What sort of education do we want for blind children?

 

In talking about the education, or lack thereof, of our blind children, it seems to me that we skip over a basic question.  What is it that we are wanting to teach blind children? 

Do we mean that we want them to be able to compete in the world with sighted people?  This seems to be what we are saying when we debate the benefits of residential schools versus public schools, wondering if one system is superior over the other in preparing our children to compete equally in the sighted community. 

We teach the blind child that they must become competitive to sighted people in order to be successful in life. 

Often we teach much more by what we do not say than by what we think we are teaching. 

What message is the blind child really getting when he/she is constantly being compared to the sighted?  Of course blindness is going to be seen as inferior and undesirable and a curse. 

I have a cousin who is an Albino.  Even legally blind he is a clever artist and also a talented musician.  But whenever family gathered my aunt would parade my cousin out and exclaim, "Don't you think Ron's hair is getting darker?  Look at his eyes, they're actually turning blue!"  My aunt wanted so much for my cousin to be just like the other children. 

So what do you think this did to my cousin's self image?  As young adults we both worked in a drapery factory.  We were eating lunch one day and discussing our futures. I had been going on at some length when my cousin said, "That's all and good for you.  You're not a freak!" 

Without ever knowing it my aunt had programmed her son to believe that being Albino was akin to being a Freak. 

Is this what we are doing to our blind children? 

Try harder my little dears, you can become just like the sighted children. 

This unspoken education goes on even in the best programs because we are so focused on helping our children to succeed that we are totally forgetting the child. 

We need to step back and decide just how we do guide each child.  How do we both teach them that it is respectful to be blind, and still teach them the skills they will need to survive and live full, productive, rewarding lives as blind people.  As people who are okay about being blind.  As people who do not resent sighted people because they have always been made to appear superior. 

It is not the physical setting, residential versus public school, it is the philosophy, the approach in teaching, that is the critical issue.  Education occurs inside the individual's brain, not in a place outside the head. 

 

Curious Carl