THE BRAILLE MONITOR

Vol. 47, No. 9October, 2004

Barbara Pierce, Editor

Published in inkprint, in Braille, and on cassette by

THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

MARC MAURER, PRESIDENT

National Office

1800 Johnson Street

Baltimore, Maryland  21230

Web site address: http://www.nfb.org

NFBnet.org: http://www.nfbnet.org

NFB-NEWSLINE® number: 1-888-882-1629

Letters to the president, address changes,

subscription requests, and orders for NFB literature

should be sent to the National Office.

Articles for the Monitor and letters to the editor may also

be sent to the National Office or may be emailed to bpierce@nfb.org.

National Federation of the Blind

1800 Johnson Street

Baltimore, Maryland 21230

THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION

SPEAKING FOR THE BLIND--IT IS THE BLIND SPEAKING FOR THEMSELVES

ISSN 0006-8829

Vol. 47, No. 9 October, 2004

Contents

I Am a Recovering Rehabilitation Professional

by Amy C. Phelps

Baby Steps, Long Strides, and Elephant Seal Humps

by Priscilla Leigh McKinley

I Do Do It: Three Fundamentals of Cane Travel

by Peggy Elliott

Teaching Exploration: Correcting a Glaring Flaw

in the Education Of Blind Children

by Geerat J. Vermeij

Reflection on a Visit to LCB

and Louisiana Tech University's PDRIB

by Jagdish Chander

Progress in Hawai`i

All You Need to Know about Blindness

You Could Learn from a Four‑Year‑Old Girl

by Sheri Wells Jensen

My First Mission Trip

by Susie Stanzel

Coming to Terms: A Review

by Peggy Chong

Your Panels Leave Me Flat

by Terri Uttermohlen and Jim McCarthy

Recipes

Monitor Miniatures

Braille Readers Are Leaders Contest and Literacy Program

for Blind Youth and Prereaders

Copyright© 2004 National Federation of the Blind

[LEAD PHOTO/CAPTION: Maryland Braille Readers Are Leaders winners Laura Cefarrati, Jason Polansky, and Maurice Hamilton proudly wear "I am a Winner" T-shirts. Others pictured are (l‑r) Jill Lewis, Maryland State Library for the Blind and Visually Handicapped director; Sarah Bloomer, Friends of the Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped administrative assistant; Sharon Maneki, NFB of Maryland president; Barbara Cheadle, National Organization of Parents of Blind Children president; and Kit Bloom, Childrens' Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped librarian.  Each year Maryland contest participants receive their certificates at a party in the dining room of the National Center for the Blind, sponsored by the National Federation of the Blind of Maryland and the Maryland parents division. The Friends of the Library present each participant with $10 and a congratulatory letter.]

The 2005 Braille Readers Are Leaders program beginning on November 1 is fast approaching. Again this year the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children and the National Association to Promote the Use of Braille are sponsoring a three-month reading contest for Braille readers and a two-month program for Braille prereaders and their families or teachers. For more information about both programs and a form for ordering application materials, consult the information at the end of this issue.

[PHOTO/DESCRIPTION: Two women under sleepshades are crossing a street using long white canes.]

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Amy Phelps (left) works with Louisiana Center for the Blind student Bandi Bryant on street crossing.]

I Am a Recovering Rehabilitation Professional

by Amy C. Phelps

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From the Editor: One of the highlights of the 2004 convention was the final item on the morning agenda on banquet day. Most delegates had never heard of the speaker, and we were intrigued by her title. The speech was delightful, both funny and inspiring. Amy Phelps earned a master's degree from Mississippi State University and became a certified rehabilitation counselor in 1999. As she relates in the following address, she was directing a small adult rehabilitation center (the Reach Center) in Tupelo, Mississippi, when she concluded that, if her students were ever to become more effectively rehabilitated, she had to make some changes in her own attitudes about blindness and approach to rehabilitation. On August 19, 2004, she passed her examination to receive National Orientation and Mobility Certification (NOMC). She will officially receive that certification when she graduates in November from the Louisiana Tech master's degree program in which she is now enrolled. This is what she says about her amazing journey of self-discovery and revelation about blindness:

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Hi, My name is Amy, and I am a recovering rehab professional.

When I was asked to give a speech to the National Federation of the Blind, my first thought was to wonder what in the world I, as a sighted professional, could tell you that you don't already know. When I received the invitation to speak, I thought to myself, "What do I have to offer? How can I impact the blind of America?"

Then I began to reflect on the experiences which led me to pursue a master's degree in orientation and mobility through the Institute on Blindness at Louisiana Tech University, and this is where, I hope, what I have to offer begins. So join me on the journey of becoming a recovering rehabilitation professional.

Before coming to Louisiana, I was lost. Lost, in that I knew something wasn't right in the services I was providing the blind. I had worked for a state vocational rehabilitation (VR) agency for fifteen years, the last eight of which I worked as a rehabilitation counselor for the blind and as the director of a small orientation center. Let me assure you, I thought I knew all there was to know about blindness. I had the degrees and certificates to prove it, or so I thought. I had completed the requirements as a certified rehabilitation counselor and a vision specialist in vocational rehabilitation. I also had special training in deaf-blindness--I was knowledgeable; I had papers!

Then, as time passed, I began to realize something wasn't quite right. I wasn't certain what it was, but I knew something was wrong with services for the blind. Consumers in our state were receiving adjustment-to-blindness training, but some of our consumers rotated through the training centers so many times we considered replacing the entrance with revolving doors. As a service provider I would often question what we were doing wrong. Our blind consumers were receiving training, sometimes going to college, sometimes not, but either way a high percentage of the blind didn't seem to be taking career paths. Could it be we weren't doing something right? Did we need to reconsider our services and attitudes? Did we need to examine our expectations? Of course as a good rehab professional I immediately assumed that it couldn't possibly be me. Remember, I had papers. Besides, this was the way we had always done it, so it had to be right.

Now fast forward with me on a flight to Albuquerque, New Mexico, November 2002. I am on my way to a conference for residential training centers for the blind. While in flight to Albuquerque, I notice a woman on the plane with a long white cane. I automatically assume this woman is also going to the conference because I never imagined a blind person would actually fly somewhere that wasn't work related. A blind person going on a vacation, alone? Unheard of!

At this point I am clueless about the conference, assuming it is going to be another one of those conferences where they tell you what else you as a professional must do to help your consumer become independent--modify this, change that, do more for the consumer, allow him or her to pick and choose the entire program, keep everything safe and comfortable because, you know, the consumer is blind. I am prepared to hear the same old same old--accommodate, accommodate, accommodate.

I am pretty unemotional about the conference. Walking through the airport, I again notice this same woman, whom I had seen on the plane. Wait, she is actually going through the airport by herself, but where is her sighted guide? No blind person can really go through the airport alone. And then I think, "Ahhhh, so that is what superblind looks like." I had heard about it, and now I have seen her.

I arrive at the conference center, and low and behold there are superblind everywhere. People are getting in and out of taxis by themselves, going through the hotel, walking on the sidewalks by themselves. Someone must have emptied the superblind barrel right here in the middle of Albuquerque. There are hundreds of blind people with long white canes, doing exactly the same things I am doing. For the first time in my life I actually see blind people going through a buffet line independently, walking through the hotel, and going to different breakout sessions, and they don't have sighted guides. Heck, they are even able to pour salad dressing on their salads. So, I think to myself, there can't be that many superblind people. I soon learn they weren't superblind at all--just properly trained. They were Pam Allen, Carlos Serván, Roland Allen, Jerry Whittle, Jim Omvig, Joanne Wilson, Eric Woods, Allen Harris, and Jeff Altman. And, oh, by the way, the competent blind woman at the airport was Christine Boone.

So I return to my job; I have seen the light; I am going to start making changes. If the blind in our state can learn to be as independent as the people I saw in Albuquerque, then we won't need to replace that front door. If the right changes are made, once students complete training in a center, they will be empowered to go to work and live truly independent lives, but how in the world will I make this happen? I have a vague idea and a list of names and telephone numbers of people who presented at the conference and this book which soon became my Bible for rehabilitation for the blind. It is called Freedom for the Blind. After reading the introduction, I know I have to call the author. So I pull out the phone numbers from the conference and look up the number for James H. Omvig, and so begins the rest of the story.

At this point I start making phone calls to Pam Allen and Fatos Floyd almost daily; Sam Gleese, president of the NFB of Mississippi, weekly; and sometimes Mr. Omvig hourly, asking questions. Now mind you, prior to this conference I knew almost nothing about the National Federation of the Blind. The only thing I had been told was that the NFB was sue-happy, confrontational, and a group you wanted to avoid at all cost. Here I am, a rehabilitation professional actually calling the organized blind for solutions in providing training to the blind. I am a radical.

So it is official: we are going to make changes in our center–-changes in how we provide adjustment training to the blind. But again I am not certain how to do it. I have an idea of what needs to be done, but I also realize I have much to learn.

Early in the summer of 2003 I went through two very short weeks of immersion training at the Louisiana Center for the Blind; I was beginning to see what needed to take place. I thought I believed in the blind. I thought blind people could do what they wanted without inconvenience to themselves or others. I thought I had the right attitude, until one day during a meal for forty. At that meal, as a student wearing sleepshades, I had to examine what I really believed. While I was sitting at the table, someone asked me if I was going to get dessert. I had made the big mistake earlier of saying it was one of my favorite desserts, and Ron Gardner overheard me. When asked the question again, I declined. Mr. Gardner asked me a soul-searching question. He said, "So, Amy, are you not getting dessert because you don't want it or because you are afraid to go get it--because you are blind?" At that moment I really began to question my beliefs.

Needless to say, I had dessert, but this incident really stuck in my mind. What did I really believe about blind people? I knew all around me blind people were doing whatever they wanted to, but could I? Did I believe that I could do what they were doing as a blind student, or was I talking the talk but not walking the walk? Tough question for someone who has papers!

Now I was back at work, talking daily with staff and students about their attitudes about blindness. Armed with just a couple of weeks of blindness training under my belt I answered what questions I could, leaning on my new NFB family to answer questions I was uncertain about. But still I knew I needed more. Then one day I was talking with a student about blind travel instructors, telling her about Roland Allen, who was coming to work with our O&M instructor. This student, who had been blind since birth, informed me that she would never want a blind travel instructor. She said and I quote, "I don't want a blind travel instructor because who will keep me from walking into the street and getting hit by a car? Blind people have to understand their limitations. Having a blind travel instructor makes about as much sense as blind people cutting their own meat in a restaurant." This, my friends, really brought home to me the fact that as a rehabilitation professional I had missed the mark in the services we were providing.

The days passed. I was receiving great support from the state agency and my new friends in the NFB--daily words of encouragement for trying to make changes, but still I was uncertain. I often talked with my friends and colleagues about what I had seen and been a part of in Louisiana. Both sighted and blind, some were supportive; some were skeptical.

Then one day the home-ec instructor was out sick, and I had to fill in. I was going to go grocery shopping with a student. This student had been through the training program several times, but still she returned unable to do anything independently. This student and I were going to learn to use customer service. I put on my sleepshades, grabbed my cane, and off we went. The whole time this student was complaining about going grocery shopping alone. She would never do her own grocery shopping; she had friends who shopped for her. She didn't know anything about shopping and had no desire to learn. Needless to say, she was a bit cranky during the entire trip.

Once we returned to the center after shopping, I asked her about going shopping and how she felt about it. She again reiterated that she would never go shopping alone and that I was exceptional if I could. I was astonished. This attitude was the product of low expectations in the education system, society, and rehabilitation; and it had to stop.

What had I done as a so-called professional? If I-–after only a couple of weeks of training under sleepshades–-was exceptional, there were huge problems. I had to do something. I realized as a result of the Albuquerque conference, my brief visit at the Louisiana Center for the Blind, and the support of the National Federation of the Blind that it was time for me to take action. I no longer wanted to be a mere professional with papers; I had to make a difference.

The time had come for me not only to push my students out of their comfort zone and become independent but also for me to do what I was asking my students to do. I as a professional had to come to know emotionally as well as intellectually that I could be independent and self-sufficient. I as a professional sighted or blind person had to be able to serve as a role model for my consumers. No longer could I sit back and talk the talk; I had to learn to walk the walk. I must be able to grab my sleepshades and long white cane and just do it.

At this point I decided I would no longer live a life of low expectations for consumers; I would raise the bar so that consumers could learn to travel independently without inconvenience to themselves or others. This, my friends, is what led me to leave my job of fifteen years to pursue a master's degree in orientation and mobility through the Institute on Blindness at Louisiana Tech University. I chose this program, not because I wanted more papers or a string of letters behind my name, but because this program is the best, with a foundation developed for the blind by the blind, grounded in the philosophy of the National Federation of the Blind. I chose to pursue a master's degree in O&M because I knew the training I would receive through the Institute on Blindness would have high expectations for me as a student, therefore equipping me to be a blindness professional who could really make a difference. I had to prove to myself that I could travel independently as a blind person. I realized having papers was not enough.

So I challenge you today to choose to make a real difference. Whether you are a professional in the field of blindness wanting to become a recovering rehab professional or a college student looking for an exciting career, choose, as I did, to make a real difference. Consider a master's degree program at Louisiana Tech University; contact our director Ron Gardner, or visit with staff and students at the Institute on Blindness table in the exhibit hall. Oh, yes, let me warn you. Be prepared for high, and I do mean high, expectations.

To sum everything up that I have learned since Albuquerque, blind people are nothing more than normal people who cannot see. Blind people can go where they want to go when they want to, without inconvenience to themselves or others. But, most important, it is respectable to be blind. This is why I am proud to say I am a recovering rehab professional, and I am very proud to say I am a member of the National Federation of the Blind, and as a rehabilitation professional it is my privilege and responsibility to help change what it means to be blind.

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Charitable Remainder Trusts

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A trust is a plan established to accomplish goals for the individual making the trust and for the beneficiary. The donor creates the trust, appoints a trustee (the donor, a family member, a bank trust officer, etc.), and designates a beneficiary. In the case of a charitable remainder trust, money or property is transferred by the donor to a charitable trust. This trust pays income for life. After the donor's death the funds remaining in the trust go to the National Federation of the Blind.

There are two kinds of charitable trusts. The first, a charitable remainder annuity trust, is set up to pay income to the donor based on a fixed percentage of the original gift. The second is a charitable remainder unitrust. The income from this trust is based on the annual assessed value of the gift. Both types of charitable remainder trust are common and relatively easy to set up. Appreciable tax deductions are available, depending on which type of trust is selected.

The following examples demonstrate how trusts work, but the figures are illustrative, not exact:

Michael Brown, age sixty-five, decides to set up a charitable remainder annuity trust with $100,000. He asks his brother John to manage the trust for him. During Michael's lifetime John will see to it that Michael is paid $5,000 each year (5 percent of $100,000). In addition, Michael can claim a tax deduction of $59,207 in the year the trust is established.

Mary Ellen Davis, age sixty-five, sets up a charitable remainder unitrust with $100,000. She asks her attorney to act as trustee. During Mary Ellen's life her attorney will pay her an amount, 5 percent, equal to the annual assessed value of her gift. If the $100,000 unitrust grows to $110,000, Mary Ellen will be paid $5,500. If it grows again to $120,000, she will be paid $6,000 in that year, and so on. Also Mary Ellen can claim a tax deduction of $48,935 in the year she establishes the unitrust.

For more information on charitable remainder trusts, contact the National Federation of the Blind, Special Gifts, 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21230-4998, phone (410) 659-9314, fax (410) 685-5653.

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[PHOTO/CAPTION: Priscilla McKinley]

Baby Steps, Long Strides, and Elephant Seal Humps

by Priscilla Leigh McKinley

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From the Editor: Priscilla McKinley was a 1996 National Federation of the Blind scholarship winner and a 1998 tenBroek Fellow. By the time the NFB first made contact with her, Priscilla was well on her way to developing for herself the philosophy that characterizes Federationists. The Federation certainly speeded her evolution into a healthy, contributing blind woman and a leader of the National Federation of the Blind, but she was heading in the right direction when we met. Until she and her husband Brian Miller moved to California last year so that he could take a job with the Rehabilitation Services Administration, Priscilla was president of the Old Capitol Chapter of the NFB of Iowa. She received her master of fine arts degree in creative nonfiction writing and is now working on her Ph.D. in language, literacy, and culture through the Department of English Education at the University of Iowa. She expects to finish her dissertation in December of 2005 and then hopes to teach creative nonfiction writing, ethnographic methods in literacy research, or approaches to teaching writing to English as a second language to students. She is vice president of the National Organization of Blind Educators, and until September she served on the board of directors of the NFB of Iowa.

Here is Priscilla's description of her early days as a blind person and her struggle against learning to use the long white cane.

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One October day about seven months after I start losing my sight due to complications from juvenile diabetes and pre-eclampsia during the birth of my son, my mother drops me off in front of the hospital for an eye appointment. When the humming of her Chevy disappears in the direction of the parking ramp, I stand and listen for the sound of the forced-air, temperature‑controlled open entrance of the hospital. I have memorized the way--stepping through the open space, passing straight through the lobby, turning left to the elevator, pushing the third button from the bottom on the panel, getting off at the second floor, and following the walls down the hall to the eye clinic--left, left, and left again. But, because of the cold weather, the open space has been replaced with glass doors, and I walk into them, face first.

The pain spreads from my nose to the rest of my face, causing tears to well up in my eyes. I must look crazy or drunk, and a number of people run over, asking if I need help. "Are you hurt, honey?" "Are you here alone?" "Where are you headed?" Stunned by the pain, I can't answer. Even though my nose hurts terribly, I do not cry because of the physical pain. The pain I feel pushes up from the pit of my stomach, pulsating through every part of my body. For the first time I realize that I need to make changes in my life. I admit that I am blind.

That was the way my life as a blind person began, like a slap on a new baby's bottom. Welcome to the world of the blind! But how does a woman all of a sudden change the way she has done everything throughout her life--reading, writing, and even walking? She doesn't, or at least I didn't. I wasn't willing to accept the fact that I would never see again, nor was I ready to do anything to help myself adjust to my blindness, including using one of those long white canes. I figured my sight would come back and my blindness would be one of those conversation starters I could use at cocktail parties, a story to get people's attention. "Yeah, I went blind for a while, and I even learned cane travel, but then I got my sight back." But in reality I would never regain my sight, and I would have to learn the skills I would need to get around in the world. Unfortunately, at that time I wasn't a member of the National Federation of the Blind, and I resisted learning those skills for as long as I could.

In many ways I felt like a toddler, like my son Jonathan, who was exploring the world for the first time. However, I lacked the enthusiasm he did in experiencing new things. While he tried to figure out ways to push round objects through square holes and to catch the chickadees and cardinals that landed on the bird feeder outside the window, I tried to figure out ways to make caring for Jonathan a bit easier. I felt his mouth with one hand while shoveling food into it with the other to avoid getting strained peas or carrots in his eyes or nose, something he managed to do on his own. I used twenty diaper wipes when I changed him, and it wasn't hard to tell when he needed a change.

The pediatrician had told me that Jonathan might be a bit slow from being six weeks premature, so I was relieved when he started moving around, but I was also a bit nervous and put bells on his booties and shoes so I could follow him. Instead of crawling, he humped like an elephant seal. He would scoot his legs up under himself and lunge forward, landing on blocks and other toys, laughing all the while. He never hesitated to hump from one room to another, even when the obstacles were as big as the three stairs from the living room to the family room. However, when he pulled himself up and started taking baby steps around the furniture, he moved slowly, cautiously, much like his mother, who was just starting to learn cane travel.

At first, when Don, an independent living instructor, said a cane was necessary to regain my independence, I protested, saying, "Mary Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie didn't use a cane, so why should I?" Mary walked along the rustic wooden sidewalks, sometimes being led by a sighted person, sometimes counting steps. Don argued that I shouldn't be led around like a dog and that counting steps worked only on television. He also said the method I had been using wasn't very effective--shuffling like an old woman, holding my arms out in front of me, using my feet as a guide. But, even though I didn't want to carry a white cane, letting everyone see that I was blind, I agreed to the lessons.

"When you step forward with your right foot, swing the cane to your left. When you step forward with your left foot, swing the cane to the right," Don reminded me every few steps, his voice echoing behind me.

With the difficulty in distinguishing between gravel and grass on the country driveway, I wandered off into the yard a few times. Don said to hold the cane directly in front of me, using only my wrist to fling it back and forth, but, because I was right‑handed, I tended to hold it over to my right. Don couldn't see how I held the cane, but he knew I wasn't doing it right when I smashed into the tree on my left. Even though I wasn't hurt, I complained enough to put an end to my first lesson.

When another independent living instructor arrived for my second lesson, I hoped for a little sympathy, but Chuck wasn't willing to give it. He wouldn't put up with my stubbornness, my resistance. When I showed signs of giving up, he said, "If I can do it, so can you." I didn't think this was fair. Chuck had been blind since birth. He knew how to read and write Braille, how to use a cane, how to be blind. When I told Chuck my practice only included going up and down the driveway a few times, he suggested we go into St. Ansgar, my small hometown in northern Iowa, and I imagined the people on the street watching me, a lifetime resident. Some would probably feel sorry for me, saying things like, "She can't see! She has to use a cane--a white one. The poor girl." Thinking of these things, I objected to the lesson in town, but Chuck persisted and finally won.

"You have a little sight, right?" Chuck asked.

I climbed out of the car, trying to hide the cane. "But all I can see are light and shadows!"

"Well, then," he said, placing something in my hand, "you'll have to wear these."

I felt the strap and the nylon patches and recognized the sleepshades. I had heard of them and knew I might have to use them for travel lessons, since I could still see light and shadows out of my left eye. "I'm not wearing these," I said, handing them back to Chuck. "I'll just close my eyes. I promise I won't cheat." After telling Chuck I would rather wear a paper bag than the sleepshades, after feeling my eyes fill with tears, I persuaded Chuck to let me go without them, and I took off down the street, passing the produce store and the post office. But on this second cane travel lesson, I didn't feel independent. I didn't run, nor did I walk. Instead I staggered down the sidewalk with Chuck following, listening for my mistakes. When I reached the first curb, I stopped, afraid of falling off the six‑inch drop. When I finally got up the courage, I stepped down and crossed the street diagonally, ending up in the dirt. After I sent my distress signal--the word "shit"--Chuck came over and bailed me out, leading me over to the sidewalk of the second block. Slowly gaining confidence, loosening my grip, swinging the cane back and forth, alternating my footsteps, I pushed on. Then suddenly, in an instant, before I had time to react, my cane flew out of my hand and fell into the deep window well of an old‑fashioned basement barbershop. I heard the cane strike the window, echoing in the well, but luckily I didn't hear any breaking glass.

When Chuck heard me cursing, he came over to see what was wrong. As I explained the situation, I heard the footsteps of the old barber climbing the stairs from his shop. "Did you drop this, honey?" the old barber asked, placing the stick in my shaky hand.

I thanked him, pleaded with Chuck to go home, and climbed into the car, putting an end to my second lesson.

For my third cane travel lesson, my first in Iowa City, where I planned to move with Jonathan, I arranged to meet the travel instructor for the area on a late afternoon in January. Because of the distance from my hometown to Iowa City, I came down the night before and stayed with my friend Lynn, but she had to work all day. Terrified to go out by myself, I spent the entire afternoon cooped up at Lynn's place, watching reruns of Leave It to Beaver on television, listening to Wally and Beaver argue for hours on end, wondering who was in the right.

At the end of the day Lynn held my elbow as we descended the three long flights of icy, wooden stairs, releasing her grip when we reached the ground. Left, left. Right, right. Switch feet or switch cane. Left, right. Right, left. I walked along the sidewalk, tapping the concrete, sticking to snow, taking baby steps all the way. Finally Lynn stopped and said, "Here it is."

I saw a tall shadow and, taking my cane in both hands, I swung it back like a baseball bat and let it fly forward with all my might, expecting to connect with a pole. At the same time I asked, "Is this the bus stop sign?"

"Ugh," a woman grunted loudly. "I'm not a sign."

"I'm sorry," I said, embarrassed. "Are you okay?"

"I'll be fine," the woman answered, her voice shaking slightly.

I heard the bus pulling up to the curb, screeching to a halt. Hunting for the door with my cane, I managed to climb the three steps. I reached into my pocket and took out two quarters. After waving my hand back and forth and searching for the coin slot with my limited sight, I was relieved when the driver finally took the money and put it in the slot himself. I thanked him and sat down, sighing and feeling safe on the bus.

"Have you ever been in this mall?" Joe asked as I got off the bus and entered the mall through the glass doors.

"Yeah, but it's been a long time. I was only here once, before I lost my sight."

After walking a bit further, Joe stopped and said, "Here's what I want you to do. Find your way back to the escalator--we just passed it--and take it up to the second level. Then find your way to the glass elevator at the other end of the mall. I'll be waiting for you when you get off." Then, he placed a pair of sleepshades in my hand.

"What? You expect me to find my way around the mall by myself with these things on?" I gasped, my mouth hanging open. Then, thinking about it, I said, "Okay, but I'm not wearing these things. I'll just close my eyes."

"You can do it. How do you expect to move here if you can't even find your way around the mall? It's now or never," Joe said. When I didn't respond, he added, "You make sure those eyes are shut."

I smiled and turned around, heading back toward the mall entrance, opening my eyes as soon as I thought I was far enough away from Joe. Blocking out the sound of my cane hitting the hard tiles, I scanned the area for the escalator. After running into many shadows, including many angry shoppers, I heard the mechanical sound and located the escalator with the little sight I had left. Reaching out toward the shadow, searching for the rail, grabbing the banister, working my way up, I felt a human arm, a hairy, muscular arm.

"Can I help you?" a man asked, a deep masculine voice.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought this was the escalator," I said stupidly, pulling my hand back.

"He's not an escalator," a woman giggled. "It's a little bit further. This is just a bench."

"Sorry," I said, quickly walking away from the couple, escaping further embarrassment.

Why did I depend on the little sight I had left? The light and shadows only led to trouble. I knew I couldn't trust them. I had resisted the sleepshades, but now I understood their purpose. Closing my eyes and listening more intently, I found the escalator by feeling the metal stairs with my cane and gripping the rail with my hand. As the stairs moved, I imagined losing my balance, continuously falling backward as the stairs moved upward. However, this didn't happen. I felt for the tile floor with my cane and stepped off.

As I headed toward the other end of the building, more aware of my surroundings, I relaxed, taking long strides. When I heard the roaring of a blender, I remembered the Orange Julius and turned right. Then I heard the video arcade on my right—Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and Space Invaders, all blending together in harmony. Finally I heard the purring motor of the glass elevator. Swinging my cane back and forth, moving slowly toward the sound, I tap-tap-tapped through the already open doors, pushed the lowest button on the panel, and headed down.

When the doors opened, Joe laughed, "I told you that you could do it! You just need a lot more practice. Before you know it, you'll want to run in a marathon. Of course, as fast as you go, your cane will send the sparks a-flying."

Well, to this day, I haven't run in any marathons, and I haven't sent the sparks a-flying, but I have come a long way since the day I ran into the glass doors at the hospital. I moved from baby steps to long strides. However, it wasn't until I discovered the National Federation of the Blind that I took those strides with confidence. The NFB provided the inspiration I would need to travel outside of my comfort zone and into unfamiliar places and explore the world, as my son did when he was a toddler, excited to go to new places and discover new things. Like my son, who faced huge obstacles but confronted them without fear, I began to experience the excitement of doing the elephant seal hump.

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[PHOTO/CAPTION: Peggy Elliott and Michael Gosse walk together using their canes]

I Do Do It: Three Fundamentals of Cane Travel

by Peggy Elliott

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From the Editor: Peggy Elliott is one of the best cane travelers I know. She is president of the Iowa affiliate, second vice president of the National Federation of the Blind, and a busy attorney and city council member in Grinnell, Iowa. All this means that she gets lots of practice using her cane. In the following article she draws from example and illustration to distill what some consider to be her rather eccentric cane technique from three fundamental skills. In addition she throws in a lot more good advice. If the test of successful cane travel is getting where you want to go safely, gracefully, and efficiently, Peggy is among our best travelers, and we should all pay close attention to her comments. This is what she says:

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I learned to use a white cane a number of years ago under circumstances that would now be described as discovery learning, but before that term was coined. I was taught the fundamental cane technique of stepping and simultaneously tapping my cane in front of the foot I wasn't stepping on and then stepping forward and repeating the simultaneous tapping in front of the other foot at the other end of an arc no wider than my shoulders. The technique is often called the two-point touch technique. I was taught to center my cane by holding it with my index finger extended and my thumb on top. The cane handle was to be kept near the center of my stomach. I was then drilled with daily practice for about nine months to perfect the skills of tapping, centering, staying in step, arcing widely enough, and trusting the information my cane provided until these techniques became so routine that I no longer needed to think about them and did them unconsciously.

Though I no longer use these techniques routinely, I would absolutely teach a new cane user exactly as I was taught in order to achieve the same result--unconscious and casual reliance on the cane to tell the user information accurately and rapidly enough to maintain safety. In short, I would encourage personalizing the style of cane use only after the fundamentals have been mastered and internalized.

As I say, I don't center, stay rigidly in step, or worry about a precise arc. And, most important to me, I don't tap. Instead I slide the cane from side to side, never lifting the tip off the ground. People have asked me over the years how I was taught, what I now do, and why, usually in the context of discussing some tidbit of cane use or orientation, and often at a big national convention hotel. So I have decided to describe a few of the things I do in case they are useful to others.

While I learned cane travel in a Federation center, not everyone can, largely because the rehab system still doesn't completely believe in our Federation approach. But the Federation approach is not taught solely at such centers. Every chapter meeting, every state convention, every encounter between two blind people can be a context for teaching and learning the Federation approach to cane travel; attending a center merely speeds the instruction and roots it firmly in the mind and soul. But people who never attend a center can and do become fine and safe cane travelers. The only requirements are commitment to learning and practice.

So I have boiled down advanced cane use to several basic concepts. Mastery of these concepts through practice allows anyone to become a safe and efficient cane traveler. Good cane users could add lots of tips and tricks gleaned from daily use, but I think these are the foundation. For true success in cane travel, each must be mastered.

While confidence in the Federation approach to cane travel and daily experience using the cane are the strongest indicators of success in traveling competently as a blind person, these are the three fundamental concepts I use regularly. None was exactly taught me when I learned cane travel. In fact, some techniques I now use are actually contrary to what I was taught. This is partly why I say that confidence and experience are the strongest predictors of success in travel. All successful blind travelers take what they are taught, formally and informally, and create a successful personal style. Trying to travel exactly the way one was taught yields constant nervousness for fear one may be doing things wrong while preventing innovation using one's own strengths and observations.

Successful cane travel seems impossible to the novice; it certainly did to me. Looking back over many years of cane travel, I can say with certainty that, if I had simply kept doing what I had been taught and traveled in familiar areas only, I wouldn't be a good traveler today. Innovation and application of the techniques in new situations have made me a much better traveler. Again, looking back, I once thought successful travel as a blind person was a pleasant myth. Only when I stepped out, white cane in hand, and began applying the techniques and adapting them for myself did I find the goal reachable. I write these words in the hope that others will dare to move into unfamiliar places and situations and find the methods most congenial for them. Then, one day, these experimenters can look back as I do and say that gradually, without noticing it, their style has changed and their skills improved until they have achieved a comfort and confidence they once thought possible only for others. In other words, it works!

Here are the three fundamental concepts I use. Having mastered basic cane technique and these three concepts, anyone can experiment, try new things, and spread his or her wings. The key is to challenge oneself to improve. Here are three ways to do it: mapping, reversing, and pathfinding.

Mapping is the mental gathering and retention of information about an area that allows the blind traveler to travel anywhere in it without other information except that contained on the mental map. Everyone uses mapping to get around. By this, I specifically mean sighted people. Sighted hunters have mental maps of the terrain that leads to their favorite deer stand or pheasant nesting ground. Sighted shoppers, familiar with a mall, plan their stops to avoid doubling back without reference to any but their mental maps. Sighted drivers moving about a familiar city rarely glance at street signs and navigate streets and freeways by referring to their own mental maps along with a sense of accustomed distances and observation of familiar landmarks.

When blind people set out for a destination, why shouldn't they use the same techniques? In fact, why should we not expect ourselves to make such maps for common daily use just as sighted people do? Our maps may have different reference points and landmarks, but they can be equally useful. In fact, since our maps use touch and sound instead of visible landmarks, we can more easily convey them to one another. We can of course use maps or directions from sighted people, but these are often given in visual terms and require translation into tactile and audible ones.

Many blind travelers use this mapping technique when traveling outdoors along streets, especially those set in a grid pattern. But, when it comes to buildings, some of us think that mapping doesn't work or isn't worth the effort. It most certainly does and is absolutely worth the effort.

Let me give a few examples. I first began rigorously to develop this technique inside buildings when traveling to NFB conventions. As soon as I reached my room and shooed out the bell person, I would sit down on the corner of the nearest bed and mentally go over the route from the desk to my room, rehearsing the route until I could remember it flawlessly then mentally practicing the reverse, walking back to the desk. As I traveled and practiced more, my ability to remember the route became more and more routine, so I never sit on the corner of the bed any more. By the time I get into my room, the practice of years has enabled me to lock in the route so that I can call upon it as needed. I usually ask a few questions at the hotel desk like the location of the restaurants, in order to get those on my mental map right away. Then, as I move around the hotel, I add details to the map for each floor. Here are a few examples from Federation convention hotels.

At the national convention hotel in Anaheim, I first stepped onto a floor with smaller meeting rooms to go to a specific room. To reach it, I discovered that one angled about forty-five degrees to the right after leaving the elevator lobby and then straightened out to walk down a long hall in the same direction as one had been going when leaving the elevator lobby. The angled digression was necessary to go around a large open stair well and escalators. Meeting rooms opened off this hall and also off hallways perpendicular to it branching to the right. Later that day I arrived at the same floor looking for a different room and discovered that, to find it, one angled forty-five degrees to the left to reach a different hallway, down which one proceeded in the same direction as one had been walking when leaving the elevator lobby. Rooms opened off this hallway and off hallways branching from it to the left. While the distances were long, the map of the floor was almost complete in my mind.

Still later that day I was at the end of the left hall and needed to go to a room at the end of the right hall. By then I knew that I could have returned all the way to the elevator lobby, walked across to the right-hand hall, and walked back up that hall to the room, since that day I had at different times already walked each piece of this proposed route. However, my mental map also told me that cross halls were very likely to connect the long left and right halls at intervals, allowing people like me to cross between them without having to go all the way back to the elevator lobby. I started looking for such a hall and found one almost immediately, saving myself a two-block detour.

This brings me to an important detail in mapping: which way is north? While I know good blind travelers who rarely pay attention to the cardinal directions, I am not one of them. When I enter a building that I'm going to use intensively, I try as soon as possible to learn which way north is so that I can draw my mental maps using north, south, east, and west rather than right and left, which are obviously dependent on which way one is facing. I find that knowing where north is allows me to make a map of a floor or lobby area that I can mentally look down upon, locate myself upon, and determine my next move, whereas having just rights and lefts requires constant transposition, depending on where one is and where one is going. When I can't find someone who knows which way north is, I simply assign what I call a "false north" (for example, the direction one travels when leaving the elevator), so that I can still have a consistent map that works throughout the hotel and is not reliant on rights and lefts.

Once in a state convention motel I had vague directions for the path from my room to the first convention meeting. I discovered that the path included the entire length of a parking lot, passing along the outside of the lobby and then meandering among several other buildings before arriving at the one we were using. Once I arrived at the first meeting, I reviewed the route several times in my head, since indoors and out it was nearly three blocks long and one of the longer routes I had walked in quite some time. By using north, estimating direction, and drawing my mental map, I discovered that I had walked around three sides of a very large square inside which were located various motel buildings.

I began enquiring about going from my room on the very edge of the square across the fourth side instead of traveling around the other three sides. At first I was told that there was no way to do that, but other convention goers staying down at the very end as I was eventually did discover that there was a way to walk along the fourth side, which went off hotel property and then back onto it. Finding that route earlier would have saved me a lot of walking.

Mapping uses all the tactile and audible features of an area as landmarks. For example, we Iowans quickly and to our delight discovered that, when walking along the ballroom foyer that included all the entrances to the Louisville convention ballroom, we could just keep walking until we stepped from carpet to tile. The next door brought us into the convention hall just behind the Iowa section. In large open spaces I always look for details like low walls, steps, potted vegetation, changes from tile to carpet, and seating areas--details I can find with my cane and use as landmarks or points at which to change direction.

Then there are fountains. I used to hate them. Their constant sound can drown out other information. Then I discovered their utility--a huge fixed point of navigation. You don't have to go anywhere near a fountain to know where it is and to use it as a navigation aid. I remember a state convention with a fountain in the hotel lobby. I arrived at the banquet from one direction and left it in another, heading for the lobby. Using my mental map, I chose a hallway I had never used before, confident that it would lead toward the lobby and that I would be able to tell exactly where I was as soon as I heard the fountain. The plan worked just fine. In fact, my husband and I have a joke that goes, "The fountain is our friend!" by which we mean that some people think fountains are noisy when we think them useful.

When I enter a building I have never been in before, I start gathering information, including asking questions of both blind and sighted people. It's my job to create my own map, and I get information in many ways and make it useful in building my maps. With sighted people I usually point in the direction I think they are indicating and ask if that's what they mean. Once I confirm the direction they mean, I find my own tactile or audible method of getting there.

This same technique works well in airports I use regularly. My own home airport and the one I use most often to change planes, United in Chicago, are both laid out in the shape of a huge print H, which allows me to know at all times both where I am and how to walk to an objective. When the new Denver airport was opened, my husband Doug went through it for a plane change before I did. He came back, pleased that the Denver people had been accommodating enough to build the long United corridor just like our street at home. When we walk out our front door, which is on the side with odd numbers, larger numbers are to our left. This exact pattern--odd-numbered gates on one side, even on the other, and odd numbers arranged like our neighborhood street--makes it easy for us to know from the single fact of the number of our arriving gate exactly which way and on which side our departing gate is located.

Many of us have a mental map of the Capitol Holiday Inn in Washington, and some of us actually retain three or four maps of the ground floor, which has changed over the years. The hotel manager told us last February that the ground floor is changing again and gave a few examples. I encountered him three days later, and he was astonished that I could repeat exactly what he had said. I would have been disappointed in myself if I could not have done so. Having advance notice of a change of map was a real treat. It counterbalanced just a little all those times, especially in airports, when the map that once worked no longer works due to construction.

This leads me to a final tip about mapping. If the map is not working, don't junk the technique; just revise the map. I was recently at a state convention, and one element of my map just wasn't working--the orientation of the elevator on one floor. Everything else worked just fine, but I could never reliably find the elevator on that one floor. We left the hotel and returned, coming in a different door, and I approached this elusive elevator from a different direction, which allowed me to discover that I had one element of my map in the wrong place. On one of the lower floors I had the orientation of the elevator spun ninety degrees, facing south when it actually faced west. When the map isn't working, keep revising, and it will eventually work.

Remember, it's your job to gather the information and to make the map, not the job of sighted people to know how to tell you where things are. In the first place they don't think about tile and fountains and "north" the way we do. In the second place blaming a sighted person for giving bad directions is no different from blaming a bad cane travel teacher or bad genes for not finding a place. The objective is to learn how to talk to all kinds of people and make the map for yourself. Many blind people routinely do this every day, and most of us can learn to do so.

The other two fundamental concepts are actually specific ways of using and enhancing the skill of mental mapping. I call the next one reversing. Reversing is the ability to move unerringly from Point B to Point A along the route one has already walked to get from Point A to Point B. The most common use for reversing is in restaurants, although the skill is universally useful. In restaurants I want to be able to walk to the front door from my table, both for leaving and for finding the cash register, which is commonly by the front door. And I want to be able to return to my table or to the front door from the rest room. In order to do either, I have to be able to reverse a route I have just walked within the last hour or two or the last ten minutes or so. In restaurants I frequent, the need for this specific skill of reversing fades as an actual mental map emerges. But I want to be able to move about in a restaurant I'm going to be in only once. I use the same technique I use when going from a hotel check-in desk to my room, paying attention to turns and other detail such as raised areas, sources of music, changes in flooring, and changes in noise level.

Learning the specific skill of reversing, like learning how to map, is something I made myself do consciously so that the skill became second nature and takes very little effort any more. At first it felt scary to stand up from a restaurant table and start walking toward where I thought the door was. Gradually I learned to pay attention on the way in so that I was no longer guessing on the way back out.

Adding the location of rest rooms is merely a further application of this skill. I can get directions from a server or another diner to the rest room or follow someone there the first time. I pay close attention to the route between the table and the rest rooms. Once there, I can then return to the table by reversing. Or, as sometimes happens, I can add together the two routes, one to the table and the other to the rest room, to make a broader map, allowing me to go from the rest room to the door, where the rest of the party is gathering. All this takes much longer to explain than to do, and all this is easily performed by any blind person who makes up his or her mind to do it. It starts with a determination to develop the skill of reversing and the willingness to try.

The third fundamental concept I use is pathfinding. I became convinced a long time ago that I cannot walk a straight line. Neither can most other people, blind or sighted. Take as an example the sport of orienteering. Sighted people take two things with them into wild country and make a day of going from Point A to Point B, using only these two things. One is a topographical map, and the other is a compass. These orienteers are sighted, but they assume they can't walk a straight line, so they use a compass as one of their two basic tools. Well I can't walk a straight line either. It doesn't matter how carefully I center my cane or standardize my stride. I drift off the straight line. I suspect that this is true of most people and thus of most blind people.

Without additional cues, over a distance anyone will walk at an angle. Sighted people use curb lines and objects at a distance toward which they can navigate, so they seem to walk straight. But send them orienteering, and they'll find out about straight. Blind people don't have curbs at a distance beyond our cane reach to parallel or objects in the distance toward which we can steer unless we're lucky enough to be walking toward a constant noise source like a fountain or a busy street. So I long ago concluded I would have to find auditory or tactile alternatives to guide me in a straight line, and I developed what I call pathfinding.

This was the basis for deciding not to tap my cane. I learned when starting to use a cane to arc the cane from left to right and then back to the left again, tapping at the outer edges of the arc. I used this method for a while and then figured out I was missing all kinds of information by picking up the cane for most of its trip across my path. I found that, by leaving the cane on the ground and gliding it from edge to edge of the arc, I learned a great deal more about the surface on which I was walking and could more reliably keep to a straight path.

The information I acquire using the glide method includes the location of cracks between sidewalk and parking lot, an important pathfinding device when walking along a parking lot; seams in the sidewalk perpendicular to my path, which nonetheless convey direction; and, most important, seams between sidewalk and street, which are often composed of two different materials, also discernible more easily using the glide technique. Using this method, I can detect slopes, both those going across my path, which indicate driveways, and those going in my direction, which indicate the approach of streets or alleys. I can find details in the walking surface which help to identify other cues so that the walking surface itself turns out to contain landmarks like the metal strip in the floor of the east tower in Louisville which, when one crosses it going south, is a signal to start drifting left to find the stairs up to the second floor. I think I also find drop-offs and stairs more reliably when my cane never leaves the ground.

All these changes I have made in my cane technique from the original arcing technique I was taught have led me to make yet three more changes. The first is cane length. I took an informal survey several years ago among people who seem to travel well using a white cane. My survey was provoked by the comment I often receive that my cane is too long. I must say here that I am really the only one who can tell whether or not my cane is too long as long as I am not constantly tripping others. I use a straight cane, meaning one that does not fold or telescope, since I find that canes in sections, while they may be convenient to store, always give me two kinds of information: that which I need and that which continuously reminds me that I am using a segmented cane, which alters the information on its way from the tip to my hand. I prefer to receive information about my surroundings only and not to be reminded constantly that I have sections. The storage problems people anticipate for such long canes (mine is sixty-five inches) are mostly mythical in my experience, and, when the rare problem occurs, I think it's a small price to pay for the purity of information I'm getting.

My informal survey showed that most of my friends who travel confidently carry canes that, when held vertically with the tip on the ground reach a point somewhere between the user's chin and nose. Most of these people also use straight canes. Mine is equal to my height. While every person must choose the cane length of comfort, I do think that my informal survey indicates that good cane users typically use longer canes. I know some fine cane travelers who don't use canes of that length, and I always come back to the stipulation that the cane must be comfortable and safe for the user. But I always urge people to try longer canes. I began my cane use with a much shorter cane. As I grew in skill, I started buying longer and longer canes. For one thing, I can always shorten the cane as needed by holding it more nearly upright and lowering my hand along the shaft, sometimes in crowds gliding my cane tip mere inches in front of my feet, while the handle is by my cheek.

But I cannot lengthen a shorter cane. For another, when I walk at speed, a longer cane gives me another step's warning of obstacles in my path, an extra measure of safety I appreciate when encountering drop-offs and obstructions, before which I can stop well short of the object or flight of steps.

My second change of technique was to abandon for most purposes the strict staying in step and also to abandon the tapping technique. If I were teaching cane travel to novices, as I mentioned previously, I would teach them to tap and stay in step as a way of getting people to pay attention to what the cane is doing. Later in their instruction I would encourage experimentation. Instead of swinging and tapping my cane, I glide it frequently enough to pathfind and identify obstacles. I just don't want to spend any brain power on strictly keeping in step. I prefer to use that brain power to do the pathfinding I described earlier. This can be done only by constantly moving the cane back and forth in the arc that clears the way for both shoulders. I'm just paying attention to the information coming from the tip of the cane in a different way from the way I was originally taught.

Third, I don't center my cane. Rather, I rest the cane in a cupped hand down by my hip in a hold that is comfortable and then impart the arcing motion to the cane by a combination of wrist and finger motion. This is much more comfortable to me than centering and tapping; my cane is long enough to correct for any disadvantage from no longer being centered; and my fingers and wrist are free to gather information as they move the cane, without being held near the middle of my body in what is to me an uncomfortable wrist position.

For this method of using a cane, I find that the very lightweight, hollow, fiberglass straight cane works best. It's got a little give so that it flexes when it gets stuck in a sidewalk crack or at the bottom of an obstruction, allowing me time to stop or hesitate and to move my wrist upward so that I can free the cane without the top of the cane hitting me in the solar plexus. The combination of cupping the cane and its light weight and flex actually tell me things rather than striking me.

One final note on cane physics: change tips early and often. Gliding a tip does cause wear, although I'm not sure any faster than tapping. The tip is a vital part of the information-gathering system. I learned long ago that, when my tip starts sticking, it's time to change it. At first changing the tip every time my cane began sticking seemed wasteful. But every time it sticks and I check it with my hand, the outer steel ring is nearly gone.

Good tip glide is necessary to me for safe, efficient travel, so I change as soon as the sticking begins. If I don't, my cane gets harder and harder to control, and I begin to feel like a bad cane user, missing information and veering more sharply. Changing the tip corrects all that like magic. I used to fuss privately about the cost until I remembered that sighted contact wearers buy cleaning solution. My tip-changing is merely my way of cleaning my contacts, so to speak. I change tips as needed, which can sometimes be as little as seven days and sometimes as much as three weeks.

Back now to pathfinding with this longer cane, this free-form arc, and this comfortable hold. I know some people are frustrated when the cane contacts all sorts of things in the environment. I prefer this. Touching information as I pass it helps to keep me oriented when I already know the path, and it helps me gain orientation if I'm passing by for the first time. Trash cans, poles, retaining walls, columns--all the stuff in my path inside or outside--give me information I can use now or put on my map for later. Holding my cane in a cupped hand allows me to move it out of the way quickly so that I can touch objects and not get hung up on them or raise my wrist slightly to shorten the cane and stop to examine the object. With my relaxed hold I can move the cane quickly to look, learn, avoid, or whatever as I move safely and also continue to refine my map.

While looking around, I am sometimes asked by a sighted person if he or she can help me. I always answer that, no, I'm just sightseeing. Which is quite literally true. The next time I pass that way, I will likely not pause but will touch lightly the objects I now have on my map if I need them as landmarks. But one quick examination makes my map more detailed and precise for later use.

This is especially true in large open areas where I'm looking for information to use later as landmarks. Easy landmarks are often there if you take a minute to observe them in their correct place on the map. Sometimes no information is available until you get to the other side of a large open area, in which case it's important to know the details of how to find the door or hall you're seeking when you get there, and context is important. A good mental map of a large open area uses fixed sounds like escalators and fountains for direction and details like potted plants; the turn of a wall; a change in flooring; or, as outside Champions in Atlanta, a huge model of a baseball for more precise identification of where you are and where you are going.

The convention level in the Marriott Marquis is like that. Numerous large and small meeting rooms are scattered around the perimeter of a huge central space, some opening right off the atrium and some hidden down winding hallways. The most efficient way to look for a door or a hallway in such large spaces is to cross the open area in the general direction of the room you want and then begin to look for details matching information on your mental map that guide you to the specific door once you've arrived at the wall.

Over the years my own techniques have changed as I've observed what works for me and listened to my blind friends describe what works for them. For me the absolute bottom line is that blind people can move successfully and safely through the world by using mapping, reversing, and pathfinding. Some people, both blind and sighted, think this just isn't possible. Many of my blind friends prove this contention false every day. Many more blind people learning to use white canes hope it's true and are working toward proficiency. All I can ask these people to do is to believe it works, keep practicing, and hold tight to the notion that others are now confidently using the techniques. If you start with the notion that "he or she is doing it," then progress to the notion that "I can do it if I try," and just keep working, one day you will look over your shoulder and say with a little surprise and a lot of pride: "Well, it's true! I do do it."

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Dr. Geerat Vermeij]

Teaching Exploration: Correcting a Glaring Flaw

in the Education Of Blind Children

by Geerat J. Vermeij

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From the Editor: Dr. Geerat Vermeij is distinguished professor in the Department of Geology at the University of California at Davis. Last summer he generously contributed his time and expertise to take part in our first science camp for blind teens interested in science. His reflections on that experience and his recommendations to those charged with instructing and inspiring blind young people will be of interest to everyone committed to training them to engage in effective reading, thinking, and tactile observation. This is what he says:

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A few years ago I was sitting in David Hillis's office at the University of Texas at Austin. Hillis, a preeminent evolutionary biologist and MacArthur Fellow, was telling me about his research on a small Asian clam that was accidentally introduced by people to North America during the late 1930's. Today this quite ordinary-looking little clam is found in lakes and streams throughout the United States. Researchers once thought that all the Asian clams in North America belonged to a single kind or species; but when Hillis began to analyze the DNA sequences of the clams, he discerned two genetically distinct species.

Hillis leaned forward in his chair. "I wonder if you can tell the difference between these species from the shells," he said.

"Let's have a look," I said, always ready for a challenge. Hillis handed me six specimens, each a little less than an inch long. There were, of course, no labels; it was up to me to decide how to divide these six shells into categories.

I set about my task. First came a quick reconnaissance: I took each shell in my hands, manipulated it with my fingers, and put it down, all in less than a second. Much previous experience with Asian clams and with thousands of other clams allowed me to conclude that, yes, these shells belong to the genus Corbicula: ovate shape, coarse and somewhat irregular growth lines, right hinge characteristics, somewhat eroded beak without well-developed lunule or escutcheon. But all these shells sure looked alike, so a more thorough examination was called for.

The pads of my index fingers traced the outlines of the shells, probed the growth lines for their sharpness and spacing, noted how deeply cupped the valves were, and gathered a dozen other details. With my nails I observed the precise shape of the growth lines--were the lines sharp or flattened, reflected or erect, widely separated or close together, and so on. I repeated these observations, all quite unconsciously, with each shell. I picked up the valves again and again, comparing, contrasting, forming hypotheses in my mind, and putting them to the test with additional observations. I had to decide which features were meaningless variations and which might denote characteristics that distinguish one species from another. I had done this exercise hundreds of times previously, for careful observation of form, life habits, and other aspects of shell-bearing animals lay at the empirical core of my scientific work.

After a minute or two of this directed exploration, I had divided the shells into two groups of three each. The differences were awfully subtle, but I thought they might indeed indicate two distinct species.

I announced my conclusions. My colleague was impressed. "Right on the money," he declared. The distinction I had perceived through careful tactile observation of the shells precisely matched the distinction Hillis had discerned from the DNA that he had extracted previously from the tissues of the clams whose shells he had given me to examine.

I tell this story, not to pat myself on the back, but to make an important point about exploring objects by touch. Quite simply, many blind people could extract far more information from the objects they touch if they developed and perfected techniques and skills for the most effective use of the hand--that exquisite and sensitive organ of touch that we humans have inherited and evolutionarily modified from our primate ancestors.

I was confronted with this larger issue when I was privileged to take part in the National Federation of the Blind's summer science camp for a dozen blind middle-school students. Mark Riccobono of the NFB and school teacher Robin House had invited me to talk about how to do science, how to think in a scientific frame of mind, and how blind people can be scientists. I would not just tell them about my research on shells but would have everyone examine shells so that we could then talk about how to ask scientific questions of these wonderful objects. I would also tell them about the larger scientific questions I have tried to tackle in my own career, questions about how evolution works, about evolution as fundamentally an economic process, and about the role that enemies play in the many directions evolution has taken over the course of the history of life.

We gathered at the Naturalist Center, a first-rate educational museum just outside Leesburg, Virginia. Thousands of specimens from the Smithsonian Institution are available for visitors to handle in a spacious setting where curiosity and free inquiry are the order of the day. I had arrived early to pull out some shells to demonstrate to the students and their enthusiastic adult entourage. Once everyone was settled and I had made some preliminary remarks about myself, about the etiquette of handling specimens, and about science and the blind, each participant was given a shell to examine.

As always happens when I am working with a collection, I was terribly pumped up to see such wonderful objects, even if they were all quite familiar to me. I never tire of looking at shells because I always expect to observe something new. On this occasion I was certainly not disappointed. Picking up a large Triton's trumpet (Charonia tritonis), I happened to notice some small tubercles near the front end of the shell that formed a continuation of a row of sharp teeth along the shell's outer lip. I have frequently handled specimens of this striking species, but somehow this interesting feature had escaped my notice.

But this exercise wasn't for me; it was for the children. I invited everyone to offer a description of the unfamiliar object in his or her hand. What could each person tell me about what he or she had observed?

It became clear that most of the students had spent at most a few seconds of unsystematic exploration and then put the shell down. The verbal descriptions offered were so rudimentary that I felt unable to proceed to the level of thinking about these objects in a scientific way. The point of departure for honing the scientific state of mind is to observe carefully and to be puzzled by the observations that make no sense. If we can articulate what does not make sense, we are well on the road to translating the puzzle in the form of a scientific question. Once we have reached this point, we can proceed to the more standard scientific stages of proposing a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis against alternative explanations, and placing all our findings together with those of others in a coherent theory that will explain, not just the things we know, but many things we don't know yet.

I came away from this encounter with the strong conviction that society--parents, teachers, the blind, and all the rest of us--have largely and dismally failed to teach the skills of exploration. Our hands are powerful sensory tools, capable of discerning fine details, integrating those details into a whole representation, and making sense of the things we touch; but if we don't know how to use our hands in this way, our ability to extract information from the objects we touch is severely compromised. Tactile exploration has been part of my life for so long that I had in many ways taken it for granted. Insofar as I had thought about the matter at all, I held that learning about objects with the fingers came naturally, whatever that might mean. But I have come to believe this is wrong. Tactile exploration is a skill that must be taught and honed.

How does one do this? Although I have no experience teaching blind people, I have thought about how the hand works as a sense organ. The broad outline of the technique I describe briefly below comes from an idealized dissection of how I use my hands, fingers, and associated tools to gain a coherent concept of the things I touch.

Let's think about those Asian clams again. I began with a cursory examination. The hand as a whole--or, if the object is small, the tips of several fingers--scans the object for general shape, weight, and texture. This gives us a general idea of an object, a tactile image we can then use to place the finer details we are about to uncover. The nearly random touching of the first stage is replaced by a much more systematic exploration, mainly using the tips of the index fingers. I may trace the object's contours, noting every detail--angles, roundness, texture, protrusions, openings, and any other peculiarity.

My fingers trace specific paths, informed by the object's overall form and by my hypothesis of the object's orientation. With completely unfamiliar objects, it is helpful to be oriented: where is the front, the back, the left, and the right? If I have handled more or less similar objects before, this orientation, achieved almost instantaneously during the first phase of exploration, comes quite naturally. The pads of the fingers are sensitive but are rather large. If we want still finer details, we need finer instruments. I use the ends of the nails, especially those of the thumb and index finger, to characterize and count small features. If I need to examine the features inside openings too small or narrow to insert a finger, I employ a stiff pin or needle. Vibrations from the pin as I slowly pass the shaft of the pin along the surface of interest will tell me the number, location, size, and shape of the ribs, bumps, and other protrusions I encounter.

The entire examination may last anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes, but by the time I am finished, I have a detailed, coherent, and I hope accurate representation of the object in my mind's fingers. Further examination would surely yield still more information, as I illustrated above with the Triton's trumpet, but completeness characterizes all scientific efforts.

The key features of this process of tactile exploration are, I believe, accurate initial orientation and systematic (as opposed to random) touching and tracing. As exploration proceeds, we go from the large scale--overall shape, size, and weight; temperature; thickness; and the like--to a finer scale.

This recipe applies equally to tactile illustrations. We must begin by acquiring an overall sense of shape and size, which we do by using the whole hand and as many fingers as the illustration will accommodate. Once this stage is completed, we can begin to trace individual features, note the position of particular items, and observe how features are arranged relative to each other and to the whole.

Years ago, in a letter to the scientific journal Nature, a Canadian research group reported a study of the way blind subjects should read maps. The authors had their blind subjects first trace outlines. According to their data, it took thirty seconds or longer for the average blind subject to trace a given outline. In a comment published later that year in Nature, I pointed out that it would be very difficult to gain an accurate representation of the map if it took half a minute or more to complete the initial exploration. Integration, the key to gaining a representation of illustrations and objects observed by touch, is hard to achieve over time intervals as long as this. No sighted person would ever read a map by first following a country's borders by eye; he or she would quickly scan the map, acquire a general orientation and a sense for its large-scale features, and then concentrate on the details.

The principles that apply to touch apply to the other senses as well. It takes experience and some practice to gain a full appreciation of a piece of music or a bird's song we have heard, a painting we have seen, or even of the foods we taste and smell. Our senses have enormous potential to inform us about the world and to enrich our lives; but we must learn how to use our senses to best effect, how to observe, or to become more aware of our surroundings. This is as true for the sighted as it is for the blind, but for the blind there is the additional obstacle that we lack sight, one of the most integrative of the senses, the one that permits a nearly instantaneous, large-scale, and often distant orientation.

I no longer remember how or whether I really learned to observe, but I do know that my parents and brother were twenty-four-hour tour guides, describing everything and anything wherever we went. More important still, they showed me every imaginable thing--plants, insects, mushrooms, doorways, window frames, walls, brickwork on old Dutch buildings, rocks, models of buildings--the list is endless. In doing so, they stimulated my already substantial curiosity. Yet I wanted more; I hungered to become acquainted with my surroundings, to make sense of them--in short, to understand the world in a scientific frame of mind. I wanted to be aware, not only of the pleasures of my surroundings, but of its dangers and pitfalls.

I could not observe everything first-hand, of course, so I began to read. I read and read and read and read some more, and I still read voraciously. And in order to read and to retrieve all that information, I had to have superior Braille skills. What do superior Braille skills amount to? Rapid and accurate Braille reading, like rapid and accurate print reading, means quick recognition and processing of pattern, attention to detail, and engaging the mind as the fingers or eyes briskly move line by line across the page. There is, I am convinced, a direct connection between learning how to gather information from objects and learning how to read quickly and accurately. This is true for everyone, not just the sighted and not just the blind.

Nothing would help blind children more than being taught the techniques and pleasures of exploration--touch, sound, taste, smell, and whatever vision remains. It is hard to be curious about things if we do not know what those things are like. It is hard to avoid dangers if we are unable to interpret the cues our senses provide about our surroundings. It is hard to gain a sense of aesthetics if we feel, listen, taste, or smell carelessly and casually. And it is hard to get a job if we lack the skills to gain and process information by effective reading and effective use and interpretation of our senses.

We must make exploration a habit, a good habit, a pleasant and rewarding habit. We must educate parents, teachers, and the blind themselves how to observe with the mind engaged. This is not rocket science; in fact, it requires no technology at all other than the biological technology we have inherited from our evolutionary ancestors. How can anything be more important?

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[PHOTO/CAPTION: Jagdish Chander]

Reflection on a Visit to LCB

and Louisiana Tech University's PDRIB

by Jagdish Chander

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From the Editor: Jagdish Chander is a doctoral student in disability studies at Syracuse University. He has also taught at the University of Delhi and is working to establish a school in India at which students with and without disabilities learn together. This is what he says about his experience in Ruston, Louisiana:

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I arrived in Ruston, Louisiana, on the evening of July 21, 2003, and was received by Dr. Ronald Ferguson, my host and advisor, who had facilitated my visit. I started my first day with a tour of the Louisiana Center for the Blind (LCB) and an introduction to some key people working in the center. I had lunch and dinner with a visitor from Utah there to learn about the operation of the center. The first morning I was picked up by Jim Omvig, the author of Freedom for the Blind: The Secret Is Empowerment, who introduced me to Matt Lyles, a master's student from Yale, who was working in Ruston for the summer.

Matt spent the whole day giving me a tour, and I discovered a lot about the center and collected taped literature, including Mr. Omvig's book. I finished reading the book in two days during breaks in completing several graduate school writing assignments. It was such a light and interesting read that I turned to it for pleasure. However, despite being written with simplicity and clarity, the book was practically a bible on rehabilitation of the blind. Having read the book and gotten to know the author, I concluded that this book should be translated into various languages with minor adaptations to take account of culturally relevant values and omitting some discussions specific to the United States.

So why did I want to spend almost a month in Ruston, Louisiana, during the hot and muggy months of July and August? I attended my first convention of the National Federation of the Blind in July of 2002 in Louisville, Kentucky. The convention was an amazing experience. I had never attended such a large assembly of blind people, almost three thousand. What was most astonishing was that the activities were conducted by blind people themselves. Never in my life had I seen blind people functioning so independently.

Because of this convention experience, I became interested in learning more about the NFB and its philosophy. That July I vacationed in Colorado, where I visited the Colorado Center for the Blind (CCB) in Littleton, near Denver. That's when I started learning about the NFB training centers for the blind. The CCB, LCB, and BLIND, Incorporated, are the three privately operated training centers modeled on the Iowa Commission for the Blind, which was designed and developed by the late president of the NFB, Dr. Kenneth Jernigan. I could not have found a better place than one of these three centers to interact with and learn about blind people in the United States.

In addition to the LCB, the other major attraction in Ruston is the Professional Development and Research Institute on Blindness (PDRIB, referred to familiarly as the Institute) affiliated with Louisiana Tech University. From the phrase "research institute on blindness," one might assume this was a facility attempting to cure blindness or perhaps a rehabilitation studies center. Being a graduate student of disability studies--a discipline that looks at blindness or any other mental or physical disability as a social construction--I found the Institute on Blindness and the LCB the best place I have observed to conduct research on the sociological, political, and historical aspects of blindness in the context of the NFB's radical, alternative philosophy of blindness.

Recognizing the importance of the LCB and the Institute on Blindness, I spent four weeks in Ruston, primarily to achieve two objectives: (1) to observe closely the activities of LCB and (2) to identify the relevant literature on civil rights of the organized blind movement in the United States. The former goal was to enrich my personal knowledge about LCB and the experiences of blind Americans, while the second allowed me to identify and collect literature to add to the literary treasure of the Disability History Museum project aimed at developing lesson plans to teach the history of disability at the high school level in the United States. My school, Syracuse University, is involved in developing lesson plans for this project, and I happened to be one of the graduate students working on the project. With the guidance and support of Dr. Ron Ferguson and his wife Jan, I was able to identify immensely valuable literature on this topic. This collection includes little-known, unpublished literature highlighting the contribution to the blind civil rights movement of Dr. Newel Perry, the mentor of NFB founder Dr. Jacobus tenBroek. In addition to enhancing the Disability History Museum project, I intended to use this literature to highlight the contribution of the blind civil rights movement prior to the growth of the broader disability rights movement begun in the late 1960's and early 1970's. By the end of my trip I had read and identified immensely rich literature on the civil rights movement of the blind in the U.S.

Some of the ideas developed by early NFB leaders like Dr. Perry and Dr. tenBroek were far advanced, even radical, in the pre-civil-rights era in the U.S. Dr. tenBroek described three key concepts in his 1948 NFB banquet address: equality, opportunity, and security. These ideas were radical concepts during this period. Similarly Dr. Jernigan's frequently quoted 1963 speech, "Blindness: Handicap or Characteristic?" is an important philosophical and analytical piece challenging the traditional meaning of blindness as defined through the negative attitudes of the public. The approach to the problems of blindness outlined in this historic 1963 lecture is embraced today by scholars of disability studies who adhere to the social model of disability, under which disability is understood primarily as a social construction along the lines of gender and race.

What did I learn during my visit to LCB and the Institute on Blindness? Before visiting Ruston, I did not understand many NFB rehabilitation concepts. I regarded some of these ideas as the products of a misguided philosophy. My observation of LCB activities and discussion with the students and staff of LCB and PDRIB significantly increased my understanding of some of these ideas and concepts. Here are several examples of myths I was able to dispel as a result of my findings during my visit to Ruston:

1. Braille is too cumbersome and slow a method of reading to be efficient, and the NFB over-emphasizes the importance of Braille literacy.

2. Blind mobility instructors cannot teach travel safely.

3. It makes no sense to ask a person with residual vision to use sleepshades during training.

4. Blind students should never be discouraged from walking with a sighted guide or maintaining contact with a blind friend while walking together or in a group.

I will address these four issues, one by one.

1. To my amazement I discovered that some blind people can read Braille at more than two hundred words a minute--a speed at which many sighted graduate students read. With practice a person can read Braille really quickly. To my astonishment, I met a Louisiana Tech graduate student, Brook Sexton, who could read Braille at up to five hundred words a minute. I had always understood the importance of mastering Braille, but I had no idea that it could be read with a speed comparable to that of sighted people reading print.

2. Having been trained by sighted mobility instructors, I always believed it would be difficult for me to feel safe going through O and M training under the guidance of a blind instructor. However, in Ruston I observed blind mobility instructors who have trained many blind students with no injuries or accidents attributable to the blindness of the instructor, and the graduates of this program are both confident and competent independent travelers.

3. From a layperson's point of view, it sounds strange to discourage blind students from using their residual vision while they are undergoing life-skills training. However, after interacting with the staff and students at LCB, I could understand more clearly that blind people can learn to lead normal lives through the use of alternative techniques more quickly and efficiently when they are not straining to use failing vision. Moreover, poor vision usually gets worse, and, if people do not learn to adapt to their blindness using sleepshades, it is harder, slower, and more depressing for them to adapt their alternative techniques to their loss of vision.

4. I have blind friends who resist taking the arm of a sighted guide under any circumstances. Having studied Dr. Jernigan's 1993 speech "The Nature of Independence," I have come to recognize this insistence as a stage (rebellious independence) on the way to complete and well-adjusted independence. It is important for blind people to be confident in their travel skills and competent to meet any situation. But there are times and places when, if sighted assistance is available, it is less obtrusive and more responsible to accept it. Getting to this point of maturity requires much work and training, and students must courteously insist on working through travel problems independently in order to gain the experience they need to travel with full confidence and safety.

In short, my interaction with LCB staff and students and the Institute on Blindness staff, and my observation of the activities of LCB, helped me resolve these myths and convinced me of several facts: Braille can be read as fast and efficiently as print, and all blind children and adults should be encouraged to make good use of it. Blind mobility instructors can be just as effective and efficient as sighted mobility instructors. It is desirable to wear sleepshades during life-skills training to discourage the use of residual sight and to teach students confidence in their ability to manage their lives efficiently without sight. And, finally, it is appropriate for students to avoid using sighted guides during training in order to sharpen their skills of independence.

Thus my visit to Ruston helped me accomplish my twin objectives of observing the LCB program and identifying relevant literature about the civil rights movement of the organized blind. But my visit also helped me dispel certain myths about NFB philosophy and life-skills training in the centers established by the NFB.

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Progress in Hawai'i

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From the Editor: The following article appeared in the June 29, 2004, edition of the Honolulu Advertiser. It reports on a five-day camp for teenagers and young adults conducted by the state agency for the blind in Hawai'i, Camp Ho'pono. According to NFB leader Curtis Chong, who grew up in Hawai'i, it demonstrates the impact active participation by Federationists can have on a state program. Lea Gruben and Katie Keim work for the state agency, and Katie's husband Virgil Stinette volunteered alongside them during the camp session. Their infusion of Federation philosophy and commitment to their campers clearly elevated this program to an unforgettable experience for campers and counselors alike. In passing the article along, Curtis commented that in his day--long before the New Visions Program--the agency would never have urged and encouraged kids to make such strides. Here is the story:

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Boot Camp for the Blind

by Michael Tsai

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"If you're blind, you're invisible to the rest of the world. ... I'm usually a loner. Here, I feel like I'm with people that I can trust." -- Karl Pangilinan, camper and Ho'opono employee

He makes it up the steps. With just the vaguest suggestion of shape and light registering through his eyes, he even makes it to the lip of the diving board.

But on this take‑it‑easy first day at Camp Ho'opono--a five‑day retreat designed to help blind teens and young adults make the transition to higher education and the working world‑-diving into the deep end of the pool is a belly‑flop of faith twenty‑year‑old Brandon Young just isn't ready to take. He freezes.

At the opposite end of the pool Young's fellow campers silently wait, eager to hear the great splash that will set the tone for the days to come.

Young's struggle for composure shows in the deliberate breaths he draws through his pursed lips and in the almost imperceptible twitch of his fingers. A long minute passes.

The tension is too much for counselor Katie Keim. "Grab your fear by the throat," she hollers from across the shallows.

Young breathes deeply as if finally ready to make the dive, but then his shoulders slump, and he reaches back for counselor Jon Koki's hand. He steps off the board.

Koki and the rest of the staff and volunteers expect as much, especially this early on. The nine campers assembled here range in age from fourteen to twenty-five. Some come from homes where old ideas on the limitations of the blind are still strong. All have been through a state public school system many say is ill‑equipped to provide the intensive, day‑by‑day training and instruction blind students need to live and function independently.

Like many of his fellow campers, Young comes to the camp with a resumé of hard‑earned accomplishments. Diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa at age ten, he struggled to keep up in academic and social environments where people meant well but "really didn't know how to help me."

With the support of a strong, vocal mother, Young made his way up the scouting ranks, becoming an Eagle Scout four years ago. A graduate of Kalaheo High School, Young now attends Windward Community College, where he takes liberal arts courses to prepare him for the jump to the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. From there Young hopes to go to law school.

"I want to be as independent as possible," Young says. "I want to be treated like everyone else." For that to happen, Young knows he'll need to push himself even harder. He can't just make it to the end of the board; he has to dive.

"A lot of activities that are geared toward the blind involve leading them around and doing it all for them," says Lea Grupen, a supervisor with camp sponsor Ho'opono, Hawai'i's Rehabilitation Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired Persons. "They aren't challenged. This camp is about pushing them, about challenging them to ... "

An enormous splash interrupts Grupen mid‑thought. Campers turn their ears in time to hear the bloop and sizzle of bubbles rising to the surface just in front of the diving board.

" ... challenging them to do more," Grupen continues.

After some reassurance from Koki, Young had returned to the board and, swallowing hard, executed a textbook cannonball. A chorus of cheers rises as Young's hands, arms, shoulders, and head break the surface. He sputters and spits, coughs and laughs, then dog‑paddles toward Koki's voice at the edge of the pool. Grupen smiles broadly. It's going to be a good camp.

According to the state's registry of blind people, there are roughly 3,000 people in Hawai'i whose vision qualifies as legal blindness or worse. Keim, a rehabilitation teacher at Ho'opono who has been blind for nearly ten years, says the actual number is likely double that. The precise figure is particularly hard to determine in a state with large Asian and Pacific islander communities, where people with visual impairments may be reluctant to seek help, choosing instead to get by with the aid of family and friends.

Ho'opono operates as part of the state Department of Human Services' Vocational and Rehabilitation Services for the Blind Division. Its New Visions program is dedicated to helping its clients build the skills and confidence to find employment and live independently.

As Keim notes, advocates for the blind make up the longest‑standing movement among disabled communities, and as such often benefit from separately designated programs. "But," Keim says, "blind [people] are also the least employed because of the misconception that they are less capable than people with ambulatory or hearing impairments."

By learning Braille, walking with canes, and learning other compensatory skills, staffers say, people who are blind also can work through their own prejudices, accepting the tools of self‑sufficiency as positives rather than markers of their disability.

This first‑ever Camp Ho'opono is designed to provide, among other things, a shock to the system of young adults unsure of their capabilities and hesitant about finding out. "We'll push them, but we'll also take time to reflect on how they each relate to blindness," Grupen says. "We want them to get not just their skills but their attitudes right."

Attitude is hardly a problem for Keao Wright. Blind since birth, the Castle High School sophomore‑to‑be is among the most advanced students at the camp. She's proficient with her cane and ranks in the top five nationally in reading Braille. Last summer she read nearly 6,000 Braille pages.

Wright likes novels best. Her favorite is The Count of Monte Cristo. But like other teens she's also passionate about music and surfing the Internet. Her dream is to work alongside Steve Bauer, a blind DJ on ACB Radio Interactive, an Internet station.

Wright chats regularly with online friends via MSN Messenger and the "Our Place" chat room. At school her friends tend to be other students with special needs. "It's kind of hard because I'm the only one in my school who's blind."

Wright says her school "is not really equipped, and a lot of people don't understand about visually impaired people." That's why, despite spending much of the first day at camp by herself, Wright is quickly warming to the idea of sharing time with peers who understand what she goes through each day. "I've never been away from home this long before," she says. "I think it's going to be fun."

Still there are bridges to cross. However politely, several of the partially sighted campers are making clear distinctions between themselves and those who are totally blind. A few say they're here just to have fun, that the skills training doesn't apply to them. "A lot of people are taught to cling to that teeny amount of vision they have," Keim says. "But by doing so they limit