Re: Monthly chat October
Well I once went to a blind specific school for about years, (my 8th and 9th grade year), and I didn't like it. For one, it was in an isolated area where there wasn't much to do. The biggest town was about 45 minutes away, which meant that we didn't go on many fieldtrips.
Secondly, the staff there were horrible, with the exception of a couple teachers. I felt like they new nothing. They had all the students using braille writers and extremely out dated pieces of technology, which was hardly ever used. They had all this technology locked in the closet and no one to teach it there, so they were just like "well, you can get by with learning braille." That was their excuse for not having anyone to teach it. I ended up having to have a one-on-one tech instructor who I did learn a lot from.
The other issue was that this school was both a blind school, and a deaf school. I felt like the deaf people were getting more atention than the blind students. T hey went on far more trips, and overall got more atention. I guess this is because there were a greater number of them at that school, but still.
So, in short, with the extremely uneducated staff, again with the exception of a couple of teachers, the isolated area, and not getting the training/skills that we deserved, I went back to mainstream school, where I am having a far better experience.
Now, on to a different unrelated topic.
I am curious as to what you guys think about this.
This summer, I went to an 8 week training program at the NFB center in Colorado. Overall, I had a great time, except for a couple of things. First, I had a horrible braille instructor. All we did in that class was slate and styliss work, a skill which I don't think is relevant to these days. Not only that, but as an end of summer program project, we were required to write a 3 page book report on the slate, which I was not about to do. For one, I felt that it was a complete waist
of my time, and that I would gain nothing from the slate. Second, that's not really the slate's purpose. It's meant for small notes, not 3 page book report. So I ended up not doing the project, and as a result, she gave me an easier project where I was quizzed on writing several sentences on the slate. To this day i am still horrible at using it, and I don't think i'm going to pick up a slate and use it regular, so I felt that skill was an extreme waist of time, and that I could have spent my time doing something more productive.
The second problem waqs the very first O&m instructor I had at that program. He was extremely impatient with all his students, and expected them to do everything perfectly on their first try. I eventually ended up changing instructors. Prior to that instructor I had been working with one that I actually liked, but they changed me for some reason. So I ended up getting an instructor who was much more patient with me. I can&
#039;t work when people get impatient with me, because I find that I proform much less affectivly when i'm given negative comments all the time.
The other reason I changed instructors was do to what happend in one class period. I had been told to wait at the end of a driveway for my instructor and another student, who was slightly slower than I was and was struggling with some things. So after about 5 minutes of waiting, I started to get worried, because they had not came back yet. So I turned around and started to head back the way I came, when my instructor caught up to me. He told me that I needed to follow directions at all times. He said, "don't do what you want to do, do what I tell you to do, and don't have a rebellious attitude about it," after which I tried to tell him that the only reason I was coming back was to check to make sure everything was ok and that nothing had happend, but he didn't listen to me and insisted that I was a student
with a rebellious attitude.
So that's my rant for this post. I'm curious as to what you guys think about the slating part of this post though. I for one don't think it is a relevant skill today. Prior to this summer, I went to a NFB training cinter in Louisiana, where I actually had a better experience, with the exception of the technology and public transportation that I got in Colorado. Anyway, i'm done now. Feel free to post what you guys think about this post.
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