Blind Teaching the Sighted

Too many sighted people believe it is impossible for blind parents to offer any real assistance when it comes to educating their sighted children. It is my opinion this is the reason far too many sighted parents shuffle their children off to schools for the blind instead of making the effort to teach these children at home until they are old enough to join mainstream students in school with sighted children.

This reasoning makes no sense to me. It is not as if we can separate blind, deaf, mentally challenged, or disabled children from children without disabilities for the rest of their lives. Eventually, disabled children become disabled adults. As disabled adults, they must be able to adjust and interact within the full population, which includes a larger number of non-disabled people. If we as a society hide these disabled children away for nearly two decades of their lives, how do we expect them to perform and respond to life outside of the cocoon life experience of special schools where there is little to no contact with non-disabled children? The answer is simple; we cannot expect this of them.

Children need socialization with children from various backgrounds including those with special needs and disabilities. It is this writer's belief that many parents of disabled child feel they are protecting their children from the hardships of being with children who do not understand their problems; however, it is my belief that the more children with disabilities within the regular school system, the more tolerant and educated the child within the school system will become.

My situation is somewhat different in the fact that I am the one with the disability, multiple disabilities actually. Well over a decade ago, I learned I am losing my sight to a hereditary eye disease in addition to a problem with my optic nerves. While the vision I had as a child was not perfect, in the years since it is almost to the point of becoming non-existent in a manner of speaking. Additionally, after I begun to accept life as a blind woman and mother, I made the decision to return to school to work as a medical transcriptionist.

The job allowed me to work from home and set my own hours. This was a workable solution since it allowed me to be a viable working adult despite the lack of public transportation in Ruralville, USA. Unfortunately, some six years later orthopedic surgeons would discover I had inoperable nerve damage in my right arm. More tests brought about the additional news that I had systemic lupus erythematosus and Sjogren's disease as well. The combination of both autoimmune diseases, the side effects from the diseases, and the pain from the nerve damage left no choice but resignation from a career I adored with all my heart. It was not creative writing but I felt I provided a necessary and important service. Most of all, I was able to teach my children that disabled people could work too and if we could do it then there were no excuses for others without disabilities to believe they could not work either.

The lessons I taught the children about disabled people and work were but a small part of what I attempted to teach. My youngest child, a toddler at the time, was curious of everything. Since I was unable to read Braille and she was unable to read print, we devised a tactile system of using letter and number-shaped refrigerator magnets to teach her letters and numbers. Prior to this child's second birthday, she was reading books to her mother and together we worked out simple math equations. Suffice to say, this was new territory for me but it was working and I am not one to walk away from anything that works.

This small child absorbed books and information much like a dry sponge immersed in water. She read at a kindergarten level, first grade level, and finally found herself reading second grade level work by the time she was old enough to attend public school. By the first nine-week's grading period, I received an email asking for a conference with the teachers at school. The tone of the email felt as if there was a problem. I knew there was no possible way this child suffered with attention deficit disorder as her older sister. She had none of the signs. I spent the following week in constant worry until the day of the meeting with her kindergarten teacher and another teacher whom I did not know.

The kindergarten teacher danced around various subjects, all proclaiming that my child's work was on target and in fact, it was well above her current grade level. I learned during those stifling moments that the other teacher at the table with us was an enrichment teacher; she came into the classroom to teach the academically and intellectually gifted students from the AIG program. Still, the undercurrent tone left me wondering what the problem could be with my child's education. Obviously, she was intelligent since the AIG teacher came to teach her along with other students in the AIG program. It would not take long before the brain clicked.

"So in other words," I spoke carefully and slowly to keep from losing my temper. "If my child was a blind child in a classroom of other blind children we would not have a problem."

The heavy release of a sigh from the kindergarten teacher's lips provided the answer I expected. As it turns out, in teaching my child all she learned from birth to kindergarten, she learned as a blind child - tactilely. She did most of her work mentally versus visually. It took some finagling on my part to prevent the teachers from completely rearranging the manner in which I taught my child. I could not understand how having a child who learned using both tactile and visual clues could be a bad thing. After all, her test scores were high and she tested well above grade level.

Over the course of the past five years since this child began school, I often thought about how bringing tactile teaching into the classroom for all students would benefit them. Since the school will not do this, I take it upon myself to use these techniques when I attend the classes each year. My lectures include bringing a bandanna to fit across each child's eyes so they can take turns attempting to figure out what items are that I pull from a dark paper sack. I teach them to walk using a cane with me at their side with the blindfold on to give them some idea of what life for a blind student is like every day. Each time I teach the children in this manner, the all come away from the lecture with something special to share with their family and friends. Teachers often catch the students attempting to recognize items from their backpacks without physically looking at the item. Each time I receive an email or letter from a teacher or another parent all I can do is smile. It is more than the blind teaching the sighted. It is the blind teaching the blind teaching the sighted teaching the sighted.

They say that destiny will always have her way no matter how hard one tries to fight her. I fought extremely hard in the beginning but some years ago, the realization of the fact that I was exactly where I should be hit me. It took me a long time to understand and even now, I am not completely sure as to what fate and destiny wants with me but I am sure of one thing. I am certain these children received exactly what they required in a time during their lives when they will take the memories with them the story and memories of the blind mother with guide dog who showed them the world through their fingers instead of their eyes.