My post on LCB:
link
(Post 95, if the link is uncooperative.)
I ran the numbers at one point on cost, since some people (some more jokingly than others) would occasionally express interest in starting a training center of their own, and found that it had to cost at least $1-2million per year to run. i'm not sure where that's going to come from, other than the government, rich people, and charitable organizations.

I've always been negatively inclined toward forced activities (I am so glad I got out of there before Mardi Gras), but I do feel like those were largely helpful, and not entirely as I would have predicted. For example, when I started college, incoming Freshmen had to go on an "orientation trip", for, like, bonding with classmates or some crap like that, and we were given a few options of where to go. I found the whole thing super irritating and just refused to make a decision, thus winding up in the one with the most room left by the deadline. As it turns out, one of these trips was too one of the places LCB took us to, and that trip was more or less the highlight of post-2010, when, given that same option 10 years earlier, I rejected the whole thing out of hand.
So I'm kind of torn on this whole electives and optional activities thing. On the one hand, being forced to go on a fieldtrip to the nearest town with a bowling alley for no apparent reason was pretty unpleasant. OTOH, in theory, activities would be offered based on the value they're expected to bring the trainees. Having alternatives to woodshop would be good (lots and lots of people complain about that, some due to the lack of practical utility, most seemingly because "eww, that's coded working class and masculin, and I am sooo much better than that", but regardless of why...). IDK, this is a hard one, more options means more cost, and you have to trust your trainees to not make terrible decisions that would waste exceptionally rare opportunities. I have no idea where the balance leans, but given how much of a detestable waste college was for me, compared to the overall positive-if-in-need-of-improvements experience at LCB, it's hard for me to conclude that going more college-like is necessarily as good an idea as it initially sounds.

The ability to do individual courses. I, for example, have never struggled with mobility ETC, in fact I'm quite confident I could complete the NFB drop thing today even if I didn't know the city as long as I was able to use GPS and or ask people for directions, but am completely hopeless when it comes to cooking, for example. I'd love to spend some time working on that skill, but frankly couldn't really care less about many of the other courses that are mandatory  in such places.
also, I find it strange that many of these programs don't go for the college moddle, where you're free to do things or not do things (if you skip a class it's your money you're throwing away not theirs). Don't they only take adults into these programs? Adults are capable of making their own choices in life, hence being classified as adults.

At 4: GPS and asking for help are forbidden in LCB's drops, but expected for out-of-town assignments (including both bus-travel and the solo out-of-town trip). I think the point is to demonstrate that being lost without help is not a death or exile sentence, and/or to demonstrate that you can get along if your phone dies and there's nobody around to help, or some such. This is specifically for drops and routes, keep in mind; I was encouraged to ask for directions more often in every other context.
I'm still uneasy about looking to college for inspiration. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but colleges are devouring whole generations, economically and life-skills-ly. 30 is the new 18, and 18 was the new 16, and before that, 13-15 were kinda merky and situation-specific, with, like, apprenticeships and stuff. The generation that waves the

I love this topic, and, as usual when these sorts of things come up, I'll probably have a ridiculous amount of things to say.

First, regarding the point about researching companies, I wouldn't personally make a stink about that. I don't think it was literally meant for you to apply to said companies, or to even like them, but to get used to doing shitty grunt work that no one in their right mind would want to do, because that's what a lot of employment entails. It could also build your research skills, which are a great thing to have.

About the mandatory activities, though, I tend to agree with you there, but I don't think all training centers do that. The one I attended in Pittsburgh had optional activities that you could sign up for, and while they encouraged you to go, no one forced you to. Now, classes, on the other hand, that's a different story, and I think there should be electives alongside the core classes. Think of the standards, communications, cooking/home management, different centers call that one different things, mobility, etc. as remedial courses. I cringe at using this comparison since that has such a negative connotation, but it's the best I've got. Everyone needs to take them before they can move onto the electives. I've always said, for example, that wood shop shouldn't be forced on everyone. I don't care about gender stereotyping, but I don't see how building a cabinet builds character, either. There are much better ways to do that. If someone finds it helpful, more power to them, but I'm not a fan of the heavy-handedness they display, in this instance and in many others. No one gets to decide what methodology is best for every single blind person on the planet, and I feel that's what the NFB tries to accomplish. In some cases, that can be downright harmful.

Speaking of harm, no training center should ever, EVER force its clients to wear blindfolds. I also am calling a spade a spade here, they are blindfolds, not sleep shades, calling a turd a chocolate bar does not make it more palatable. Not only would I feel violated if someone told me that one of my senses is, for all intents and purposes, useless and something to be ashamed of, I can also think of situations in which it wouldn't be safe to just slap a blindfold on someone and call it good. Obviously, these centers have figured out ways to minimize the damage, or they wouldn't still be operational, but it only takes one accident, and I think they're all living on borrowed time.

Before the past couple of years happened, which sapped my ability to care about or be motivated to do much of anything, I wanted to build a website which would be a directory of sorts for all the training centers, both here in the US and internationally. As a side note, several years ago, I had a discussion on a different forum with a lot of people about training centers, and I questioned why they weren't really a thing in other countries. A couple of people responded that, because American culture is so obsessed with self-sufficiency, and most other cultures are more lax about it, that's why other countries don't tend to place such high importance on building such centers. That answer made sense then, and still does today, even more so now that I've gained more experience with such things. I was told point blank that we're lucky to have access to these centers, and I suppose if you've never seen anything like it before, and you want to become more independent but were never taught a lot of those skills, that makes perfect sense. Anyway, the reason I still think that having such a website would be a good idea is that usually, the sites that the training centers host are a mess. They're littered with testimonials, which isn't a bad thing; they're a business, they have to do that. However the sites are often out of date, and in rare cases aren't easy to navigate with a screen reader. it is also damn near impossible to find reviews of such places. I wonder, and I say this with all due respect and am not trying to be accusatory, if any of the centers discourage clients from speaking out about any negative experiences they may have had. I say this because, outside of a couple of fringe cases, I have never heard anyone speak ill of training centers or their methods. In the age of blogs and podcasts, this is pretty strange. Usually, the only independent reviews you can find, particularly of NFB centers, are overwhelmingly positive, and said people tend to look down their noses at other centers which don't employ the structured discovery method. So,where else can you go for unbiased answers? These experiences spread by word of mouth a lot of the time, and we all know that's not the most reliable source of information. This is why I thought a website would be a good jumping off point. The way I picture it working is this:
1. First, we could gather any available information about each training center in existance. Submissions would be welcome, of course, since I'm sure there are some which fly a little bit under the radar.
2. Each place would be listed with a blurb about where it's located, methodology, location, etc. Representatives from each training center could also submit any pertinent information they wanted the directory to list.
3. Community reviews would be the highlight of this place. Anonymity would be allowed, since there seems to be such a stigma attached to speaking out about negative experiences that people may have had. Of course, the staff from the centers could rebut said reviews if they see fit, but balance is key, and I think that balance would speak for itself, no matter which way the reviews swing.
4. There would also be a forum where people could get advice about such topics as: Should I attend a training center? What is the experience like? What is structured discovery? What is the environment of such a center like? How can I handle a grievance I have with an instructor/other client? and many others. One of the things which deeply disturbs me is that such information is not readily available. It's 20-frickin-19, there is no excuse for that. From all the anecdotes I've heard, and from my own experience, usually you ask your state rehab counselor to pay for your stay there. They, either due to financial constraints or ignorance, tell you which center you'll be attending, end of story. Now, you can fight that, and some folks are successful at doing so, but in order to fight it, you've got to be able to make an informed decision. Information is too thin on the ground for that to happen in most cases, particularly for someone who is newly blind, older, not tech savvy, or just simply lazy. I can imagine the situation is even more complex in countries where there may only be one training center, never mind places where there is none.

Right, well, I think I've rambled enough for now, but as I said, this is a subject which you really don't want to get me started on, haha.

If you're an adult, and you need mobility training, you can speak with your voc rehab counselor and request such services, but a lot of times there are waiting lists, and even so, it has to align with your goal of going to college or obtaining employment. So, if you just want to get acquainted with a new community or something, they won't foot the bill for that. If you need someone to show you around a college campus a couple of times, that's fair game. Training centers have been accepted as the standard in part because there are a lot of blind kids who were very sheltered, and were never taught basic skills for being a functional adult. While it's easier than ever to figure that kind of stuff out, some people lack the motivation to do so, or feel entitled because of their upbringing, so that's why I think the model still exists as strongly as it does today, and has gone largely unchanged, at least in the case of the NFB centers. Other centers which don't necessarily adhere to the structured discovery model, such as the one I attended, have started allowing in ore folks who have multiple disabilities in addition to their blindness.

Oh. The punstop thing ate most of my other post. It was long and full of stuff. Huff.

One of the biggest things lacking in blind people even after their stunts at training centers is knowledge on how to manage their finances. We have a severe under appreciation of the value of money because most of us get it for free. And it doesn't seem like the training centers make effort to get rid of our overspending and wasteful spending habits. I used to know a girl who, even after staying at a training center, had no idea why she was being charged a deposit on her light bill when she opened a new account (she thought it happened to everyone.)

That's a legitimate point. Since so many blind people receive SSI, no one ever thinks to teach us about things like filing taxes.

Why the ins and outs of taxes are not taught in high school (at the latest) is beyond me. Being able to write essays on how a piece of literature has something to do with sex because it has trees in it, and trees are long, hard, and produce fruit, is clearly far more important to teach students than how to not get arrested for evading the taxes they barely knew existed.
(Disclaimer: I actually liked high school English. This does not mean that people get more value from learning how to make literature mean whatever they want it to through some Cabala-esque symbol shenanigans than they would get from learning boring-but-necessary skills. Maybe the accountant lobby has something to do with it, because it's not like adding a conspiracy theory ever made a paragraph worse, right?)
In fifth grade, my math teacher did actually take a day to teach the class how to write checks. This is where pre-tertiary financial education ended. And being that writing checks while blind is somewhat challenging[1], it's hard to say it was especially helpful.
[1] I have seen something like a signature guide, but for checks. I think that was at WSB? For the 5 seconds I had to look at it, I was trying to remember that lesson in fifth grade, so as to identify which section was for what.

There wasn't anything financial taught at LCB, and that's a little bit worrying. Mostly I was told I shouldn't cash checks at Wal-mart. But it was the first time I'd ever needed to cash a check (or use a card, for that matter), so it wasn't completely useless in that regard. I got the impression that asking would have resulted in advice, but mostly I just got sent on a travel assignment to a bank once, and since it was conveniently located, just started cashing all the checks there.

Hi.

one question in advance, as someone not living in the US and not knowing many things about the NFB, what is that NFB way of doing things which they hammer into peoples heads as some in this thread have stated? What are they trying to do there?

Now, the situation in Germany is that there are no specific training centers for the blind, most of the things like O&M, household skils and the like are taught in blind schools, next to the regular school stuff. When you are not in school anymore and you need help with orientation in a new city for example you can ask for o&m training by going to your eye doctor, telling them that you need help, a peace of assistive technology or what ever related to your blindness. You get a paper from the doctor which you then have to send to your health insurance partner who then set up your training and the like.
This is also the way to go when getting things like screen readers, braille displays for example.

Greetings Moritz.

The word ablism  irks me to no end. Most people are just ignorant about disability, and not balligerantly so, just plain ignorant. That doesn't make them ablist. I also think the term is a crutch word, oh I have to fight with ablism all day long, I would be doing so much better for myself if only people were more accommodating. Sure, our situation could stand improvement, but who's honestly couldn't. Now if you have a person in a wheelchair in a park and someone else is running in circles around them saying lookie what I can do in a sing-song voice, and that wheelchair bound person called them an ablist prick, then yeah OK good I get it there, it fits. If someone is doing something to a blind person, like moving their plate around so they can't find it or making them hunt around for their drink, then yeah ablist, makes sense as there's no reason to be doing that that's not malicious. If two deaf people are signing between one another and someone is like running between them all the time on purpose, disrupting their conversation, OK got it. But people are using it to sort of negate the result of a particular struggle. Now can it be systemic, yes, but I think the word is over-used.

I am considering going to a training center. I need to brush up on finance and cooking skills, however I mainly need a counselor who is trained to deal with blind people. Can someone please give me a run down of al the training centers in the United States? Thanks.