before anyone starts citing laws and bitching that is 'illegal', no, no it wasn't at the time it happened to me. Now I've never found out if my funding DID get cut off but since I changed areas, it's a moot point.

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2018-07-12 20:10:21

well, I went to and graduated from th Texas school for the blind, and had a good experience, for the most part. They actually had a good music program, theatre, sports, whic I didn't play, because I'm not an athlete, taught necessary skills to be independant, had a work program, pretty much exactly how you described it, and incouraged being independant. The few things that I didn't like, I could understand why were the case. You had to tell a staff where you were going, That was, because, since it's a  state agency, they're responsible for you, even if you're an adult, you had to get cleared by your teachers, the principal, and your O and M instructor to be ableYeah, they had a set lights out time, and if caught, you could have your tech confiscated, but they never had cameras, or shut off the internet, like I've heard of other schools doing, and if you got into it, there were four apartments, if you were one of the lucky four, you were basically on your own, no staff watching over you, you had to do everything yourself. That's why I get offended when people say that I went to a Braille Jail, or the like, because this school wasn't like all the other ones, in most ways. to travel off campus.

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2018-07-12 21:53:37

I didn't lose my vision until late in life so I never had to go to one of those schools for the blind. But if the way some of my family members try to coddle me even after I've demonstrated over the last five years that I don't need it, is an example of how most people react to blind people, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the schools for the blind are rather sheltered places.

Considering that before I lost it, my vision was always fairly poor, I sometimes wonder if I wouldn't have been better off in a special needs program, because the main stream schools I went to wouldn't do anything at all to help me cope with my vision limitations. So I often ended up in classes where I couldn't see anything that was going on because I was forced to sit in the back of the room because my last name began with a W.

2018-07-12 21:59:18

Hi.
Yeah here to, when there is a place you want to go and you haven't learned the way, you would need some lessons of O/m training and you would get an official certificate that you are allowed to go there.
Well, I mostly broke that rule and went on my way because to be honest, I don't want to firstly do a pile of lessons even though the destination is only about 10 minutes away, hel, now adays I independently travel by train to nearby villages.
And yep, confiscating tech was also done when I was younger.
When I received my first iPhone they took it away at night because I had been doing stuff with it while I should be sleeping.
It was said that they wanted to do this for the hole year, but well, let me tell you how confusing a chinese or japanese dashboard and an alarm at 3:30 in the morning can be, one week after they started taking the phone I had it back and they stopped doing that.

Greetings Moritz.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2019-01-13 00:26:49 (edited by BlindJedi 2019-01-13 00:27:50)

Blind schools are communist. I've never gone to one and never will. I'd like to live a normal life like everybody else.

I am the blind jedi, I use the force to see. I am the only blind jedi.

2019-01-13 00:59:04

I was at WSB in Arkansas for a month and let me tell you it was freedom.
1. We had no set schedule other than classes. They told us when classes began and ended and we were expected to be there. Lunch was from 12:00 to 13:30 and most people sat around or even went back to there rooms for a quick shuteye. Classes were from 08:00 to 16:00. Dinner was from 16:00 to 18:30.
2. You could walk anywhere in the building you just couldn't go in anyone's rooms. Unless you were the same gender.
3. Kerfue was 22:30 on week days and 00:00 on weekends I can't remember. No one came to check on us. The only time they had checkups was when they had the high school kids there for college prep weeks. If anyone other than me was there and remembers times please correct the times.
4. As far as daily living you had to pass your food and clothing prep class before you were aloud to cook or use the kitchen in the dorms. Other than that you could eat in the lunch room. The weekly meetings were ran by students and we were supposed to make plans for the week on places we wanted to go as a large group. there was only two staff members there but they were drivers. The only time you had to inform staff was if you were going off campus. The staff was there if you needed help but generally they did not stand over you and watch your every move. Also breakfast was from 07:30 to 09:00 on weekends. Lunch was the same on weekends and if I remember dinner was the same times as the week. Also we made trips to the store about once every monday. Like I said if there is any information I'm forgetting out anyone who was there please correct some of the information. Also we did not have set bed times it was all up to us to manage are time. The same was laundry they did not tell us when to do it we had to do it on are own times. You shared your own room and bath with one other person but for the entire month I was there I got a room to my self. It was K 205. Also we had are own keys to the rooms and I think we had to pay five dollars if we needed a new key made. Over all it was a very good time and I would post more about it. The one think I didn't like was they had people watching you when you were in public areas and they used that to evaluate you in getting into your program. But overall it was a good experience and it definitely prepared me for living on my own. I'm also on a housing waiting list so this prepared for me living on the outside world.

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2019-01-13 01:35:34

That's encouraging to hear. I remember hearing a lot of horror stories about WSB back before they got a new manager. The whole opposite gender students not going into each other's rooms thing is archaic, not to mention stupid, since A. not every interaction with the opposite gender leads to sex, and B. two people of the same gender are just as likely to have an encounter if they so choose. But other than that, I've always been interested in that program because of the job training aspect of things.

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.

2019-01-13 02:09:18

For me I didn't really like my blind school that I went to because of some of the rules. Example: you'd have to turn in your phones for certain people.

2019-01-13 05:03:35

@12 A lot of the girls were very standoffish and snobby at least from what I noticed and everyone seamed to hang with the people they were in the same program with. I never really noticed this with the guys but a lot of the guys told me the girls wern't worth the time better to find someone from the local college. Also They didn't want people in relationships they said to us on are first day that we weren't hear to find love. They really couldn't stop us from doing it but it was not accepted. And as far as the rooms thing goes I think that was for law suit or false rape law suits that the center did not want to get into. I don't know who managed it before I was there.

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2019-01-13 06:38:17

Yeah, I figured it was something like that, I'm just pointing out the absurdity of such a rule, especially in the 21st century.

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.

2019-01-13 06:45:06

Yeah, I could never understand rules like that. At colleges they don't have a rule purely because of how dumb it is. If two people want to have sex, they'll have sex. No rule is going to stop them from doing that. If they can't do it in a bed, they'll find some other way of doing it.

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2019-01-13 06:45:37

Well, I personally can't relate to any of these stories, because I've thankfully never attended a school for the blind. But I'll tell you what, the school here in Kentucky sucks. Ever since there superintendant retired a while ago, it has been government run. And as usual, the government screws everything up, so you can just imagine what that school turned into. Sometimes on the weekends, I'd hang out and talk  with some of my friends that go there, and if the conversation ever turned to school, there'd be something like thirty minutes to an hour of depressing statements about KSB. They have staff there that just have no interest in there jobs, subsequently turning everyone's education into a complete and utter failure. Heck, they don't even offer A P english or science courses, so they have to provide bus  transport to a nearby high school so that kids who want to take those classes, can.
The food is somewhat close to prison issue (cheap as they can possibly get it, but that's true for most public schools). The independent dorm program (live on your own and provide for yourself) is about to collapse because they don't have enough staff to supervise it, along with everything else on that campus. Every little change has to be approved by the Kentucky department of education. And that, as well, sucks. I hear the dorms aren't to nice either... And you are not under any circumstances, except on specified outings, allowed to leave campus. The only really good programs they have there are music and sports, both of which will probably have to disappear by the end of the year. Somewhere around 8000000 dollars are being cut out of the educational budget for the entire state, and that won't leave too terribly much room for anything special.
But as far as these types of schools being sheltered, I guess it just depends on the school. Here, at least, student's are not given a proper representation of the real world at all. Well, except for the essential lesson that sometimes, life sucks. Because nothing goes right at the Kentucky School For the Blind, and if it continues on the course it's on, it'll be closed in about 2 years.

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That Guy. Serving those people since that time. To contact, use that info.

2019-01-13 07:32:44

In some Thai blind schools, the concentration on education is lower for some reason compared to what most sighted have to learn. There're not many staffs actually skilled at anything to the point of being able to educate students to an effective level themselves. They have easy education for students who can't manage with sighted. Those who can are sent to study with sighted. (I was sent since I was 5, the youngest in their history). Most blinds end up being massage therapists, making and selling things, being in a blind music bands or staying home doing nothing. A lot of them deem education unimportant. Top jobs here are selling lotteries and massaging, and those are only two well known jobs for the blinds here.

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2019-01-13 07:57:49

I should hope blind schools are sheltered, due to all the fancy technology contained within. Without a roof, the rain would ruin it all.

2019-01-13 08:24:42

Oh wow, just wow! This has brought back to me some rather, um, horrible memories I would really like to leave deep in the recesses of my brain. I went to public school for most of my education. But I tried Tennessee School for the Blind (TSB) my ninth grade year. I had no idea what I was getting myself into! I went to the summer enrichment program before school started, and I guess I was dumb enough to decide on trying out the normal school year! Yes, I left good friends, good help in my aid and the person who taught me to read Braille from the age of five, and a cozy little town where everybody knew me. I left all that for a place where I would be singled out, bullied, failed for no good reason, and everything else under the sun! What on earth was I thinking?! I didn't even finish out the whole year, left in April, and came back to local high school. But then one of the consequences of this was that I had to stay an extra year to make up for my disastrous grades at TSB. At least I was able to get accepted into both colleges I tried, although I flunked out of both of them. That's another story. But hey, at least I had the choice.

2019-01-13 13:36:53

So...found my old handbook from mine, this was given out to students as a form of contract. In it there's such gems as...you shall not....

Play video or audiogames (seriously....)

Smoke

Drink

Do drugs

Be served in the local bar (this was routinely ignored. The bar would get told....and not turn down the money. I mean, c'mon)

The one that got me was this gem:

PHones must be on full silent if switched on.

Yeah, you read that right. No vibrate. No speech. Nothing. In a school for blind people?

Also.....this:

You may not alter the speech rate, or pitch, or volume, or plug in any headphones on your laptopps.

Note: This also applied to personal ones. Took mine in, they wanted to take my headphones. I said no. They took them and kept them for a day.

You may not cook without a staff member present or prepare food.

Sounds fair enough, right? Wrong! That extended to, Depending on who was working that day in question......getting a slice of bread from a tray or something from a fruit bowl. Or even opening a bottle of water to get a drink. Or turning on the faucet in the most extreme examples. It took a diabetic girl nearly going into a coma to make them realize how stupid that rule was.

On the subject of curfews......it was 10:00 for my school and the staf'd come around, knock on the door. You were suposed to say you were in your room. There's a huge, huge, obvious flaw. I once got my whole dorm floor pretty much locked down because I was taking a shit when curfew happened and nobody found me for a good 5-10 minutes, then I walked back, explained I was on the toilet...and got told to go earlier next time. What?

My school was weird as hel 12-13 years ago. Though it was going through a lot of crap too.

However to balance it out there were a few good staff members, my old IT guy was awesome, we had a debate that ran on the whole hour about a clinical trial that went wrong (the Elephant Man trial....we both made the same point a day before the news and such picked up on it), and my tutor was awesome for my year....free breakfast in a morning, anyone? Be sat there with toast and coffee, nibbling away and talking with the others. We all got free food. Becuse it was my tutor's job to manalge ILS courses, so naturally.....food happened. That being said. THe staff did not care about anything, put it this way, a student got their leg broken, and the staf didn't investigate despite two sighted kids saying they'd seen who did it. Yet when the guy responsible got beaten up, the kids who beat him up were punished by....get this.....not being able to go out that weeknd. Took a threat of a lawsuit to get the school to look into it. Took the threat of a lotta damages to get them to finally get off their asses.

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2019-01-13 18:56:56

@18 than what do you say to my friend who has went to ISBVI her entire life and is now studying to be a teacher for special ed students into public school. Also I find ironic that people who went to a special school never end up working on the outside world just in that one field. She hates that I bring it up about her going to school but the truth of the matter is its not about education or your marks in school its about if you can preform the job. I would like to know the stats of blind people who went to college how many of them actualy got a job with there degree. Lets just say that your not going to have a Career your going to have a job. Only 30% of people actualy get a career with there degree and only 23% even find a job that uses there degree. Sorry rant over.

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2019-01-13 19:01:48

correction in wording. Only 30% of people actualy have a dynamic career like they were told.

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2019-01-13 19:41:25

I can't remember the name of the topic now, but there was another one here about blind schools where I ranted about how education in schools for the blind is substandard. It was one of the main reasons I never went to college, because I had gone to public school up until ninth grade, and knew what a normal workload in school was like. I started at a school for the blind in tenth grade, and I barely had to lift a finger to get all my assignments done. Plus, it was literally impossible to fail. During my senior year, I once did no assignments at all in my health class for the final semester, just to see what would happen. If I failed, no one would give a shit, it was just health class. Surprise! I still got a B, I believe. The one thing they would do if you were falling behind in your assignments was not let you participate in any of the sports or musical programs you were signed up for until your grades improved, but at that point, I didn't care. For some reason, they didn't even bother to do that to me, although I saw it happen to others plenty of times. So, realizing I would fail out of college almost instantly, due to being unprepared for the workload, I said no way, I'm not putting myself through that.

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.

2019-01-13 20:11:25

Yeah College work is to boring for me. I would rather lean a trade or a skill than sit in a lecture and parret what the prof tells me just to get a grade. Oh and plus I have 0 in debt and all my friends will be paying off student lones and I have jobs lined up when I can get this housing taken care of.

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