When Debbie was about 3 years old, she was bouncing on my lap and she hit my
left eye, (the good eye with the better vision which had been decreasing slowly
but consistenly for the 27 years that I'd been alive. The eye ruptured. The
sight was gone. The next morning, I went to the hospital for emergency surgery.
The eye was repaired, but the vision did not return. That left my right eye,
with very little vision. But oh how important that vision became. I remember
that for months and months, I would keep closing my right eye and comprehend,
once again, the unbelievable fact that I could see nothing out of that left
eye. I've been seeing out of a tiny pinhole in a cataract in that right eye
which has no macular, and has glaucoma and a few other problems I can't even
remember and now a white haze is slowly taking over. The fact that I can read
braille and use a screen reader and Magic at 22X isn't one bit comforting, nor
Is the fact that many people whom I've cared for deeply, were and are totally
blind and that they can do stuff that I never could. Being partially sighted is
being neither fish nor fowl, but its own special hell.
Miriam. .
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Abby Vincent
Sent: Friday, July 14, 2017 5:22 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Blind Man in a Hotel Room
As a lifelong partial, my relationship with totals and with education
professionals was inconsistent and often confusing. I was taught to type on a
large print typewriter and given what large print books were available. I
never went there, but my family investigated a sight saving class in the
Bronx. One day someone asked "saving your sight for what?" Then a very
primitive CCTV and some reading glasses appeared. I spent that summer reading
"Gone With the Wind", The Caine Mutiny", and "To Kill a Mockingbird".
I've found that when people think I'm blind, they are relieved when they
find out I can see something. This contributed to my own fear of going totally
blind. At night I can see lights, but they don't light anything. Even this
useless information is somehow better than going total. I've been around
totals and see that they do have ways of doing things. That doesn't help. It
does help to know that fear of total blindness doesn't come from my mind
alone. It's out there, and there maybe a way to confront it collectively.
Abby
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2017 5:16 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Blind Man in a Hotel Room
Hi Miriam and All,
Right. Initially I was heavily influenced by the NFB philosophy. As time
passed and I became convinced that the NFB's approach was too heavily weighted
toward teaching every student to behave as if they were totally blind, I began
to modify how our OTC incorporated residual vision into the total training
package. Our Commission director, Ken Hopkins, and our OTC director, Don
Brown, were both mentored by Ken Jernigan. While I had been influenced
initially by Jacobus tenBroek's speeches in the collection, "The Man and the
Movement", I became fast friends with Hopkins, and while he was Commission
Director, I followed his lead.
Ken Hopkins was, and still is, a keen mind. Both he and I have come some
distance from that old hard nosed party line. But after saying that, I hasten
to remind you that societal conditions are some different today for blind
people than they were fifty and more years ago. Nonetheless, my position
continues to be that eyesight is such a dominant sense that if we don't
initially remove it, and its temptations, we will have a significant reduction
in assisting low vision people to become as independent and competent as they
need to become in order to compete with the sighted population.
But in discussing this with prospective students, I would stress that the end
result must include all of our senses. I do believe that in the long run the
NFB's focus on teaching "Blindness Skills", and ignoring how to incorporate all
of our senses, was a road block to large numbers of low vision people who could
have had a far more successful experience. Still, I feel some need to remind
you that the hard nosed approach was appropriate under the conditions in the
30's, 40's, 50's, and even through the 70's. With more understanding teachers,
students are not measured by how much sight they have.
Techniques are much more insightful. Honesty is the best policy, and those
teachers understanding that are developing some amazing students. As far as I
am concerned, there will still be great chasms between the Blind and the
Sighted Worlds, but there continues to be an ever growing understanding toward
those of us who do not conform.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/13/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Sounds like the NFB line. But when you have a bit of vision, setting
it aside during a period of the day for training purposes is, I think,
artificial because the natural response is to use vision when you have
it and that's what you'll do for the remainder of the day. So I would
hel people use their tiny bit of vision to its great advantage while,
at the same time, providing all the other skills as enhancements and
backup. When the time comes that your vision doesn't do the job, you
turn to those other skills and sharpen them. I never would have been
motivated to learn braille until I really needed it to make reading
books and writing notes to myself, easier. I remember being in
Spearfish South Dakota at that University's VIP Program for two weeks
one summer in the early 90's. It was like a blind version of the Elder
Hostel Program. Anyway, there were people there with partial vision
equivalent to mine, and some whose vision was better than mine. And
what was shocking to me was that they had never been encouraged to use
the vision they had. They functioned as if they had much less, or none
at all. I remember a social worker, much younger than I. We were at an
American Indian Center, and a sacred mountain was being described to
us where people went to worship. It was right outside a huge picture
window where we were standing. This social worker, a member of our
group, was turned somewhat away from the window. I knew she had some
vision, enough to see that mountain so I asked her if she wanted to
see the mountain that was being described. "Oh yes", she said. Could I
see it? I just told her to turn around and where to look and she was
so delighted. But had I not told her where to look, she wouldn't have
tried. That sort of thing kept happening throughout that two weeks. The
staff, just lovely faculty from the University, always acted as if none of us
could see anything.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2017 3:48 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Blind Man in a Hotel Room
Vision loss is a very personal thing. Each of us come with different
personalities, different sorts of vision loss, different points in our
lives when it occurs, different expectations, different support...or
lack of support, different health concerns, different skills, and very
different abilities to adapt to blindness or severe vision loss.
For many folk, when they first lose vision, it is important to them to
tell everyone exactly what is going on in their eyes. When I taught
an Attitude Class in the orientation and training center, at some
point early on, I would suggest that we go around the room and tell
the class whatever we wanted to share regarding our eyes and how we felt it
impacted our lives.
When we were finally finished, I would say something like, "Okay, you
can see how we are quite different in how much we see, and how we feel about
it.
But one thing we do have in common. We have lost enough vision that
the world will look upon us as Blind. And since the world, the
sighted world, is not informed enough to understand just what we can
do, and not do, it falls upon us to be their teachers." I would
continue...as is my long winded habit, and tell the students, "You may
have the flu, or a diabetic reaction, and I might excuse you from
class or some specific task, but never, never, never use your vision
loss as an excuse. Since most blind people have some usable sight, be
thankful for what you are able to see.
But we are going to set aside your remaining sight and learn to trust
your other senses. Especially those senses that are still fully up and
running.
Today you are all depending upon eyesight that is iffy at best, and
could get you into a real jam. But by sharpening your remaining
senses, learning to rely on them, you will find that at the end of
this program you will use whatever sight you have, as an enhancement."
Without training, without positive direction, suddenly going from
decent vision to drastically altered vision can be immobilizing.
Reminding them that anything worth having is worth working for, these
new students roll up their sleeves and begin upon a journey of hard
work, lasting from 6 to 9 months.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/13/17, Bonnie L. Sherrell <blslarner@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I have been seeing better in my left eye than my right eye for years,
and often what I see with my right eye simply gets totally
overwritten by what's seen by the left one.
If Mr. Keillor has deteriorating vision in the eye that didn't get
operated upon, then I find myself wondering if they didn't operate on
the proper eye!
By the way--am going to collect my new glasses prescription today.
Was told the glasses would be ready next Monday, so the optician must
have worked his behind off to get these done to return to Costco
yesterday afternoon! I'll see how well I see out of my right eye
now, although the prescription is becoming so strong what I see
through the right lens tends to make things look VERY small anymore.
Bonnie L. Sherrell
Teacher at Large
"Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even
the very wise cannot see all ends." LOTR
"Don't go where I can't follow."
We gave the Goblin King control of our nation!