2014-12-08 07:02:44

@Turtlepower, that sounds worryingly believable, although the school I attended only had blind kids, at one and the same time we were told that the staff were attempting to make us be normal, and yet that we had to obey the rules without question and just act as the staff desired, for example for some silly reason if someone bought a tape recorder with an audio tape and listened to it at night in bed, it was literally a crime to touch the machine. Indeed on one occasion when myself an another boy woke up early at about six Am, started a quiet conversation and stuck on a tape with a double set of headphones, not only were we bought up in front of the head master for a severe yelling at, but there was an assembly to the entire school on the theme of crime and learning from mistakes, and for the next three mornings we were ordered to get up at six and do extra copying for an hour. Yes, things really were! that victorian!

Frequently I remember things I'd done or discovered or achieved attributed to other students, indeed I used to use my intelligence as a weapon sinse it was quite satisfying to force one of the teachers who literally hated me to admit I was right.

@Aaron, it isn't so much just about trips out, (we had highly supervised trips to plces occasionally, I remember getting in severe trouble for daring to drink out of a can of coke, and to open it myself rather than waiting for someone to open it for me), it's more about the attitude an the institution. The idea behind my specialist school (and I suspect from what people have said behind many others), was that there was "a system" and ultimately the system took pressidence over everything. Actually this seems true of a lot of blindness organizations now I think about it.

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.)

2014-12-08 07:38:53

I was fortunate enough to attend a public school from pre-k through 12th grade. I don't know if three hours was too far away, or if my parents were just blessedly ignorent of the resources out there.
My braille teacher thought I might like to attend a two week independent living program at the blind school in my state. I was about nine or ten at the time, and thought it would be a grand vacation. I learned how to microwave an egg instead of using the stove. I learned that the blind school is located right next to the women's prison. I learned that the dorms have these painted cinderblock walls, bare cement floors, and mattresses that feel and sound like they're covered in plastic. I learned that the school is an old, antiquated building that feels brilliantly like a prison unit.
After I lost the rest of my sight a couple years later, I went back. I had to take some homework assignments from regular school to complete while I was there, since the program was in October or something. I don't remember why I couldn't use my Braille'n Speak, I just remember having to write my homework out on a Perkins brailler.
12 year old me: "But how are my teachers going to read this if I don't print it out?"
The solution was to have some sighted person transcribe the braille into print above the line of braille... what?
Even though I only attended a few breif two week sessions and a couple three day summer sports programs there, I got enough of an impression to make me extremely thankful for my mainstream education, even if I was an awkward introverted nerd who nobody talked to. At least I learned how I should be interacting with the wider world.

All the things said previously are true. Isolation, antiquity, dirty, absolutely unsanitary conditions in one of the dorms which was empty at the time. (They said it was a dead rat.) I did get introduced to things like tactile maps, and I did get told, "Don't let your jacket drag from your arm on the ground like that. It makes you look like a lost little blind girl."

I was very new to being completely blind, not even a year into the ordeal. We were coming back from a trip, and I suddenly noticed that I wasn't with the rest of the group. I was completely alone and terrified, standing there with a cane in my hand. Having no idea what to do, I backtracked, and found my way to where I was supposed to be. The orientation lady came up to me and said, "I was there watching you the whole time." So while I appreciate the sink or swim lesson, I battled mobility terror all through the rest of middle and high school.

As for a training center aspect, I went back to the adult portion of this school when I dropped out of my first university. I wasn't prepared, I was having anxiety problems that were affecting my physical health, and I was in a panic about what to do with my life since I'd left university and sucked at everything. I was dropped off, and the place was desserted. No welcome tour, no explanation of what would happen, no tour of the campus, no orientation, no assurance that I'd be shown what to do or where to go. Just, "Here's your cinderblock and cement room with no internet... bye." Still in my anxious state, I sat alone for a couple hours, then went to knock on another bedroom down the hall. I asked the woman who answered if she knew what time dinner would be, did she know where to go? I can only assume she had multiple disabilities, because I couldn't understand her mumbled response. Someone was indeed there to show me where to go, the first staff face I'd seen in hours.
So on the first day, they set me to take a career analysis questionaire of some 300 questions. But the lady who usually administers it on the computer isn't there, so I would have to write everything out on the brailler by hand. About two hours and seven pages in, I broke down in tears and told them I couldn't do this anymore.
It was 2009. Why was I filling this out on a Perkins brailler? Why wasn't there wi-fi in the building, or at least a computer lab?
I did wind up going back to college and completing my BA, and now I capture hapless students and tutor them until they're miserable and hate me.

I don't think I had any education experiences there at the special school, but it is a very isolated, growth stunting sort of environment. I assume they are typically underfunded, and the construction shows it. While I did learn some useful blindy skills, it is definitely not a place I would ever recommend for any extended amount of time.

Sugar and spice, and everything ....

2014-12-08 11:30:36

It really sounds that we have almost or totally the same experiences. I was also in a position where I was being called a gangsta and a stubborn ignorant guy. In my last year of specialist school, “the 9th one”, we had a director which was a real and an alive monster. He used to be like a president of a country for our school, and sometimes we thought “in a funny way” that he would keep some bodyguards to protect him although he set students and some teachers who didn’t obey him under a high pressure and often worned me and some friends that he would suspend us from school. If a newspaper or local TV came to our school to make some interviews with blind students, and if we stated that we live in very good condition, we really make a good life here, and this is like the second home for us, that student would be called to go to his office and the director would thank and would speak to him in good words like he was the best student of the school. But in case we told the truth, or spoke in contrary to what it was bad for the school and staff’s performance, we would immediately be added to the list of bad guys who come to school just to cause troubles. When I was in the fifth grade, I remember it was a similar situation, where some older guys in the 8th grade or the 9th one were presented to us as trouble makers, we were told not to be friends with them, because they were only some rude guys who want troubles with all and we would become like them if we became friends and trusted them to what they say. So we believed the teachers and we never thought to get along  with them. But soon I grew up and I realized that those guys were right. Me and three of my friends were the best students of that school, (and still we are if we go there), they didn’t like us and used to avoid any troubles with me and some others. Also, if anything was broken or destroyed in the school, we were the first ones to be accused of doing it. Teachers came to the class, started the lessons and assessed by charging us with several questions and those who were listed as bad guys were told to talk about what they remembered from the lesson. Also in the 9th year of my specialist school, the teacher of music subject showed in the school, but never came to give us lessons for more than two months. One day, I decided to go to the director and say: “Why aren’t we attending music lessons?”. He told me that he couldn’t give so much details right now because that teacher wasn’t at the school but (I heard her voice when I was going to the director talking with another person). After one week, she appeared at the class and started to yell at me. “you Afrim, who claim that I haven’t attended lessons for more than two months, come here and talk about the last lesson. But we hadn’t been given lessons for two months so I didn’t remember at least one sentence. She assessed me with a very bad mark, although I was one of the best students at music and at accordion literally and practically. She started to hate me so much and if I spoke in another discussion which was not related to the lessons, She immediately said, Stop now, let’s go on with the new unit. On the other hand, those who got along with her, and didn’t complain of her absence got good marks, even though they had nothing to do with the music, and they didn’t even know what does the music stand for. I was an inspiring musician who had participated in almost all concerts hold by our school, and I had succeeded in every test. But that teacher was not agree. In the end of the year, when the final marks were launched, he asked me, why’s your mark in music so bad, while in accordion you got the best one? I told him to ask the music’s teacher, but soon she avoided the topic and another discussion was already started. I felt very bad, but this is only one story and others would occur soon.

2014-12-08 17:17:17

Well, I had almost the same, if not worse or better , experience to you guys. Even though I studied in special schools for about 8 years and only on mainstream schools for 2 years (I'm still 14), I think mainstream schools are better, even though they might not have the accomodations like special schools. Then again there's a special unit in the mainstream school... And guess what? We're still! using Perkin braillers in classes every day, carrying them all around and having sighted teachers who knew braille transcribe it! The kids at special school learn much, much slower than normal, and the teachers slowed down just to follow their pace, which annoyed me so. The good thing though, is that my school (The special school) brought us to trips sometimes to foreign countries for free... still mainstream is better. Some people asked me "Well why not go to the special school that's near yoru house?" admitedly the mainstream school is about a 45 minute car ride from my house, but I said, "I wanna blend in with the society like a normal person. Not just hang around the blind". There are a few blindies in the mainstream school I'm attending, and admitedly they act more like normal people than blindies after they attend mainstream schools! Though I think some of the teachers there are overprotective sometimes, like "hey don't punch each other", even though we did not and just look like we did, and, we're simply playing! Sigh... AND well, te special school had too much accomodation that mobility is almost too easy, but they didn't! teach us how to use canes and such until we're about 11! admitedly my o and M skills are like crap... but that's for another topic. And many more points I won't raise cause this post is getting long and I'm getting tired (wrote this at 11:10 PM... I should've gonne to slep, lol)...

Team rocket's blasting off again!

2014-12-10 06:14:14

So, based on all of your responses, we've pretty much come to the conclusion that, across the board, schools for the blind are pretty crappy. They may have short-term benefits, or, in extreme cases, actually be better in some situations than being mainstreamed.
But why are these things allowed to go on? In the 21st century, when the most benign of things can go viral in an instant, why do we tolerate being shamed into remaining silent? Why do we allow ourselves to be treated as though we're not human?
We're not being shoved in cellars anymore, not hidden and considered evil, yet many of us have virtually been locked in a cage emotionally.
Which brings up an interesting point, how many of you had support from your parents, family members, friends, etc. during this time?
I for one didn't. My parents always said that I brought it all on myself, and that I was always a difficult person to get along with, and of course the teachers were right in trying to beat me into submission, metaphorically speaking.
I guess it never occurred to them that the reason I grew up to be a difficult person to get along with was precisely because I never had much emotional support.
But back to the point, replacing physical restrictions with mental ones is not progress. It's humiliating, degrading, and stunting. And yet, we still tolerate it. We only speak about it if someone is bold enough to come forward and ask for war stories. And, even then, how many of you would talk about if this wasn't a reasonably anonymous forum? How many of you would talk if we were all chatting amiably around a fire? Or if people you knew in a professional capacity were present?
And what about kids who do go to specialized schools, and end up being unable to think for themselves, or cope in the real world? Who would they have been had they been born sighted? Would they simply be a different breed of automaton, or would they have fallen somewhere on the continuum of normal human behavior? Is there a way to break the conditioning, once it's been hammered into a person for, in many cases, 18 years? If we take into account that many blind children who enter the special school system start with early intervention, or preschool at the age of 3 or so, then are strongly encouraged to stay there until they're 21, they've pretty much had all of their developmental milestones shaped by a fundamentally broken system.

As for training centers, I'm beginning to gather that they're not common, or perhaps unheard of, even in places like the UK. Is this so? Why is that? Is it because, here in the US, we tend to value personal autonomy above other things? Is it because we really have more resources? Somehow, I doubt that. Is it really because of organizations like the NFB, who have been pushing their philosophy for so long that it's actually managed to seep into the public consciousness on some level?
What do blindness organizations in other parts of the world do? I've gotten a pretty solid idea of what the RNIB is like, but what about other places?

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

2014-12-10 06:45:03

I would talk in front of everyone.  I didn't go to a school for the blind, but I had similar experiences that were in line with this kind of thing until high school.  What does it matter what they think now?  They can't make my life horrible even if they wanted to (and, to be honest, in my case they didn't want to make my life horrible in the first place.  I think we need to try to remember that-these people do actually want to help in most cases).
I think that the reason this persists is that it's not up to us to change it.  That's sad but true.  we can't get the schools shut down.  The best any of us can do is convince parents of blind children that they're a bad idea, which is hard to impractically difficult.  This can best be done by increasing the employment rate, etc, which can best be done by solving the other problem and o look, a cycle.  Unfortunately, that cycle looks like it might be becoming a vortex--I kind of expect declining accessibility for the blind specifically over the next few years because the blind consumers are now way, way, way more vocal than the blind producers.  to be honest, thinking about it, I'm not sure this problem is separable into an individually solveable subproblem because, looked at both subjectively and objectively, blind people are as a rule failing to be successful by the required definitions for this to fix itself.  And yes, I know that this is because of the issue under discussion in many, many cases, but we're stuck in a  chicken-and-egg problem.  Society defines success as employment, employment makes blind people visible to the sighted and helps increase legal requirements, we don't have employment.  Conclusion: we lose.

My Blog
Twitter: @ajhicks1992

2014-12-10 07:34:39

That's a fair assessment of the problem.
But I will say that, from my own personal experience, I know that we weren't really "allowed" (in quotes) to talk about our experiences while they were going on.
Someone a few posts back was talking about how, when people came around and asked the students what they thought of their school experiences, they were expected to say only positive things. I can confirm that this is true. I remember when a girl was going to be starting at the school. She was going to be living in the dorm, and the principal came into my science class, the teacher stopped whatever she was doing, and they put me on the spot in front of the whole class, asking me what I thought of the school and life in the dorm. And, of course, it was painfully obvious that they wanted me to say nice, cutesy things.
Funnily enough, that girl didn't end up staying very long. Apparently, when her mom found out some of what was really going on, she threw a fit and removed her daughter from the school.
Another story that comes to mind is of a friend of a friend of mine who had attended the school I went to for several years. He, and his parents, I guess, decided to try mainstreaming once he started high school. Apparently, it worked out extremely well for him. But, for some reason, he was interviewed for a local newspaper. I can't remember the details now, but it had something to do with sports, I believe. Well, when asked about how he was coping in school, he responded to the interviewer's question by stating that he was getting a far better education in public school than he ever got at the school for the blind. I only found out about this because it caused quite a stir among the teachers. Because they were so famous for airing out everyone's dirty laundry for all to hear, I heard about how outraged they were that he would dare to make the school "look bad." I felt like saying, "uh, no, you're doing a wonderful job of that all on your own, guys."
There was talk of writing an editorial piece for the paper, to "tell the truth about what really goes on here", but I don't think it ever materialized.
The guy who gave the interview became something of a rebel, a badass to me. Years later, when I actually spoke to him, it was something like meeting a celebrity.

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

2014-12-10 07:58:08

O, no.  They can make your life miserable while you're there.  But once you leave, they hold no power over you.  In fact, if enough people realized that, we'd hold power over them.
But, here's the thing.  This kind of stuff is also happening in public schools with one difference: talking about it is fine because they're not concerned about PR.  Some are fine, and I'd encourage any parents of a blind child to find out which those are by asking around, but a lot aren't.  I had a lot of these problems, but I know someone who had it a lot worse: up to and including being told she'd not be going to the prom.  The parents ultimately removed her from the school system.  In my case, 3 years of my education were spent home school while my parents fought long and hard for basic accommodations-this got to the point where they were half-seriously joking that they should hire my mom as an accessibility advocate even though she had no formal background in it.

My Blog
Twitter: @ajhicks1992

2014-12-10 08:21:47

Yes, but public school has one huge advantage: there are more of them, and they are not as far apart as their specialist counterparts. They are also more visible. Shopping around and stirring up the kettle are slightly more viable. (Depends on the region and the socioeconomic opportunities, etc. But on average, there's actually something resembling a market. Emphasis on "resembling".)

That... sounds a lot like most of our problems, actually. Tiny, tiny market. We can't really get what we need (never mind want) because no one has any incentive to give it, and doing it ourselves is... considerably harder than it would be for a financially secure sighted person without any other significant disabilities. And unlike a lot of disabilities, things that work out for us don't usually do anything for anyone else. Costs stay high, incentives stay low.

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
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    George... Don't do that.

2014-12-10 11:44:37

@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.)

2014-12-10 12:31:59

Hello.

I went to Lindon lodge and honestly found it to be quite bad.

OH it was ok when i was in the nerceary part of it, but when I got to the high school part it sucked.

I wanted to go to mainstream but was not aware you could change schools back then, oh i know now but a fat lot of good that does me, knowing that now.

OH well.  the stuf that went on there to was quite bad, bullying, and other things, stupid helpers most of the time, and the teachers well some were good others not so much.

I would never send a blind person to a special school since as far as I know they're all rubbish.

I'm gone for real :)

2014-12-10 13:12:24

Hi,
I agree. From what I'm seeing here I am now very disappointed in the hole idea.

2014-12-11 06:00:56

Interesting points, Dark.
But am I understanding you correctly that the training centers that do exist are not as extensive as they are here? In other words, am I right in thinking that people don't spend months in an apartment or dorm complex, being taught all manner of skills that are supposed to help them become independent?
And is there a divide, as there is here, where the NFB preaches one philosophy, but then there are state-run centers, who are usually grossly underfunded, or the staff don't have a very high opinion of blind people anyway, so the actual skills they learn don't end up transferring well outside of the center?
Of course, there are good and bad centers. I personally am not a fan of NFB philosophy for many reasons, but that wasn't where I was going in creating this post. I'm trying to understand attitudes towards independence in general here.

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

2014-12-11 10:19:52

No Turtlepower, as far as I know there aren't any centers that run months long courses living together the way the nfb do, the longest course might be a week and would usually be run from another building such as an outdoor activity center. Likewise, there isn't a devide between "state run" and "charity or organization" because things in Britain just work differently. In Britain the government palms a lot of it's services off to charity organizations which are effectively businesses that recieve tax exemption status and charitable donations. The most prominant of these is the Rnib, but others exist such as Guide dogs (who provide other things than Guide dogs), Action for blind people, and every county locally has it's own society for the blind.

What gets provided and how good each person is depends largely on where in the country you are, and whom you apply to, and usually involves individual lessons with one person, or at most classes run from a centralized location with several people.

Philosophy wise, as I said the Rnib in general do have a less than good attitude, especially surrounding institutionalisation and age, which is one reason it's often a little bad for newly blind people to get referd to them, even this varies according to department and individual however.

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.)

2014-12-12 15:16:22

@TurtlePower
Regarding to your conclusion, well, we lose because the blind kids who start to attend a specialist  school are unaware of where are they going, and their mind can be easily changed. Also, the associations which stand for blind people recommend to the kid’s parent to send him/her to a specialist school. I lost my site when I was just one and a half year due to a terrible accident, and when the doctors confirmed that my site was lost without an actual opportunity to be turned back, they told my parents to go to the national association where I would gain the status of a blind person so as to get those money which our governments give for us for a certain disability. Then I would be automatically registered as a blind person and my local association of the city would help me in any case. So when I was six years old, they called my father to discuss about my future school. Normally their choice was to enroll me at a specialist school. According to them this was the only school that I could attend. They went even forward, by telling my father to convince me that the school where I would go is very good, a great place where I would really have fun, and I’d be able to make a lot of good friends. Well, they kept telling me that next year I was going to school, it’s a good place for you, you’ll feel happy, you’ll learn many things, you will make a lot of friends and other stuff. So I really was looking forward to the day to going to the school and seeing how it would be. Well, as far as I remember, I imagined everyday how my school would be and how my friends would be like. I really couldn’t wait to go there because I was made to believe all those lies which were told by my parents but not all of those things I was told were true.

So this is how it works. The associations or any other institution persuade both parents and kids that is better for them to attend a specialist school.

2014-12-12 18:41:33

Hello,
I think there is something that rnc run, at least that's what I've heard about. Whether I'll attend though, is another story, because the way things are going in this thread, I now feel like I will not be able to believe anyone I ask. How would I know if the rnc aren't forcing these people to represent them and the good sides all the time? If a lot of these centers are as bad as everyone says, well, this truly turns me off, period.

2014-12-12 19:08:41 (edited by bryant 2014-12-12 19:15:25)

Hi.
Here are my thoughts:
Over the last 2 summers, I have been to 2 NFB training centers as a summer youth.
Last summer I went to the Colorado Center for the Blind. There were certain things I didn't like about this center, such as my extremely impatient counselor who expected the students to do everything perfectly on their first try, and also who swore a lot. I ended up having to take it to the director of the program, who thankfully was very understanding about my issues. I ended up having to change appartments and counselors, and got a much better counselor.
I also felt that I didn't fit in with everyone at that center. I didn't socialize with people a lot, because I felt like no one had in common what I did.
Lastly, at that center, they focused very heavily on learning how to slate, which I thought was ridiculous. I felt that it was a complete waist of my time, and not a skill that I would use in my life after leaving the center. Not only that, but at the end of the program, my braille teacher had us write a 3 page book report on a book we were reading using the slate. I, of course, did not end up doing this, and as a result, she gave me an alternative project where she told me several sentences and I had to write them on the slate. This wasn't as bad as the book report, but I would have still prefered not to use the slate in the first place. When I was all done with the sentences she gave me, I took my paper out and gave it to her. Then she said, "you know this is a quiz. I would have expected you to do a lot better than you did." I didn't say anything to that, but I felt very offended because I was trying my best. The slate has never been my strong point. I am very slow and horrible with it.
Despite my negative experiences at that center, I did have a couple of possitive things. First, I had a technology instructor who I got along very well with. He and I had a lot in common, and he had me do tasks based on my skill level. He showed me the braille sense U2, which I took an interest in almost as soon as I got my hands on it. At the end of the program, he told me that I was very teachable and picked up quickly on a lot of technology. The other students hadn't been as easy for him to teach, because they would either refuse to learn or not pay atention in class.
Secondly, I had a mobility instructor who I really liked. I ended up going through 3 mobility instructors. The first was my old appartment counselor who got very impatient with me, so I ended up changing to another one. Before that counselor I had had another mobility instructor who I liked, but for some reason they changed me. After my counselor, I got another mobility instructor who I learned a lot from. He and I worked a lot on public transportation, something which I had been wanting, because I hadn't gotten experience with it. Every day, we had to ride a bus from the center to our appartments, which was about 8 blocks away, and we had to keep track of a bus pass. So despite my negative experiences, I did take some things away from that program.
The summer before last, I went to the Louisiana center for the Blind in a small town called Ruston. Overall, I had a much better experience at this center. My mobility instructor was very patient with me, at least the later one I had. Again, I had had a guy who wasn't my favorite, but they changed me over to a woman who I learned a lot from, like crossing streets. I didn't get a lot of public transportation experience, because we were in a small town. But I did get some, because we would sometimes travel over to Monro, which was about 30 minutes away and ride the busses. Then, we would get some mall travel, which wasn't something I got in Colorado.
They also didn't focus as much on the slate as they did in Colorado. However, I didn't learn a lot of technology, because we didn't have internet for the first while when we were there, so we ended up having to use the center's internet, which was about 5 or 6 blocks from where we usually did classes. We usually did classes in the appartments.
I also got a lot of daily living experience at both centers. I learned how to cook, do laundry, and clean more effectivly. I also felt that I fitted in much more at this center. I was able to talk and interact with just about every person. I also attended the NFB conventions when I went to both centers, and that was a great experience.
Now about blind schools.
I attended a blind school for 2 years, my 8th and 9th grade years. I also attended a public school in the morning. My 8th grade year, I took 3 classes at the public school, English, History, and Earth Science. My 9th grade year, I took 2, English and Physics and Chemistry, which was a nightmare, but that's for another topic.
Anyway, I didn't really like my blind school. For 1, the staff there were very non educated. For example, they had all this technology locked in the closet and no one to teach it to their students. They had an attitude like, "just learn braille, and you'll be fine in life. You don't need to learn technology." I didn't like this, because I think there needs to be a ballance between braille and technology. So they focused very heavily on braille. I did, however, get some technology experience there, because there was 1 staff member I did like, and he was there my 8th grade year. Him and I had a lot of technology sessions together where I learned mostly about the Ipad and what it had to offer. Unfortunately, he retired my freshmen year when I was there, so I didn't see him again. However, I ended up getting a 1 on 1 technology instructor that year who I learned a great deal from about the Ipad and some things with jaws.
So, there were only a couple of staff members who I really liked.
This school was also very Isolated, meaning that it was in an Isolated area. The nearest big town was about 45 minutes away, so we didn't get to go on a lot of feildtrips.
The school was also a deaf school. I felt that the deaf students got more atention than we blind students did. They had far more fieldtrips and participated in more activities than we got to. Maybe it was because there were a greater number of them in the school than there were blind students, but still, I think we deserved equal atention.
The last reason I didn't like this school was because a lot of the students there didn't act their age. A lot of them seemed to be sheltered all their lives, and seemed to have some sort of mental problem. A lot of them acted a lot younger than they were, and didn't know how to behave.
I am now in a public school, and am having a much better experience. I have very good teachers, and a VI instructor who knows what she's doing. I am against blind schools, and feel that everyone should get a public education where possible. Blind schools limit our exposure to the sighted world, and keep us in an isolated area with just other blind people. I feel that everyone should get out there and experience the world, and not be isolated in a blind school.
Well, my rant is over. Hopefully you all got something out of this post. Thanks for reading.

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2014-12-13 00:53:27

@Afrim, that sounds shocking,but worryingly believable. Unfortunately most parents of blind kids do not have much exposure to, or experience of blindness and so can easily get into the mentality that a special school is everything, the same was very true of the parents of various people at my special school.

@Aaron, I'm not sure what is going on with worcester these days. I have heard they improved after the Rnib dropped their management, but equally I've heard that they've been very much in the position of scrabbling for funding and recognition given that a lot of local authorities have as I said changed their minds regarding sending kids to specialist schools out of county, so what they might be like for random training courses etc I'm not sure.

@Briant, it unfortunately sounds a lot like much i've heard with the Nfb. Yes, they have some good people working for them on occasion but things are very much "our way or else!" which is not really fare. For example, even my specialist school never forced people to use a slate, and given braillers have existed for the last fifty years, and stainsbies before those, it just seems insane to make people do so just because it is "what we teach" rather than either considdering whether what is being taught is the least bit   relevant or indeed is any good for the person themselves.

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.)

2014-12-13 09:14:39 (edited by afrim 2014-12-13 09:17:09)

Unfortunately this is true and this happens with all the parents who have a blind kid. Some parents find it easy when they are told that his kid will have to attend a specialist school, because they do not have to worry about his child. His kid will have assistants who will care and help him for almost everything, at least, that’s “what’s literally said and promised by school’s staff”, but the chances to be all the promises true are few or less. Some assistants do not care what they have taken over but they keep talking and having fun with their colleagues sitting somewhere and maybe drinking a coffee and forgetting some kids who are in need of them. This was a case of a four year child whom his parents had enrolled in my specialist school, in fact he was too young to start attending the school, but his parents sounded like they wanted to take away his son from their life for some years. I was shocked when I was told from my friend that he was just four years old and I was at my eighth grade. So one day I came him across while I was moving from dorm to school. A number of assistants were gathered close to the outside door of the dorm, and they were laughing and having fun, like they were having a party. As I was walking, I heard a child crying. He was the four year child who was alone, wandering around, with noone to run, and nowhere to go. I went to the assistants and told them, why didn’t you help this guy go to school? They acted like they had no idea if anybody was around and needed help. Then I told them to help him go to school. They said: “where are you going?” I told that I was going to school, and they said to me, “why don’t you help him yourself?”
I was stunned when I heard this question and I seriously thought, What’s the purpose of these assistants who are getting a fucking salary next to nothing?

2014-12-30 07:55:18

That's really terrible, but I can sadly believe what you're saying.
I doubt that teachers or aides would be physically neglectful here in the US, but that's because you can sue someone for just about anything these days, so that's probably why.
It's also really sad that parents are basically told to pawn off their kids. If that's their attitude, then it's possible that they feel like the parents have given up on their children.
I know of some parents who do, but this is usually when the child has a severe disability that requires a high degree of assistance. For example, at the school that I went to, a couple of kids who lived in the dorm had never once had their parents come to visit. Now, granted, everyone had to go home on weekends, but I remember one particular incident when one guy was graduating. His parents came to the dorm, but then they had to ask for directions to get to the auditorium where the graduation ceremony was being held, and their kid had been at the school since he was 3. And, from what I understand, the layout of the school hadn't drastically changed in that time, there wasn't any major construction or anything like that.

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

2014-12-30 08:55:17

Yeah, the U.S. has the opposite problem.  Aids are required in many cases where they're unnecessary, blind students are often prohibited from extracurricular activities (even the very obviously safe ones), etc.  Why?  The pervasive fear of the blind child getting hurt somehow and the parents  bringing in the lawyers.  I had this a great deal, it depends on which school system you're in, and I've heard of much worse cases than mine.

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2014-12-30 09:39:14

At my school where I went to, there were many students who went rarely at their homes, for example, once in two months, or more. Although my home was around two hours away from school, I used to go every weekend there, and some students thought I was too privileged or at least they called it so, cause they used to go once in two months at their homes. However I constantly insisted that this was not a privilege but every student must go home at least once in two weeks so as not to become isolated. Honestly, I sometimes felt sad to leave my friends alone, because, I already knew that they would only stay at that dorm, talking with two or three other friends, and if it was cold, they wouldn’t be allowed to go out of the dorm. But as years wore on they could finally understand that I was totally right, and they could understand it only when they graduated from that school. I was really unsatisfied with the attitudes of some parents there. As I stated before, some parents called it “the second home” for their children, and they thought everything was alright every time. So they came rarely to visit them, and also, the teachers gave them the phone numbers, but they never called to ask for their child. Fortunately, my parents always paid attention to me, they used to call at my personal phone and they never let me stay there two or three weeks, but I went every weekend at my home. What is so important to say though, those students who used to stay there for months, felt extremely happy when they got told that “for example next week will start the holiday season”, and they kept remembering that all the time untill their parents came to take them home.

2014-12-30 16:24:07

The Uk is somewhere between the two and dependent upon the system. In a lot of current mainstream schools I have heard of cases that Camlorn describes, where blind kids are basicaly educated by their classroom assistant and even if they are in the school they're prohibited from taking part in various activities going on. In my specialist school however the attitude was rather similar to what Afrim described. Indeed, my home was perhaps an hour and a half travel away, and I went home several knights a week because my mum physically fetched me, sinse she didn't want me to have the same experience that she had had, being at specialist school constantly. Other students however stayed five ays a week and just went home at weekends. Apparently the head master of that school actually had words with my mum to the ffect that I shouln't be going home because it would make the other kids from nottingham jealous to which my mum replied "well there's nothing to stop their parents from picking them up" (heck one of them lived less than half an hour away and they all unlike my mum had cars).

On the other hand, in my secondary school the attitude was frighteningly different, sinse the teachers and exec staff were so desperate to pretend that everything was fine despite what was happening on a dayly basis they made the situation considerably worse.

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.)

2014-12-30 16:42:48

Gosh, can't understand how they felt so sure that they didn't take their children to their homes for months. There was a time here, when I was at the last grade of that school, and we , the most intelligent students reported the biggest problems of the school to a live emission broadcasted on a National TV, and our parents didn't support us at start because the staff, in every annual meeting, or when they needed our parents to talk with them, they kept telling that here everything is alright and there isn't any problem going on, so you don't have to worry about. But everything was completely different, and when a reporter came to interview us, the headmaster told her not to pay attention to these guys, because 90% of students are mentally disabled.

Let's keep this post on track!

2014-12-31 05:19:26

As to Camlorn's post: Yeah... this might have had a bit to do with why I applied for the Math and Science school in 10th grade.
<cuts 5kb tangent about said school and how awesome it was in spite of some scary authoritarianism. Will explain more if asked, but doesn't feel like it's on topic enough for this post.>

Math and science school > public school > school for the blind, in my experience. Though I was not at the school for the blind long enough to have any horror stories to share, though I know someone who was, who tried to get out and attend public school, but had such a hard time of it that he wound up going back pretty quickly. I don't get the impression he liked the school for the blind all that much, either. His main strength seems to be that he somehow managed enough access to culture to make it into the same college as me and... ur... not crash.
(I didn't care for much of the rules or "classes" or activities or whatever it is they were supposed to be doing, there, but I only had to deal with it for 7 weeks total, spread across two summers.)

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