Future

Volume 20, Number 1 Barbara Cheadle, Editor Convention Report 2000

NFB 2001 Convention.................................................................. 1

Teachers of the Visually Impaired: Roles, Rights, and
Responsibilities .............................................................. 18

Rights, Roles, and Responsibilities in the Orientation
and Mobility Process....................................................... 23

Convention Magic.................................................................. 27

2000 National Organization of Parents of Blind Children (NOPBC) annual Meeting............................ 37

My Experience with Standardized Testing
and Blind Students........................................................... 44

Slate Pals Application........................................................ 53

NFB Policy and the Education of Blind Children
Resolutions from the 2000 NFB Convention.......... 54

The National Research and Training Institute for the Blind
Capital Campaign Pledge Form.................................. 67

For more information about blindness and children contact the
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children
1800 Johnson Street * Baltimore, Maryland 21230 * (410) 659-9314 ext. 360
www.nfb.org * nfb@nfb.org * BCheadle@nfb.org

National Federation of the Blind National Conventions are famous for informative high-energy division and committee meetings; a huge, diverse exhibit hall; inspiring banquet speeches; family-friendly and educational entertainment (a music talent show, dances, a game night, a Sensory Safari display, a mock trial, a play); and outstanding general session agenda items.

The convention general sessions run all day Wednesday, July 4; a half-day Thursday, July 5; and all day Friday and Saturday, July 6 and 7. The banquet is Friday night, July 6. Some 30 blind college students will be introduced and presented with scholarship awards at the banquet.The exhibit hall opens on Monday, July 2. It is a mind-boggling display of all the latest in computer technology, low-vision technology, literature, and aids and appliances for the blind.

For more information about activities planned for the 2001 convention, please see the April, 2001, issue of the Braille Monitor. You may request a free copy by contacting the NFB at 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21230; (410) 659-9314; <www.nfb.org>.

For reservations call the hotel at (215) 625-2900 or the Mariott toll-free number (800) 228-9290. A $60-per-room deposit is required to make a reservation. Fifty percent of the deposit will be refunded if notice is given to the hotel of reservation cancellation before May 29, 2001.

Children must be preregistered for this service. The preregistration cutoff date is June 15, 2001. Details and a preregistration form are on pages 6 and 7 in this issue. Please note that this is not an NOPBC sponsored activity. This service is offered by the NFB as a convenience to members and guests at the convention.

• NOPBC Activities Fee: $15 per family or $5 per individual. This fee may be paid in advance (see preregistration form on page 5) or when checking-in at the NOPBC Seminar on the morning of Sunday, July 1. The activities fee covers all NOPBC-sponsored events throughout the convention week. It also includes annual membership dues in NOPBC.

• NFB Convention Registration Fee: $10 per person. NFB Convention room rates are contingent upon registering for the convention. Registration opens Monday morning, July 2, and is open at designated times throughout the convention. NFB Convention Agendas are available when you register. There is no pre-registration. Everyone must register in person.

8:00 – 10:30 a.m. Exhibit Tables * Multiply Disabled * Low Vision * Music * Kids Table: Blind People in History Get Acquainted Game * Schools and other programs for blind children * Mentors Sign-up Table: Mentors for Blind Teens, sponsored by the National Association of Blind Students (NABS) and Convention Exhibit Hall Mentors for Parents, sponsored by the Computer Science Division of the NFB

9:30 a.m. Welcome by Dr. Maurer, President, National Federation of the Blind

10:00 a.m. Kids and Carnival Buddies team-up and depart. Blind teens depart for discussion groups or the Braille Carnival (their choice)

10:00 a.m. Braille Carnival begins. Melody Lindsey, Coordinator. The Braille Carnival will feature exciting and fun games, competitions, demonstrations, and prizes with Braille themes. Carnival booths are sponsored by NFB divisions, state affiliates, NFB Centers, and residential schools for the blind. Sighted and blind, Braille reader or non-Braille reader, kindergartner or teen-ager—there will be lots of enjoyable activities suitable for all. The Carnival will run from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The Carnival Buddies will supervise the children and youth assigned to them from 10:00 a.m. to 15 minutes after adjournment at noon. The Carnival will stay open till 1:00 p.m. so parents, too, can enjoy the Carnival fun.

(1) What Your Mother Couldn’t Tell You for teen women, ages 13 – 18, led by two blind women, Debbie Stein, former social worker, and Dr. Adrienne Asch, professor of ethics.

(2) Guy Stuff for teen men, ages 13 – 18, Doug Elliot, NFB leader and social worker

Noon Recess Pick up children/youth at NFB Camp and/or Braille Carnival for lunch.

2:00 – 4:00 p.m. Words, Wheels, and Ways: Teen Workshops coordinated by Melissa Williamson, a blind educator and mother of three. Using discussion, role-playing (including role-reversals), and friendly competition (with prizes), blind and sighted teens learn about using—or being—readers and drivers. They will also discuss how to give directions; how to offer, accept, or decline assistance; when and how to offer (or use) human guide assistance, etc.; and then discuss how they can implement this knowledge throughout the convention.

(1) Make Your Own Tactile Storybook. This is a hands-on workshop to teach parents how to modify storybooks so blind infants and toddlers can get equivalent information and pleasure from storybooks that their sighted peers get from the pictures. Karen Frank, Infant and Toddler Outreach Coordinator from the Maryland School for the Blind will conduct this workshop. This workshop will be repeated twice: 2:00-3:30 p.m. and 3:45-5:15 p.m.

The following four workshops will be repeated three times:
2:00-2:45 p.m., 3:00-3:45 p.m., and 4:00-4:45 p.m.

(2) Words and Wheels: Through discussion, demonstration, and role-playing, parents and educators learn from blind workshop leaders how blind people obtain and use live readers and drivers to maximize independence in everyday life.

(3) What Do You Do When….? Blind and sighted workshop leaders, through demonstrations and role-playing, help parents and educators feel more confident about when and how is it appropriate to offer assistance to someone who is blind.

(4) From “Helpless” to “Helper” No one wants to be helpless. This presentation by parents to parents is about how to ensure that blind children avoid helplessness, achieve self-sufficiency, and acquire the competency and skills necessary to become a person who helps others.

(5) Living In A Visual World: By popular demand, Mrs. Barbara Pierce will be back to lead a discussion about how parents and teachers can help children acquire crucial social skills in an often highly visual world.

6:00 – 9:00 p.m. Family Hospitality. This year, as in past years, families can relax and enjoy the company of new friends and old at Family Hospitality. NOPBC will also have a few games and books in the Hospitality room to help occupy children ages eight and younger.

7:00 – 9:00 p.m. Teens’ Scavenger Hunt and Kids’ Scavenger Hunt. Under adult supervision sighted and blind kids (ages 9 -12) and teens (ages 13-18) explore the hotel and win prizes. To add to the fun sighted youth are issued white canes and sleep-shades (blindfolds) to use on the hunt. Coordinators, Jan Bailey and Mildred Rivera.

9:00 –10:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Cane Walk (this session is repeated twice).

Parents, teachers, and blind kids (babies to teens) get hands-on experience in using a cane under the guidance of Joe Cutter, pediatric O&M specialist, and volunteers from the Louisiana Tech/Louisiana Center for the Blind O&M program.

2:00 – 6:00 p.m. Teen drop-in room sponsored jointly by NOPBC and Blind Industries and Services of Maryland (BISM). Supervised games, music, and social activities for all teens.

7:00 – 9:00 p.m. IDEA ’97 and the IEP Process: A drop-in question, information, and resource session. Come by anytime and pick up literature or talk to parents and professionals knowledgeable in the broad range of IEP topics. Marty Greiser, Coordinator.

2:00 – 6:00 p.m. Have Cane, Will Travel. Drop-in anytime discussion group for parents, blind kids, and teachers. Joe Cutter, instructor and discussion leader.

2:00 – 6:00 p.m. Technology Individual Consultations. Co-sponsored by the NOPBC and the NFB in Computer Science Division, blind persons knowledgeable in technology will meet with parents individually to discuss the technology needs of their child. Make appointments by preregistration or sign-up on Sunday, July 1 at the parents seminar. Drop-ins will be taken if we have available volunteers.

2:00 – 4:00 p.m. Braille Your Own Games and Braille Talk. Drop-in and bring games for Braille labeling. Volunteers will also answer questions about Braille and demonstrate slate-writing. Co-sponsored by the National Association to Promote the Use of Braille (NAPUB).

*Note: Preregistration for the NOPBC seminar and workshops is not required.
Preregistration for the NFB Camp (childcare), IS required.

Name(s) of adults_________________________________________________________________________

Address___________________________________ City____________ State______ Zip________________

Phone (H)____________________ (W)___________________ E-mail ______________________________

$___________ The NOPBC Activities Fee is enclosed. Make checks payable to NOPBC.

The NOPBC activities fee includes all NOPBC-sponsored events for parents, children, and youth. This includes workshops, refreshments at the morning family seminar event on Sunday, July 1; refreshments at NOPBC Family Hospitality; the Braille Carnival; the Scavenger Hunts; etc. It also includes membership-at-large in the NOPBC. It DOES NOT include NFB Camp, NFB convention registration, or other workshops or seminars sponsored by other divisions or committees of the NFB.

[ ] Yes, I would like an appointment for a half-hour Technology Consultation on Thursday, July 5

First and Last
Name(s) of child(ren) Birth Date Vision (sighted, blind, etc.) Other disabilities

_During convention week children be-
tween the ages of six weeks and twelve
years are invited to join in the fun and festivities of NFB Camp. NFB Camp offers more than just childcare; it is an opportunity for our blind and sighted children to meet and develop lifelong friendships. Our activity schedule is filled with games, crafts, and special performances designed to entertain, educate, and delight. If you are interested in having your children participate in this year’s program, please complete and return the registration form provided. Preregistration with payment on or before June 15, 2001, is mandatory for participation in NFB Camp. Space is limited and last year some families had to be turned away.

About the Staff: NFB Camp is organized and supervised by Carla McQuillan, the Executive Director of Main Street Montessori Association, operating two schools, parent-education courses, and a teacher-training program. Carla is the mother of two children, the President of the National Federation of the Blind of Oregon, and a member of the Board of Directors of the National Federation of the Blind.

Michelle Ros is this year’s Activities Director for NFB Camp. Michelle is a Montessori teacher employed by Main Street Montessori Association. Carla and Michelle will supervise a staff of experienced childcare workers and volunteers.

Activities and Special Events: The children are divided into groups according to age: infants and toddlers, preschoolers, and school-aged children. Each camp room is equipped with a variety of age-appropriate toys, games, and books; and children will enjoy daily art projects. Blind teens will come in to read stories in Braille, and the National Association of Guide Dog Users will make a presentation. We will sing, dance, and play instruments with blind singer/songwriter Daniel Lamonds. In addition, the school-aged children will make excursions to the Farmers’ Market and the Please-Touch Museum. On the final day of NFB Camp we will conduct a big toy sale—brand new toys at bargain prices.

Banquet Night: NFB Camp will provide dinner and activities during the banquet. The cost for banquet activities is $15 per child in addition to other camp fees.

NFB Camp will be open during general convention sessions, division and committee meeting day, and the evening of the banquet. Plenty of teens are always available to baby-sit during evening and lunchtime meetings. The schedule this year will be as follows:

These times may vary, depending on the timing of the actual convention sessions. NFB Camp will open thirty minutes before the beginning gavel and close thirty minutes after session recess.

Fees: For the entire week (including banquet), first child $80, siblings $60 each. By the day, each child (does not include banquet), $20; banquet, $15 per child.

Child(ren) Information: Include description of any disabilities we should know about.

Reprinted from the January, 2001, issue of the Braille Monitor, the monthly magazine of the National Federation of the Blind.

From the Braille Monitor Editor, Barbara Pierce: Experienced Federationists are always telling new people that they should get to the National Convention if at all possible. Dr. Jernigan wrote that advice to me in 1974 just after I had had my first contact with NFB literature and was eager to establish a new chapter in my area. I had a sneaking suspicion that he was right, but I had three small children, including a young infant, and I didn’t seriously consider getting myself to that summer’s convention in Chicago. I now regret that I missed that convention, but when I showed up the next year, I immediately understood what he had been trying to tell me.

Sometimes the most effective voices in making such recommendations are those who have just experienced their first convention. Carrie Gilmer is the mother of a blind son. The two of them attended the 2000 convention, and life will never be quite the same again. She recounted her experiences in the Summer, 2000, issue of the Minnesota Bulletin, the publication of the NFB of Minnesota. If you have never been to an NFB convention, read what she has to say and see if it persuades you to join us in 2001.

About four years ago I received a phone call from my youngest child’s eye doctor. “Your son is legally blind,” he said. “We think Jordan has a retinal disease, and there is nothing I can do.” In shock I asked some what‑do‑you‑mean questions which he hurriedly answered. He told me he would inform State Services for the Blind and then more or less wished us luck. I hung up the phone realizing our lives had just changed forever. What did I know about blindness besides Helen Keller, bead stringing, and Ray Charles? Not much. I proceeded to cry nonstop for about three weeks.

We had just moved, and after my long cry I went back to the task of unpacking. In one box I found a little book my grandmother had given me. It was written by blind people. I read it and soaked it up. I read about blind lawyers, scientists, parents, teachers—people living normal, happy, fulfilled lives. It gave me hope that our new road in life could be as bright as the old one had looked. I told myself I should learn more about this organization. But I got busy with the here‑and‑now.

Jordan was six months away from kindergarten—the perfect age to learn multiple languages, so we decided he should learn Braille alongside print from the beginning. The school agreed. Soon we had a visit from our SSB [State Services for the Blind] counselor, Curt Johnson. He stressed Braille also. Our doctor had recommended low‑vision devices, and Curt helped us out with that as well as giving us good advice on how to talk about blindness with Jordan.

For nearly three years we went forward, thinking we knew what we were doing and had Jordan’s needs covered. But little leaks in the boat started occurring. We had Braille teachers with different philosophies, P.E. teachers who said he did as well as his sighted peers one week and then sidelined him for safety reasons the next. He didn’t run, and he hated balls. Legally blind? Try and explain legal to a seven‑year‑old.

Then one day Jordan and I were lying on the living room floor. “Are blind people happy?” he blurted out. I realized that we had a long way to go and that we had better start getting there quickly. I recalled the little books I had read and contacted the NFB of Minnesota. Judy Sanders quickly contacted me. She was kind and helpful and even offered to come to Jordan’s school the next week. She stressed the importance of role modeling for Jordan. She also told me that I could learn information in one week at the NFB National Convention that might otherwise take me years to accumulate.

Jordan and I decided to go. Upon checking into the hotel we noticed right away that we were surrounded by hundreds of blind people. There were so many that the perspective changed from noticing who was blind to noticing who wasn’t. That experience lasted all week and was one of the greatest for Jordan. All at once he saw hundreds of people—all colors, ages, shapes, and sizes—traveling, eating, reading, dancing, writing, walking, laughing. And all of them blind to one degree or another. He learned—low‑vision, partial, impaired, legally—it’s okay just to say blind, no explanation necessary.

Jordan used a cane on a scavenger hunt while blindfolded and then kept the cane as a gift. He was told the cane was his third eye on the ground. It would look down so that he could look up. He could stand up straight and walk proudly—not fearfully. “Cool!” he said. He found out for himself that blindness doesn’t have to be the biggest deal in his life.

I learned all this too plus parenting tips, facts and myths about blindness, what a slate and stylus are, the importance of normal expectations, and the need to quit guiding his eyes with my hands. I learned how to make the most of the vision he has now in conjunction with blind techniques when vision fails or is unreliable. We both made lifelong friends. Judy Sanders was right; it would have taken years to accumulate what we received in one week in Atlanta. Biggest convention tip: bring an extra suitcase for all the freebies from the sales vendors! For us, since that convention, it really is a whole new world.

As you have already observed, this issue starts out immediately with a detailed list of upcoming events of interest to parents at the 2001 NFB Convention in Philadelphia. Of course, the events listed are only those sponsored by the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children (NOPBC). There is much, much more to an NFB Convention than what you see listed here! I urge you to check out the April issue of the Braille Monitor when it comes out (check the NFB website at <www.nfb.org> or contact the NFB Center at (410) 659-9314 and request a copy of the April Monitor). That issue will contain descriptions of all the exciting workshops and other events planned by the various NFB divisions and committees. I believe that the 2001 NFB Convention will be one of the best NFB conventions yet! On the other hand, the 2000 NFB Convention was absolutely outstanding and will be hard to beat. Just how hard to beat? Well, read on and judge for yourself. The rest of this issue is devoted to speeches, articles, reports, and photographs from the 2000 NFB Convention. If you were at the 2000 convention, I know you will enjoy having copies of those invigorating and informative speeches you heard to save and share with family and friends. If you did not attend the 2000 Convention, then I hope that what you read here will inspire you to attend the 2001 NFB Convention. As parent Carrie Gilmer said in the previous article, what you can learn in one week at an NFB Convention can otherwise take years to accumulate. I know. I’ve been going for over 20 years, and the experience continues to challenge me and renew me. So, if you do make it to Philly on July 1-7, look me up! I’ll be there!

Editor’s Note: Noel Nightingale, a member of the National Board of the National Federation of the Blind and President of the NFB of Washington, set the tone and philosophical theme for the NOPBC activities in her keynote address at the general session of the 2000 NOPBC Annual Parents Seminar. Here is what Noel had to say about “Asking for Help and Taking Responsibility”:

_Jim, my husband, and I have a friend who I
will call Gemini. He is from the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Africa (formerly, Zaire). He came to this country on a student visa. However, after he had attended college for a year, his country was taken over by a group of rebels. His father was a diplomat who was highly placed in the former government and had to flee the country for his life. No longer receiving financial assistance from his family in Africa, Gemini had no money to pay for school. He dropped out but stayed in the country anyway. Since he was no longer a student, his visa was not valid. He became an illegal alien.

Gemini is a Christian and began staying rent-free in the homes of people in his congregation. He stayed in one place for a few months, then another Christian would take him in. Various church members have been working with him to help him find ways to earn money and to straighten out his immigration status. They also work with him to integrate him into social circles and meet people his own age.

Jim met Gemini when Gemini was about twenty years old and two years after he had dropped out of college. Gemini is a charming person with a sympathetic problem. He does not want to return to his country, which is in turmoil, because he believes that he would be drafted or, more likely, killed (due to his father’s association with the ousted government). He has lost contact with his parents and siblings in Africa. Although he recently began communicating with a sister who lives in France, she does not have the resources to help him.

Jim and I agreed to take Gemini in for two months. We set a strict time frame for his stay and spoke with him about getting his immigration status legalized by applying for political asylum. We found an attorney who was willing to work with him on a pro bono basis and encouraged him to make a plan for his life. But, at the end of two months, Gemini had not made any progress in resolving his immigration status. Although he would always nod his head in agreement, he did not follow through on any of our suggestions for steps he might take. He did not work the entire time he lived with us, and he also did not help around our home. He never offered to wash the dishes, take the garbage out, vacuum the floor, scoop the cats’ litterbox, or do any other tasks that he watched us do on a daily basis.

Two years later (and four years since he dropped out of school), Gemini has not resolved his immigration status. In fact, he has waited so long to address it, he has probably lost any chance of obtaining political asylum. We occasionally see him—he always accepts our offers to take him out to lunch or dinner. He earns some money by tutoring children in French but lives rent-free in a church member’s home. The church member is in her eighties, and her daughter is so fed up with his free-loading that she called Jim to get him to eject Gemini out of her mother’s home (which Jim did not and could not do).

“Accept all help that is offered.” That was the advice I frequently received to endure the first few demanding months after I gave birth to my daughter last year. That is also the precept that Gemini unconsciously lives by. That is also the advice that blind people repeatedly receive. However, unlike the temporary situation of caring for a newborn, the advice is given to blind people throughout their lives. I have noticed a pattern: if taken regularly, accepting this advice, and thus always accepting the help that is offered or available, will have adverse (if unintended) consequences.

The advice to accept all help that is offered is not advice that is ordinarily given in our society. Our culture teaches us that we must be “independent” and not rely on others. We no longer come together to build our neighbor’s barn. Our neighbor builds it himself or pays to have it done. Contrary to our pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps culture, I can think of numerous situations in my daily life in which I am encouraged by others to let them do things for me because I am blind—things that I am capable of doing myself.

On a daily basis, I am encouraged to let someone help me cross the street and encouraged to let someone direct me to my destination. I am encouraged to let someone else open the wine bottle and encouraged to let others pour the wine. I have been asked to accept handouts, solely because I am blind. The expectation that I need more help than my sighted peers is pervasive, and it affects me. Sometimes, out of laziness, I accept that help, knowing perfectly well that I don’t really need it. Then, I feel terrible. I feel marginalized and begin to doubt whether I really could have done it.

Although at times it may not seem like it, there are many systems in place in our society specially designed to help us. These systems include health and welfare, education, rehabilitation, independent living, tax relief programs, social security and other income supports, specialized transportation, various subsidies, reasonable accommodations at work and in public places, and many more. Much of the time, these systems hand us things, without teaching us or enabling us to do for ourselves in the future.

For many who become beneficiaries of those systems, they become experts in squeezing everything they can get out of those systems. When I managed injured workers’ claims for the state Department of Labor and Industries, we had a saying that people who were off work for a long period of time frequently changed professions from Worker to Claimant. Although they do not start out that way, they eventually become professionals at claiming things. Claiming time loss compensation benefits for being off work from their injury, vocational rehabilitation benefits for not being able to resume their former line of work due to their injuries, permanent partial disability benefits for not being able to fully recover from their injuries, pension benefits for not being able to perform any kind of work as a consequence of their injuries, and so on. They spend part of each day sitting on their sofa, picking up the telephone, and calling the claims managers to demand things.

This is a phenomenon not peculiar to blind people, but because we have so many programs designed to help us and so many good people want to help us, it clearly happens to us too. There is something about these systems that encourages us to wring every little bit of benefit or entitlement out of them.

To avoid becoming a Claimant, we must determine when we need to ask for help from systems or people and when we should take responsibility for our own lives. The general rule of thumb, I think, is to first be honest with yourself about whether you really need the help, or whether you could do it yourself, and if the answer is that you do need the help, determine how you could obtain that help in a way that will allow you to do for yourself in the future. I have not always avoided being a Claimant myself, but I can give you two examples in which I did for myself instead of asking for others to do for me and am glad I did so.

First, when I attended law school, I decided not to become a client of our state vocational rehabilitation program. I could have become a client and persuaded the agency to pay for law school. Instead, I took out student loans and paid for the education myself. I figured that the loans were as available to me as they were to my sighted classmates, and I had enough confidence in my employment prospects to believe that I would be able to pay the loans back. However, after law school, when I decided to obtain training in the skills of blindness, I became a vocational rehabilitation client so that the agency could pay for my training (at the Louisiana Center for the Blind). This was a program that cost a lot of money for which loans were not available. However, completing the program would help me maintain my independence and do for myself in the future.

Second, when I obtained my first legal job as a summer associate in a large law firm, I knew that I would need a reader to efficiently do my work. Since I was being paid a lot of money, I decided to pay for my part-time reader out of my wages. In this way, I showed my law firm that I really wanted the job and that I was willing to sacrifice for it. At the same time, I told my law firm that were they to offer me a permanent position, I would need a full-time reader paid for by the firm. But, in what was essentially a training period during which I was not making any money for the firm, I paid for the accommodation. I now work for that law firm and know that my willingness to pay for my reader made a favorable impression. In contrast, one summer associate submitted his dry cleaning bill to the firm for reimbursement because he had spilled on himself while at a work-related lunch (paid for by the firm). He did not receive an offer for permanent employment.

When we do for ourselves, instead of relying on others, we gain the experience and we learn from the doing. We also gain confidence in our abilities, which continues to build each time we take on a new challenge. But if we consistently accept the assistance of others, we fall into a trap of not acquiring the experiences upon which our self–esteem and confidence are built. That is the trap that Gemini has fallen into. Never having to do for himself, his life has become a series of acquiring handouts instead of skills. He is not living up to his potential, and thus his life is mediocre. Unfortunately, I have also observed this pattern with many blind people. Constantly relying on the help of others, they never learn that they can do for themselves. If they were forced to do for themselves, they would learn that they can be creative and adventurous in problem solving; and in doing so, they would acquire skills that would allow them to flourish and live up to their potential.

There is a direct correlation between how much help we accept and how satisfying our lives are. The good news is that the kind of help the National Federation of the Blind offers is the kind that blind people, and parents of blind children, can use to build normal, productive lives. We teach people how to do for themselves: how to live independently and how to pursue their goals.

Scores of parents came to the 2000 NFB Convention in Atlanta eager to learn
from the NFB—and each other—how they can help their blind children, as
Noel said above, “do for themselves” and “live independently.”
Among those families were....

Reprinted from the February 2001 issue of the Braille Monitor, the monthly magazine of the National Federation of the Blind.

Editor’s Note: Seth Leblond, a Maine high school graduate, came to the 2000 NFB Convention as one of the year’s 30 NFB scholarship winners. This was not, however, his first convention or his first experience with the NFB. His parents have been active in the NFB for many years. At the parents seminar in Atlanta Seth took part in a panel presentation by blind young people of various ages. His remarks were very much to the point and contained excellent advice for all parents, but particularly for the parents of blind children. This is what he said:

_Freedom, Rights, Responsibilities: these
are three concepts with which all children
must inevitably become familiar before they may properly enter the world of adulthood as contributing members of society. It is natural for anybody to assume that, since parents are the primary caregivers to their children, parents should be responsible for teaching their children about these basic concepts. But we live in a world in which a good many professionals in the field of work with the blind believe that, since they have been “specially trained” to work with blind children, they are better equipped to raise them than their own parents. Many of them are kind, compassionate, intelligent individuals. Nearly all of them mean well. But all of the courses they may have taken, all of the books they may have read, and all of the warmth they may feel are no substitute for parenting.

Several years ago I attended a seminar for parents of blind children in Massachusetts. During the course of the meeting, a panel of parents and a professional or two in the field of work with the blind assembled to discuss raising blind children. After the members of the panel had made brief speeches, the members of the audience began asking questions. One woman raised her hand and asked in a somewhat frightened voice, “Who’s going to teach my son how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”

I had consciously to keep myself from laughing as I recalled my own first foray into the world of culinary arts, which was, coincidentally, the making of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I could practically see my mother hovering over my shoulder, watching as I flailed my knife around, trying to transfer the sticky peanut butter from the dull blade onto the bread. I remembered her calm voice, filled with amusement, telling me that I would have to clean up the enormous mess I had managed to make all over the counters and cupboards of the kitchen. I remembered painstakingly cleaning up that mess. I remembered how good my peanut butter and jelly sandwich tasted when I finally seated myself and began to eat. I fairly beamed with pride when my mother calmly informed the scared mother at the seminar that she should be the one to teach her son how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

As I got older, I came to realize that life itself is really much like cooking. Nobody in this world lives a perfect life. People, by their very nature, make mistakes, regardless of their background or circumstances. Sometimes we even make enormous messes of things. But it is the way we as individuals deal with our mistakes and clean up our messes that defines us as human beings.

In my experience people often exhibit a strong tendency to make mistakes and then try to place as much blame on factors outside their control as possible, thus diminishing or eliminating the blame due themselves. Since a good portion of the public does not understand blindness in and of itself, it is often extremely easy for us to blame certain of our errors or objectionable actions on our lack of eyesight.

In the spring of 1997 I received a letter from a friend that illustrates the tendency of many sighted members of the public to allow us to do just that. The person who wrote the letter, having been stopped by some friends in the hall of her school, arrived a few minutes late for a class. Ordinarily, this would have been an offense warranting detention at the school in question. However, the teacher informed my friend that she would not, in fact, have to spend any of her time staying after school. Since she was blind, he told her, he could understand why she might be late for class as a matter of course. He would simply overlook the incident. Being a responsible individual, however, my friend told him that she wanted to serve her detention because that is exactly what was expected of her peers. The teacher couldn’t understand, but he let her stay after school at her insistence.

I keep the letter describing this anecdote where I can easily find and read it. It serves as a reminder to me that the blind of the world may never receive equal treatment in society unless we also accept equal responsibility in society. It also serves as a reminder to me that I have at least one truly great and responsible friend.

The question some might ask is, “What’s in it for us?” We as blind citizens clearly have certain responsibilities in society, but what are all these rights I mention? Perhaps Jefferson said it most succinctly at the beginning of the Declaration of Independence when he wrote that “All men are created equal” and are endowed with certain rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Most of us are all too familiar with the stories of blind people denied employment solely because of blindness. We have seen agencies for the blind deliberately try to keep blind clients from choosing their own destiny. The more responsibilities we take, the more quickly will we, the blind of America and of the world, achieve true equality in society. The more we do to help ourselves, the more clearly will the public recognize our potential. As we assert our voices, those few who still seek to repress us will realize that we are not wrong when we say that we are their equals.

So what of your children? What can you tell them? Tell them that they are responsible for dealing with their own mistakes as best they can. Tell them that, whenever they can, they ought to take the responsibility to educate the public about the true abilities of the blind. Tell them to share what they learn about doing this with their colleagues and their children. And, when they make their first peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, make sure they clean up the mess.

Editor’s Note: A few issues ago (Volume 18, Number 2), readers had the opportunity to hear about Hannah’s education from her mother, Jill Weatherd, in the article “Suggestions for Working With Hannah.” At the 2000 NFB Convention, Hannah got a chance to speak for herself. She wrote and read—in Braille, of course—her own speech for a kids’ panel. Here is what she had to say to parents attending the NOPBC Annual Parents Seminar about the “Responsibilities of a Seven-Year-Old.” (Oh, by the way, if you had been wondering who the cute little blind girl was who read the Braille menu in the McDonald’s commercial in 1999, now you know.)

_My name is Hannah Weatherd. I am
seven years old. I’m from Lima,
Montana. I’m in first grade at school. Lima School is kind of small. First and second grades have to be in a room. Third and fourth are in a room. Fifth and sixth are in a room. My jobs at school are line leader, pledge leader, and helper. The helper’s job is to pass out papers and take the milk slip to the office, if we have afternoon milk. Our teacher, Mrs. Schroder, needs someone to water the plants. I was supposed to do that one day but I forgot. There has to be somebody to put the trash in the big trash can and put a new liner in it. They need a first-grader and second-grader to put the forks, spoons, knives, and milk on the table for lunch. We need a librarian to straighten out the books so they won’t be crooked when Mrs. Kluepner is being the helper. I really like four of the jobs the best. I like line leader, emptying the garbage, and I like to be the librarian. At home I empty the kitchen trash. Sometimes I set the table and in the morning I make my bed. I feed our chickens, too. I clean my room. I find money in the washer, and Mom says whoever finds money in the washer gets to keep it. I pick my clothes out every day except Sunday.

I paid for my little brother’s airplane ticket to the NFB convention. I had enough money because I was on a McDonald’s commercial, and I wanted him to come this year. I wanted him to come because he has never been on an airplane before except when he was a baby, and he can’t remember it.

I haven’t decided what I want to be when I grow up. I think I really want to be a postmaster the most.

Editor’s Note: Marlene Culpepper has all the trademark qualities of an exemplary teacher of blind children. She has high expectations for her students, excellent Braille and other blindness skills, and a positive philosophy about blindness. She is a creative and talented teacher, and she has initiative. Not willing for her students to settle for second-best, she goes beyond her job requirements to see to it that they, too, have equal opportunities for a quality education. To top it all, Marlene is also a capable speaker. Her enthusiasm and love for her work inspired everyone in the audience when she gave a presentation at the Annual Parents Seminar in Atlanta on July 1, 2000. Here is an edited version of that presentation:

Marlene Culpepper displays her 2000 Distinguished Educator of Blind Children Award plaque.

_Good morning. I am honored to be here
today to talk to you about the roles,
rights, and responsibilities of those of us who serve blind children in our county. “It takes a village to raise a child.” I’m sure you’ve heard that before. In our case, it takes a concerted effort from parents, from the students themselves, from the teachers that work with the students, and from the administrators who provide the support, in order to put all the things together that are needed so that our children can become independent, capable adults. That is our goal in the Muskogee County, Georgia, school system. Our mission for the school system encompasses all of these things. Our mission statement is: “The Muskogee County School District is committed to the educational experiences that will enable each student to become a life- long learner, enter the workforce with necessary work skills, and achieve academic and personal potential.” This is our goal for all of our children. In order to make that goal a reality for our children who have visual impairments, I have to fulfill certain responsibilities.

We—the teachers—have to strive to help our students become self-sufficient. We have to keep our expectations high and then constantly keep raising them as the children meet their goals. We have to collaborate. The regular education classroom teachers have to work diligently to provide me— the teacher of the visually impaired (TVI)—with the education plans and materials in advance so that we can set the stage for lessons that will include our students and will be meaningful to them. Oftentimes we don’t have to provide a person to assist our students directly if we do enough advance planning so we can provide adapted or modified materials with which they can learn independently. For example, our students receive Brailled report cards and Brailled grades and comments on their papers so that they can read and measure for themselves how they are doing and what they are achieving. In fact, anything that is provided in the classroom for the sighted children—board work, hand-outs, overhead projector slides, etc.—is also provided in Braille for our Braille users. Our teachers work hard to see that this happens.

We have found that a child will become better skilled with the use of the abacus, for example, if the regular education teacher and the TVI teacher work together to plan for repetition and constant use. A regular classroom teacher can encourage the child to use an abacus, for example, during math instruction on a daily basis. This applies to other skills, too.

The regular education teacher can help our blind students to utilize their canes with frequency. It is a requirement in our school that blind students do not leave the classrooms without their canes. The regular education teacher can provide descriptive language of an environment that is constantly changing. They can engage and include the visually impaired student by describing illustrations, by allowing the child with low vision to have preferential seating so that they can see some of the materials if they are able, by explaining routines and board work, by explaining overheads as they are using them, and by describing one-on-one to the blind child what other students are doing. Oftentimes, our children can miss out if we don’t make a concerted effort to let them know what’s going on. “What’s so funny?” “Why are the other children in class laughing?” And teachers can, very discretely and with a sensitive tone, let our children know when what they are doing is not appropriate in the class setting in order to help them function better within the group.

My role as the teacher of the visually impaired is constantly changing depending upon the needs of my students. In fact, I was a preschool teacher for years and when I first assumed this position my focus and my number one goal at the time was to learn, or relearn, all of the Braille skills that I had learned in college but had not utilized in years. That included getting to know the Nemeth Code and becoming familiar with teaching the abacus. Later, I had to learn all the commands that are necessary to utilize JAWS, and how to work a Braille ’n Speak adequately. With Heather, one of my current students, I’ve had the opportunity to learn Braille music. The children guide me as far as what it is that I need to be learning and doing as their needs change.

I have to observe what’s going on with my students in the regular class and throughout the school day and respond to their needs whether they be socialization needs, mobility needs, or needs for better or different planning and instruction. So my role is first to learn and then to teach.

My primary job responsibility is, of course, to teach the students the blindness skills that they will need to be successful. For example, I’ve had children who don’t appreciate reading, but we still require them to read. At our school we have a reading log that all parents must complete. All students have to read a certain number of minutes per day. When they make progress, we point out to them how their skills have improved and what they have achieved. We impose these expectations upon them so that, once they realize they can meet these goals, they will expect more of themselves.

Children need more than academic skills in order to be successful, so I also teach, for example, socialization skills and organizational skills. I discuss with them how to maintain and establish conversations with peers. I teach them how to manage all of their materials within a classroom; how to be accountable for homework, for class work, for planning the pace of projects, and for getting projects done; how to ask for help when it’s needed; and how to utilize a reader. All of these things are skills that I consider my responsibility to teach them before they graduate from high school. Hopefully, they will then be able to utilize these skills to live independently.

I also have the responsibility to work hard to keep the lines of communication open with parents and with other teachers. Oftentimes that involves hearing things we don’t necessarily want to hear, digesting it, and then reacting appropriately. For example, shortly after I first took my current job, a parent, Mrs. Jones, came to me, and she said something that I imagine was really hard for her to say. She said, “Marlene, there are mistakes in Heather’s Braille work. I don’t think there should be mistakes.” That was hard to hear. I was struggling to learn the Braille code and my paraprofessionals were struggling along with me. But we didn’t brush it off. As a result, we created a system of checks and balances. Even though we use computer software and a Braille embosser (printer) to produce our Braille work, nothing goes to the children unless it’s checked by a person other than the one who created it. This doesn’t eliminate all the mistakes that can possibly occur, but it does minimize them tremendously.

Children can become better Braille readers and writers if the material
that they have to use is adequate. We strive to achieve the same standard
that is used for sighted children
with their print materials.

Heather Hammond (center) with her mother Donna Jones and NFB President
Dr. Marc Maurer at the 2000 convention. Heather is one of Mrs. Culpepper’s students, and her mother nominated Marlene for the Distinguished
Educator Award.

My other role is to ask the “village” to help in the education of our blind students. I think that our children can become independent, self-sufficient, capable adults, but along the way we must have help from a lot of people to provide the materials that they need. So, one of the roles I have taken upon myself is to go out and present the community with our needs. When we started our mini-magnet visually impaired program in Columbus a few years ago, we realized that we didn’t have sufficient leisure reading material for our children. We had plenty of Braille writers and Braille paper. We had technology, but what we didn’t have were Braille storybooks in the library. At the time I was in the mentor-teacher program operated by the AFB (I needed a lot of mentoring, then. I didn’t know what I was doing, to be quite honest.) Anyway, I contacted my mentor teacher, who was in Florida, and I said, “I don’t have any library books. What do I do?” She said, “Well, look on the Internet. Find out in your community if there are any Braille books for you to utilize.” I did. Our public library had some Braille books that had been sitting around that some people didn’t even know were there. They sent those to us. She put me in contact with a group called the Temple Sisterhood Braille Transcribing Group. Those Braille transcribers told me that in between textbook production they had time to transcribe books for our program if I would send them the paper and tell them what titles I wanted.

Then one day I met a man from the Lion’s Club. He was selling brooms for the club outside Sam’s. I said, “What do you do for the children in our community?” He said, “Well, we don’t know any blind children in our community right now. Tell us more.” And I did. I explained our needs to them. I said, “We have children who are just learning to love reading, and they need books to read.” The club gave us four hundred dollars to buy paper. We sent that paper to the Temple Sisterhood Braille Transcribers, and they sent us books. The next year they said, “Was that enough? Would you like some more? I said, “Yes. We need more books.” This time we went to Seedlings and bought books.

We now have about four hundred Braille books in our school library. Our blind children can go to the library with their sighted peers and check out a new book every time they visit. That’s an incredible opportunity for our children. Not just to improve their reading abilities but also to develop their self-esteem. The books we selected are on the accelerated reader list because our school feels very strongly about the use of the accelerated reading program. Our children take accelerated readers tests. They utilize JAWS in order to do it. We buy and produce books that are within our test list so that we can measure their reading comprehension.

We have now tapped into some other sources for Braille books. We have been getting monthly free Braille books from the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults Free Braille Books Program. [Editor’s Note: The book series currently offered through this program are Nancy Drew^®, The Nightmare Room, and the Little House Chapter Books.] We also get free Braille books from the Braille Institute program. They offer three books per child every four months. You choose from a catalog of different books everytime. Well, we have four Braille-using students, so we get three books per month per child or forty-eight books a year from the Braille Institute and three books every month in the year from the American Action Fund, which gives us thirty-six books from them. That’s a lot of books in one year—eighty-four—for free! They are fantastic titles. If you have not had the opportunity to visit their web sites or to contact them, please do so. [Editor’s Note: Contact the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults at 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21230, (410) 659-9314 ext. 361, <www.actionfund.org>. The Braille Institute can be contacted at 1-800-272-4553.]

We have received not only all of the books we need through help from the community but also donations of technology. We have written grants in order to provide our children with the Braille ’n Speaks that they need and district licenses for JAWS so they can have JAWS in their homes. The local Lion’s Club just donated computers to two of our children, and we have two children who received a thousand dollars each towards the purchase of a Braille embosser from the County’s Midnight Run. All of these things will help these children to develop their skills and their independence. To me that is imperative that they walk out of our school with the skills to produce independently their own work when they go to college and that they also have the materials with which to do it.

Which brings me to my final comments about the roles and responsibilities of a TVI. It is my job to instill in my students an attitude of self-sufficiency.

It is my job to instill in my students an attitude of self-sufficiency.

I have very high expectations of my students, and I hold them accountable for a whole lot, whether it be communication, keeping up with their work, showing initiative, or asking for help when it’s needed. I also feel it is my responsibility to open their eyes to what jobs and professions are available to them as adults. For that reason I read a lot to my children from Future Reflections and the Braille Monitor because I believe that this organization—the NFB—provides a tremendous number of examples of blind and visually impaired people who are successful, who are capable as professionals and as parents.

I believe that this organization—the NFB—provides a tremendous number of examples of blind and visually
impaired people who are successful, who are capable as professionals
and as parents.

One of my students is a fourth grade honors student. He was sitting doing math with me one day, and he said, “You know, Ms. Culpepper, this school stuff just ain’t for me.” I said, “Well, if it isn’t for you, I want you to understand one thing. I’ve been your teacher since preschool, and I’ll be your teacher through high school. The day that I hear that you don’t have a job, that you have chosen to stay home and receive a disability check, that is the day that I will be at your door at eight o’clock in the morning. I will lay on the horn until you come out, and once you are out, I will drag you to the car, and I will take you to a job, and I will make sure that you show up for that job. I will not teach you for twelve years just to have you stay at home.”

I think that by making those expectations clear, he can re-evaluate his expectations for himself. I told this story to his mom, and she just laughed. She said, “That’s true. I appreciate what you said.” The attitude behind my student’s comment is not an attitude we need to develop in the fourth grade or any grade. School is for everybody no matter what their ability is. We can all learn. And, that, finally is my ultimate responsibility: to facilitate that learning for every one of my blind and visually impaired students.

Editor’s Note: Joe Cutter, Pediatric Orientation and Mobility (O&M) Specialist, New Jersey Commission for the Blind, is a “professional” in the best and most noble sense of the word. He is also one of the most truly humble people I know. He never feels he is above learning something new from his students, their parents, blind adults, or fellow professionals. Joe regularly attends National Federation of the Blind (NFB) conventions and freely shares his knowledge and expertise with parents and teachers. He makes presentations, gives group workshops, and voluntarily consults one-on-one with any parent who approaches him with a problem. The following article is an edited version of the speech he gave at the 2000 Annual Parents Seminar at the NFB Convention in Atlanta, Georgia:

_I know of no better place to come than the
NFB and the National Organization of Par-
ents of Blind Children (NOPBC) to hear about, be informed about, and learn about your roles, rights, and responsibilities. I know of no other venue that respects and values these three R’s more than the NFB.

There is a Chinese proverb that says: “To know the way ahead ask those coming back.” The richness of human resources in this room today and at this convention all week will provide you with much fuel for thought and action in meeting your child’s requirements on the road toward independence. The positive role modeling, the rights that have been established by the individual and collective power of this NFB movement, and the personal responsibilities that have been taken by persons at this convention can provide you with comfort, confidence, hope, and skills as you travel the road ahead with your child.

There is an interconnectiveness between these three R’s. Your role as a parent gives you rights that come with responsibilities. For example, you have a need to know about blindness and a right to information about it. You have a need for training for yourself and your child on the skills of blindness. This information and training will facilitate your role and responsibilities as your child’s first teacher. At this convention a few years ago a learned gentleman from India told me, “The mothers lap is the child’s first classroom.” No one will have a greater impact on your child’s development than you, the parent.

Two-and-a-half year-old Mikaella Besson of Massachusettes (right) has many adventures with her new cane at the 2000 convention.

I would like to talk more about your right to information and training. You have a right to clear, reliable, and useful information. As a parent you are vulnerable to reading inaccurate information and misconceptions about blindness in the form of unreliable research about blind children. Much of the time this information will be with a negative perspective. Be careful what you read! It may leave you functionally illiterate about the true nature of blindness. At the worst, such material will leave you with less hope and less motivation. At the best, it’s like a mixed-up math problem from when you were a kid: Mary has three apples and Sally has four apples, so how many miles is it to Detroit? You scratch your head and think, “What?” You’re left not knowing what to do with what you read (or heard, for that matter) about blindness and your child.

Therefore, you have a right to read about and hear about a positive perspective about blindness. It is my responsibility as an O&M professional to never take away hope, to do no harm by promoting unreliable practices, but rather to nurture your role with your child. To develop, along with you, options and opportunities for your child. And it is my responsibility to advocate with you in what, sometimes, is a formidable structure of misinformation and misguided practices in the education of blind children today, particularly in the field of O&M. (More about this point later.)

You have a right to training: the “what” and “how” of O&M—or as I have come to know it through my involvement with the NFB—independent movement and travel. I am talking about training that is concerned with skills and skill proficiency and not the endless readiness and remediation for these skills. Training that respects early use of cane travel with the young blind child. Training in what I like to call the really long, long cane. The best way to learn how to use a cane is not with a pre-cane (you know, those PVC pipe, rectangular, push devices). The pre-cane will only slow down your child’s movement and make them vulnerable to not learning age-appropriate movement and travel skills. No, the best way for your child to develop cane skills is for your child to hold a cane in the hand and use it.

The best way for your child to develop cane skills is for your child to hold a cane in the hand and use it.

An unnecessary so-called readiness curriculum serves only the professional who uses it and, I believe, is used only by O&M professionals who haven’t learned the techniques for teaching long cane skills to the very young blind child.

How much independence and freedom can a young blind teen expect to enjoy at NFB Conventions? Wayne Pearcy of Texas, who got his first cane when he was two, is as mobile and independent as his sighted teen peers at the 2000 convention.

It has been my experience that the most misguided information parents get concerning O&M is about the method of sighted guide. It is not the practice in itself that is the problem but the misuse and abuse of it at home and school. All too often parents and classroom teachers are left with the idea that the child should do most of his or her traveling off the arm of another person. What the child learns, then, is how to observe someone else’s movement and not his or her own movement. Everything they experience about moving in the outdoor community and in the school is dictated and directed by someone else—the person guiding them—and they never get the opportunity to practice self-directed movement skills with a long cane.

Now, this is so, I believe, because the traditional university programs preparing O&M instructors for the field place an overemphasis upon this singular skill. It is the first skill taught for indoor and outdoor travel. There are pages and pages demonstrating the technique in the textbook curriculum and hours and hours in the practicum experience for the student learning to become an O&M professional. You will not find this singular skill overemphasized and over-utilized at the O&M program at Louisiana Tech under the direction of Dr. Ruby Ryles. Instead, in this program the students preparing to be O&M instructors use valuable time learning about a full compliment of independent cane-based travel skills, the real skills of blindness.

It is my thinking, based upon years of experience in the field, that the sighted guide technique has become “filler” in the curriculum and practice of the traditional trained O&M instructor. They do not know how to move forward with the skills of blindness that are promoted by the blindness community, blind travel instructors, and the NFB. Instead they fill the curriculum with sighted guide practice, and your child pays the price of sighted guide overload on a day-to-day basis. The blind child doesn’t need filler. Feed your child sirloin steak not hamburger helper!

The next point I would like to make about training is that if your child is partially sighted he or she has the right to sleepshade (blindfold) training. Such training develops confidence in using the alternative (non-visual) techniques of touch, smell, and sound. Your child cannot develop full confidence in blindness-based travel skills if they are still relying mostly upon 10 percent or less of typical vision. This will produce doubt, stress, and a tentative style to their travel. The often-used argument against sleepshade training is that the student will go back to using their vision once the sleepshade is off. This is of course true, but what these naysayers don’t take into account is that the person will now use his or her vision with greater confidence and with better judgement about when to use their vision and when to use the non-visual technique. They will have new options and trust in using these options. It’s about developing good judgement.

Blind role models are important to young cane users. The Cane Walk, Youth
Scavenger Hunt, and Braille Carnival at the 2000 Convention provided many role modeling opportunities. In the photo
above, Sheila Koenig gives some gentle
hand-under-hand cane instruction to
Winona Brackett at the Braille Carnival.

Remember how I told you earlier that you are your child’s first teacher? Well, as your child’s teacher you have the right to help train the other professionals and educators in your child’s life. You are the child’s most natural resource. The more clear, reliable, and useful information you have about blindness, the more persuasive you can become in advocating for your child. Your information will be confidence based. (The word confidence comes from “con-fidos” which means “with truth.”)

Along with the parents of blind children in your state, you can work toward making a better life for your child and other blind children. An excellent example of this is in my own state of New Jersey. A decade or so ago Carol Castellano, Vice President of NOPBC and President of the Parents Division of New Jersey, informed, persuaded, educated, and trained me well. It was a gentle, one-on-one education. She worked with other parents in her state, and together they are making a difference. Some of these parents are here at this convention. Valerie and Ed Ryan, Amy Kaiser, and Donna Panaro.

This September the New Jersey Parents of Blind Children will conduct a teacher training workshop for classroom teachers. Carol works closely with Joe Ruffalo, President of the NFB of New Jersey, to make these kinds of training opportunities happen. Together they have positively influenced the quality of life in New Jersey for blind persons. I have learned much from Joe and Carol. They—parent and blind adult—have taught me to be a better professional, a better person. There is truly an educational revolution developing in the field of education of blind children, and the NFB is leading the way.

The blind child—your child—has the right to freedom of movement, the joy of movement, and the confidence that comes with self-directed movement. They have the right to take responsibility for their own movement and to practice and master the skills of blindness. It is your right, your role, and your responsibility to teach your child; and I—as the professional—have the responsibility to support, facilitate, and join you in this effort. And together we can be very formidable and persuasive in contributing to positive outcomes in independent movement and travel for blind children.

Editor’s Note: Do you remember your first adolescent love? Do you remember the breathless, giddy joy; the stomach-clenching angst—and the terror that your parents will make a big deal about it, or even TELL other people that you have a boy/girl -friend? If you do, then I don’t have to explain why the author of this article asked to remain anonymous, or why she asked that the names be changed to protect the guilty—oops, “innocent” parties! But before I give too much away, here is “Anonymous” to tell us her story about “Convention Magic”:

I remember the first time I witnessed Con-vention Magic. It was at National Convention. The day’s sessions were over. Several parents from my state were relaxing in a restaurant in the Dallas Airport Hilton. The son of one of the parents came breezing up to our table, brand new NFB long white cane in hand.

“Mom, I’m going to go have dinner with Al. I’ll be back in about two hours.”

“But, Winston, I don’t know where I’ll be in two hours. And where will you be? Where would we meet?”

“Don’t worry about it, Mom. I’ve got a key. I’ll see you back in the room later.”

Now this exchange would not have been out of the ordinary in any way, except that before this day Winston had never ventured off anywhere on his own. In fact, though he was totally blind, he had hardly even used a cane before. Now, he’d already been gone half the day and suddenly he was on his way out to dinner with a new-found friend.

The heady feeling of independence that Winston’s mom was experiencing—Wow, I’m free! I don’t have to take care of my kid!—was palpable. My daughter was several years younger than Winston. Would there ever come a day when I would be able to sit casually in a restaurant while my child just went out?

As the years—and the conventions—went on, I saw Convention Magic manifest itself many times. In the relatively small and safe environment of our NFB State Convention hotels, I watched kids who had simply never gone anywhere on their own get the urge to go and explore. Elevators, escalators, soda and ice machines—all were great motivators. I watched as one boy decided to go up to his room on his own. He made it. A girl located a friend at the foot of the escalator. The whole gang of our almost-teen-agers found their way to somebody’s room for snacks, a movie, and a pillow fight.

But this past year, at NFB National Convention, Convention Magic cast its gentle spell over my kid. We hadn’t seen her since lunchtime. She was hanging out in the Teen Room while my husband, John, and I attended the Resolutions Committee meeting. John started toward the back of the room for a drink of water but quickly came racing back.

“What is it?” I asked as we hurried toward the back of the room. Then I saw it. Framed in the doorway of the ballroom was our daughter standing head to head with a young man about her age—sixteen. They seemed engrossed in conversation and every so often, the boy moved his arm up to Belinda’s shoulder and rested it there a moment.

I was shocked. Belinda had never even flirted with a boy before, never mind let one touch her! Fighting back the wild urge to tell him to keep his no good, dirty hands off my daughter, I walked over and casually said, “Hi, Belinda. What’s up?”

“Oh, hi Mom. We came in here to see if we could find you and Dad. We’re going over to the Mock Trial, and I wanted to let you guys know where I’d be.”

“So, where’s the Mock Trial being held?” I asked. “You guys know where you’re going?”

“Okay,” we agreed hesitantly. “We’ll come and find you in the Mock Trial room when it’s over.”

I have to admit my husband and I couldn’t resist following the pair, first to make sure they got to the room all right and then to see what the heck they were doing. We peeked in, oh, only five or six times.

They were fine. They were sitting there listening, talking, laughing. Looked pretty normal. Looked pretty good. Every once in a while their heads leaned in toward one another’s.

We were back at the dot of seven to pick Belinda up. The following conversation ensued.

(AND HOW WOULD THIS CASANOVA HAVE FOUND OUT THAT MY DAUGHTER HAS SMALL HANDS?????)

The next day Belinda got to discover another typical teen-age experience—teen angst. She had been hanging out in the Teen Room with a girlfriend the day that she met HIM. When Belinda and Michael decided to go to the Mock Trial, Belinda invited Laura along. Laura, convinced that she was definitely third-wheel status, rather dramatically refused. Belinda left with Michael.

Later, back in the room, we found an emotional message from Laura on our tape, expressing her distress that Belinda had ditched her for a guy. Overcome with guilt, Belinda called Laura back to beg her forgiveness. Alas, no one was in the room, and Belinda had to leave a message. ALL NIGHT LONG, through dinner, through our evening activities, through getting ready for bed, John and I listened to Belinda’s anguished laments. “Will she forgive me? I really didn’t mean to leave her out. I asked her to come. It’s not my fault she wouldn’t come. She could have come with us. I’m so sorry. Will she forgive me?”

I am happy to report that Belinda’s apology was accepted and the two friends went out for ice cream the next day.

That evening, one more sweet thing happened. Belinda and I were sitting in a computer meeting when I happened to notice Michael come in and sit down in the back of the room. “Belinda,” I whispered, “Michael is here. Why don’t you go back and say hello.”

I pointed Belinda in Michael’s general direction and heard her calling his name in order to locate him. You should have seen how his face lit up when he heard her voice and realized it was Belinda. Wow, a boy lighting up over my girl’s presence. That was a pretty sight.

Could these events have happened elsewhere? I guess they could have. But they didn’t. They happened at the NFB Convention, the place where our kids can venture out, taste some independence, try out a few skills, and have new experiences—all with thousands of blind people around to provide help and inspiration!

Reprinted from the November, 2000, issue of the NFB magazine, the Braille Monitor.

From the Braille Monitor Editor, Barbara Pierce: For many years now Ruby Ryles has been an integral part of the National Federation of the Blind. Early on in her son’s life we helped the Ryles family discover the truth about blindness for themselves. In return Ruby has taught blind children creatively and optimistically. She has earned a Ph.D. including powerful research about the importance of acquiring Braille at an early age. And in recent years she has turned her dedication and talent to the field of orientation and mobility. She addressed the 2000 NFB Convention on July 7. It was late in the day, and delegates were beginning to anticipate the excitement of the banquet to come. But when Ruby came to the podium, she immediately captured the attention of the audience and never lost it. This is what she said:

_This afternoon I want to tell you about one
of the most exciting things going on in
this organization or in the field of blindness. But before I tell you what all the excitement is about, I want to take a few moments to share with you why I am doing what I do at Louisiana Tech University and the Louisiana Center for the Blind. In nine days it will have been exactly twenty-six years since the happiest day of my life. In the early morning hours of July 16, 1974, our long awaited, beloved son was born. He was absolutely beautiful, and I knew from the moment the nurse laid him in my arms that he was, of course, brilliant beyond any other child ever conceived. I have never since known the joy I felt in those early morning hours twenty-six years ago.

That summer, on the twenty-first of August, five weeks later, the doctor delivered the news—our beloved five-week-old son was blind. How could that be? Like everyone else, I knew all about blindness through movies I’d seen and songs and stories in Reader’s Digest and even the Bible, but I had never known anyone who was blind. He just couldn’t be blind.

The doctor said I should take him to New York City for more tests. During one of the breaks between the tests I wanted to get away from the hospital and its dreary, confining atmosphere, so I put my precious little one in a stroller and went for a walk down the crowded, busy Manhattan streets. It felt good just to be out in the sunshine and in the activity of busy people coming and going from all those buildings, until I came to the corner to cross a street.

There, not far from the corner, sitting on a sort of retaining wall, was a rather disheveled, unshaven man with his arm outstretched, holding a battered tin measuring cup with a few yellow pencils in it. But, you know, it wasn’t the beggar, his cup, or his pencils that took my breath away—it was what was around his neck. Across his chest, hanging from a discolored leather strap, was a rectangular piece of wood. Someone had taken the tool from one of those old wood-burning kits and written on that piece of wood. Across his chest, burned into the wood—and into my heart—was the word: “BLIND.” I know you could have heard my heart break. I did.

Dr. Ruby Ryles, Coordinator,
Louisiana Tech University/Louisiana Center for the Blind Orientation and Mobility Master’s Program.

My feet seemed to be made of lead and my eyes began to blur with tears as I turned to cross the street. The sorrow and the welling fear I felt for my baby’s future were so intense that it is even hard to describe it now. I stepped into the crosswalk to cross the street and must have been moving more slowly than the other pedestrians because people were passing me in that crosswalk. As I neared the other side of the street, a pedestrian moved by me, and, even through my tears, I couldn’t help noticing him. He was tall and slender and wore a tailored gray suit and expensive shoes. At his side he carried a briefcase and walked with a sense of purpose that conveyed an air of definitive professionalism. I watched as his cane touched the curb, and he never broke stride as he hurried through the large doors of an impressive building adorned with glass and polished brass.

I stood on the corner with tears drying on my face, but in the noise, the heat, the crowded street I didn’t understand what had just happened. I don’t know when I really figured it out—probably eight or nine years later when I met Jim Omvig, Joanne Wilson, Kenneth Jernigan, Marc Maurer, and hundreds of others who have crossed that street in life. That hot summer day in the space of the few seconds it took to get to the other corner, not only had the light changed, but forever in my heart what it meant to be blind had changed.

Twenty-six summers have come and gone, and recently in the infamous southern sunshine of Louisiana things came full circle. I now run a master’s degree program in Orientation and Mobility at Louisiana Tech University and the Louisiana Center for the Blind in Ruston, Louisiana. Among our many projects is a new certification for orientation and mobility instructors—a certification based on performance and understanding of blindness rather than academic assumptions. Such an undertaking obviously demands copious amounts of, not only time, but also patience and dedication to the cause that such a project represents.

On a summer day two weeks ago seven professionals in the field of Orientation and Mobility met to pilot two sections of this new O&M certification document. Six of the seven professionals were experienced Orientation and Mobility professionals, and five were blind. We were working, four in a group, on the streets of Monroe, Louisiana. Several hours into our work I noticed a disheveled, unshaven blind man and his equally disheveled sighted companion, pushing him along the sidewalk. As they approached us from the opposite corner of the block, it was particularly the man’s cane that caught my eye. It was the folding aluminum type, badly bent, and held together at the joints by duct tape. He presented a dismal image to the world indeed. He approached our group, proclaimed his sad plight, and asked for money. One of the group stayed behind to talk to him for a moment, then the two blind men parted ways, and my friend hurried on to the corner to catch up with the rest of us. I felt an old memory stir—a memory when for me blindness meant sorrow and fear of the future—feelings long since obliterated by the years of association with dynamic blind professionals and friends in the National Federation of the Blind.

We were all actually too busy to pay much attention to the brief encounter, but in the days since I’ve thought of the completed circle that the scene represented. And it feels great!

I’ve told you a story of how I personally came to the Federation corner. Now let me share with you what we at Louisiana Tech University and the Louisiana Center for the Blind are doing on that corner.

In the fall of 1996 a longtime dream of many Federationists began to materialize when Louisiana Rehabilitation Services in cooperation with Louisiana Tech University and the Louisiana Center for the Blind received RSA funding to start an innovative university master’s degree program to train orientation and mobility instructors. For many years competent blind people have been effectively shut out of the university training programs for orientation and mobility. Mainly because of the ADA many university programs now accept blind O&M students; but because of the field’s long history of opposition to the idea of blind mobility instructors, university O&M-training programs have no earthly idea how a skilled blind