Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. ah, that is good at some points. We do not do this here. Sometimes at class. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=202076#p202076 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Its quite usual for a school to close after hours, but that is not really what I meant Afrim. What I used to do during my last secondary school was get together with people in free periods and do things like test each other with revision questions. I did the same at university, though there wed just get together in someones bedroom (usually mine because I was lucky and got a large room), and all go through complicated stuff like formal logic. Wed also take turns reading each others essays as well, but wed just pass comments on what we liked or didnt like, rather than actually copy the same work for each other (if we tried that as I said wed likely have wound up getting in bad trouble). URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=201795#p201795 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. @DarkSorry, I didnt really know that you could do it. we can only send messages to each other in our phones asking for homeworks, but there is any place where we can go and study together.The door of school is closed after 1:45 PM here, and nobody can go there, expect when asking permission to go with a teacher.Anyway I love studying individually. that helps us at some points I guess. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=201730#p201730 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. At the Oregon School it was closed at three. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=201758#p201758 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. It certainly seems that way. Thats why Im profoundly thankful that my folks, while hey insisted I have at least a little exposure tolife in a blind school (mostly during summer camps which at OSB could actually be quite fun), they primarily sent me to public school. So I was able to avoid becoming the sort of robot my ex has become and willingly and even eagerly remains to this day. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=201684#p201684 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Indeed. The school is so oppressive! And here I am again, on the buss to school. Going back is always the hardest. But when I get back, the programming kicks in. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=201670#p201670 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Funny you should say programming, as if its a cult. I think Ill leave that to more knowledgable people to interpret. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=201671#p201671 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. [[wow]] Devin. Sounds like the ex girlfriend I mentioned earlier in this topic would be right at home where you are. After all the more regimented and restricted life is the better as far as shes concerned. About all I can say in defense of the Oregon School for the Blind is that at least they werent QUITE as restrictive as where you are. The food was certainly nothing to write home about. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=201639#p201639 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. If you go into profilesettings, you can set the number of posts and topics displayed per page. I prefer mine at the maximum, which is 75, sinse the more shown on a page the less I have to muck about changing pages when reading or replying to topics, indeed this is one major difference when using a screen reader as opposed to being a sighted person getting text overload from too much info in one place. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=201459#p201459 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Yeah I knew about that, but I decided to not adjust that setting for no reason imparticular. Thanks for the tip, though. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=201462#p201462 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Oh my bad. The post about ironing was post 51, not 76. I was off by exactly one page worth of posts. He also mentiones he attends the school in Alabama, so I shouldnt have even directed that question at people from the UK. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=201452#p201452 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. @Theo, Im not sure what you mean about post 76 sinse this topic has only 69 posts . with Ironing as I said, I personally tumble dry and then hang stuff in creases. Ironing might be a bigger deal in the Uk sinse a lot of schools still have uniforms up until year 10 at age 16, and the better schools will require smart clothes, eg, suits after that, though as I said there are ways around. Certainly university didnt require anything similar. Regarding what you say about the small groups and social aspect, to be honest that is! part of the special school problem, even if you discount the intensive only talk to blind people sort of thing specialist schools have. When you have a larger group of people you learn the skills of maintaining a circle of friends in that environment and keeping contact, skills which you need later, where as a t a specialist school you dont, particularly if, (as seems to happen fairly frequently), the school has an active isolationist policy which discounts any experiences from outside that environment as mine did, indeed its funny you mentioning confidence and vision sinse my own special school was so anti use of whatever vision you had it was unbelievable, given that there were people with more working vision than me who still acted as if they had none to fit in with the crowd. I am glad I had one good secondary school experience before I went to university, sinse my own first year was probably when i made some of the best friends of my life, which I possibly would not have done had I not learnt how in the preceeding two years. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=201445#p201445 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. About the confidence thing: Ive been employing that technique for a while.I think the first time was back in the summer when I was 15 years old, when I still had enough vision to see the curbe on the roadside. I wanted to start training for the upcoming cross country season, that and I just liked running, so I put on my shoes, and went for a run around the block. My parents were sitting on the porch at the time, and asked me what I was doing. I told them When I told them I was going to run around the block, they asked me if I had enough vision to do it, or something like that. I told them That I wouldnt know unless I tried. On that little sidestreet with almost no traffic, worst thing that could happen was running into a parked car. There was no chance of getting lost or anything since I wasnt going far, so I just did it without worrying about how successful it would be.Im not sure I employed that confidence technique many other times over the succeeding few years, but in recent history Ive used it a lot. As mentioned before, cooking is one area. Ive learned that the most importaint thing to learning how to cook is confidence. Most things are actually very simple to cook, and all one needs to do is know when to take it off the frying pan, or out of the oven. If it then tastes undercooked, cook it a bit more. Not much else to it. Today, I cooked hamberger helper, with the pasta, a pound of ground beef, a cup of rice, and 2 onions. mIve also used this technique around campus. This is my first year living off campus. Im just across from the southwest corner of campus, which is an area I didnt know well at all, since I never needed to come down to this corner of campus before. When I moved in, my mother and I walked from my house to the athletic complex, which would be the first half of my walk to school. That single walk taught me the general direction I needed to go. After that, I
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Im sorry for arriving to this thread so late. Heres my responces to the questions asked in the original post.1. i would say I primarily benefitted from the athletics offered. If it wasnt for that, I would probably still suffer from bad asthma, and be terribly out of shape with little idea of what Im athletically able to do. Not to say Im an allstar now, but Im at least better off than a couch potato.In my last couple years there, I lived in a house on campus with 4-5 other boys. We did all the house chores and cooking, with the aid of a single staff member. That is what gave me my confidence to cook that I mentioned in my prior post. It also taught me that laundry is even simpler and easier than cooking.Theres a chance that if I went to a public school, I might have struggled so much with accessibility in math class that Id think highschool math were too complicated. That would have been a horrible thing fo r me, as math has always been a very important thing in my life. Im glad I was able to excel in highschool math, and am now doing quite well in university math. 2. deep question. I suppose it would have been nice if they had more big projects to do like in other schools, or those long 6-10 page papers. Theres a chance that if my school had more of that, then I wouldnt have these issues with writing essays. However, Im not sure it would have made any difference. Overall, I felt the school did a very good job considering the inherent restrictions of that type of school, such as limited course offerings etc.I should point out that the school used to have a lot of problems, especially with their residence staff. A few years ago there was actually a class action lawsuit brought against the school on behalf of all students who attended the school since 1951, which has recently passed what they call the discovery phase. Thankfully, it seems that everybody who attended later than the early 90s had no such gripe, and opted out of the lawsuit.3. I feel the school benefitted my academics about as much as a regular school would have. It benefited me athletically more than a regular school would have, and socially, its hard to say if it benefited me. On the one hand, I benefitted from being around similar people, and for the first time, I was able to be just another person in the pile. However, the small environment was very hard to transition from when going to university. In highschool, if I wanted to hang with friends, Id go to the one, or maybe two, hangout spots, and socialise with whomever happened to be there. Since there were so few people at the school, the hangout spots would have more or less the same people every day. So I naturally became friends with them. At university, theres uncountably many hangout spots, which are going to have different people on any given day, so developing a circle of friends was a very different task, and I eneded up having basically no friends my entire first year of university. However, I cant really blame the school for this since this is a problem inherent to schools with such small population.4. I did not go to this school until I was 14. Mostly because I didnt become legally blind until I was 11.Question to the UK people here. around post 76 or so, somebody mentions something about not even learning how to iron. Is learning to iron a normal skill for most UK children? It isnt here in Canada. Id be willing to bet that the majority of my friends (aged 24 or less) have never ironed in their lifetime. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=201443#p201443 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. And in terms of studying, youre describing how every school works, ever. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=201371#p201371 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. In this place where I live, 100% of public schools do not have any assistant teacher, and we, after the lessons end, go home and prepare for the other day by ourselves, not altogether. I honestly dont know how this works in USA or UK. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=201388#p201388 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. @Afrim, actually Camlorn is correct, if you have a group of friends you help each other out with learning stuff, I used to do this at my final good secondary school (especially revising for exams, and when not playing poker), even at university my friends and I would read each others essays and comment on them, borrow books or passages from books, and get together to do our very evil formal logic. The only difference with the specialist school is that it sounds like the bteachers were really lax in not checking what you did. In most schools, if one person literally did the work for four or five others, itd be far too obvious from their words and the way it was written and youd get into severe trouble for precisely the reason you said, that if you were relying on one person you never learnt anything. if you did this frequently enough that you actively didnt learn your maths because someone else was doing it for you, it shows the teachers werent taking the time to mark your work properly, much less make you do stuff in class during the lessons where you had to work on your own. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=201395#p201395 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Well, that sounds like it could have made for a pretty good standoff. If you didnt eat the food, you could have totally stayed there all afternoon, and not done any work. Or would they have just brought the class work into the cafeteria? Or would there have been some worse punishment in store if you didnt comply? URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=201277#p201277 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. My special school was exactly the same with food, their favourite phrase was you dont have to like it you just have to eat it it wasnt that the food wasnt bad, it was just that there was absolutely no choice, so if there was something you specifically didnt like you had little option, and indeed theyd make people sit for hours and if you didnt eat it youd be required to do coppying, or still worse on one occasion one of the staff physically forced some tomatoes into my mouth, (I hate tomatoes, the texture makes me feel sick). It got so bad my mum insisted on packing me sandwiches a couple of days a week, which the school really disliked. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=201285#p201285 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. No, if we didn’t eat the food, they would force make us stay there untill the time to study started. For example, if we entered there at 1:30, and we didn’t like the food, they would make us stay there till 2:30, and we went to our class and started studying altogether.I don’t know if we have mentioned this point before, but studying collectively has many drawbacks.To begin with, when we are together, and if no assistant teacher was with us in the class, we would start talking and make jokes with each other, rather than studying the exams. Second, if we study in a group, one would be better than others, so he would make the same homework for all students. For example, my friend was better than me and all the seven other students at math, so he wrote the homework as well as talking to me and other students, so he made the homework, not us. I was good at literature, so I dictated the homework so others didn’t have to worry about apart from when we had to write an essay. Chances to progress? Zero!Three years later I highly feel that this method of studying has deeply damaged me as well as other students. We only thought about the next day and not the next years and the whole life. Most of us didn’t realize that this way of studying wouldn’t be so much profitable in the next years. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=201312#p201312 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Regarding food, at my school the food was not good. Fortunately those who had money were allowed to buy anything out of the school, but anyway, it was not enough as to make you not to feel hungry again. We were allowed to buy any pizza or sandwichs but again, it was not enough. When I was in early grades like first or second one, I remember they forced us to eat the food. We didn’t like it at all and if we didn’t eat it, they made us stay at the eating room for more than 45 minutes, and there was a time when we entered at 1:15 PM and went out of there at 2:30 PM when we usually started studying.I can say again something that is for sure, those blind students who relyed on associations and special school were, and are still less progressive and less successful in their daily life. If they have to face any problem regarding school or university, for example, if they do not achieve the points or qualifications to go to university or any high school which tests you before you enroll in it, they call the associations for help, and they release an “official document” (I don’t know who the hell made it official and how the government is allowing it), so they enroll in that school or university, but in 70% of cases, they fail and have to do a lot of extra work to achieve what they are supposed to like. I don’t know how the heck they think this will help them in their daily life, calling or asking the associations for help, but in this way, they are damaging themselves badly being weak and vulnerable. When I show these problems to them, and when I tell them how the things go, they call me a person who denies his blindness, and want to be like a sited person (something I never think of doing). URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=199685#p199685 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Its not forced, not quite. It goes a little bit like this.1. Given my skills, will this activity lead to death or gross physical injury? No.2. Given my skills, will this activity leave me in any absolutely unrecoverable situation, i.e. not being able to get home for days if it goes wrong? No.3. Do I have the time for this to go wrong or, barring that, will the people or events causing my deadline be willing to understand? yes.4. Stop caring if it goes wrong and pretend that I know what Im doing.I dont force this, which is why it works. I dont know if you can force it. Confidence is a lie, anyway. In the situations I apply this, I see it as telling myself the little lie (that Im confident) that leads to the much bigger and very helpful lie of having confidence (because, lets face it, confidence isnt actually having an objective clue, its believing you can). But I take your po int-as I said, this might be really unique to me. And yes, there are situations that are too big or unsafe for me to apply this particular state of mind to them, and its important to recognize when this is the case. But if you never try, you never get the confidence, and so... URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=199628#p199628 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. I think I understand what you mean now, Camlorn. When you first explained it, I thought it sounded like one of those fruity self-help things, like, for example, the school of thought that dictates that if you want to meditate, you have to completely empty your mind.Ive never believed in that, because you cant completely stop thinking about things. Even repeating to yourself over and over I must not think about anything is a thought, thus youre not going to get onto whatever higher plane they claim you should.Besides, even in sleep its not like your mind completely shuts down. You dream, and your autonomic nervous system is keeping your heart beating and your lungs breathing. While that cant exactly be classified as thought, dreaming certainly can be, albeit unconscious thought. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=199654#p199654 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Modified Löbs theorem! If I believe that (if I believe that p, then q), then q. If I believe that (if I believe that I am confident, then I will be more successful), then I will be more successful!(Disclaimer: has not actually become more successful for hearing of this.) URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=199655#p199655 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. @Devin, a lot of that makes sense, though as I said at my special school the educational standard was if anything higher than a mainstream school just because life was so dam dull and regimented you had little else to do, and because with such small classes the teachers could tayler work to what you needed to learn, though this was no less dehumanising I remember one occasion in which we were having a supply teacher and our teacher took him around the class and stood in front of each pupil discussing their strengths and weaknesses (very much more of the latter), in a quite demeaning way, right in front of the pupils with us having no say about what was said, it honestly felt like being sold at a slave auction or similar).About food I can relate, though in a slightly different way sinse at my specialist school the food itself was not of a bad standard but you got no choice at all about what you ate, you dont have to like it you just have to eat it was an of ten repeated maxim, and if you didnt eat everything on your plate woe betide you. This situation got so bad my mum negotiated me taking sandwiches rather than me having to sit and attempt to eat something like fresh fruite salad or tomatoes, the texture of which makes me physically sick, though the school definitely disliked this intensively and used every excuse to get in the way of the idea. Ironically my mums special school did the same thing to her 50 years ago, and she still! hates any form of pasta. I have sinse learnt that this paranoyer about you must eat everything! is a British cultural thing that was passed down from the generation who went through war rationing and post war rationing (sinse in Britain rationing lasted into the fifties), though that still doesnt make it right. As far as self reliance goes, university/colige can help with this on a pure living skills level, sinse at my university some things were naturally done, such as providing meals and cleaning the room, others I had to do myself such as laundry and washing up my own cup if I ever wanted a coffee, it was definitely a good preparation for when I moved out and got my own flat, particularly sinse during my masters I was in colige in holidays and thus had to do all my own cooking and washing up too. then again I learnt all of these things at home like anyone else from my mum which helped, so I suppose I did have an advantage. On the confidence thing of camlorns, I am not exactly sure what he means, but I do remember a point when I used to be quite afraid of things like burning myself on hot items while cooking or getting lost outside. I got to a point however where I realized if any of those things did happen it didnt matter too much, indeed after giving myself a couple of miner scolds with a kettle and getting slightly lost then learning how to navigate back I didnt see the point of worrying too much, but this took experience, and I still had to start slowly and work up, eg I began with a quite small trvel kettle that was easy to pickup and pour from. Btw, I dont bother ironing, instead I tumbledry everything, then pull it out the dryer while still warm and hang stuff in the creases. This is much easier, provided you can hang things streight, and I would be rather wary of doing myself an injury with an iron, though I know I could master it if I had to. Then again all my ultra! smart things like my wastecoats and evening trousers or my tuxedos that I wear on stage are dry clean only. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=199638#p199638 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Yeah, thats the problem. This particular little mental trick seems to be unique to me, and every time I try to explain it everyone is like what? Im not surprised its unclear, not at all. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=199640#p199640 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. yes, actually.First, the fact that this has harmed you but left you able to recognize it and say so publicly while still in the situation is actually kinda rare. In my experience, including myself, you dont realize the harmful parts until later. Its not exactly too late at that point, but its certainly easier if you realize this sooner. To that end, Id say that its most important you dont give up: that would be more harmful than anything, unless you think you can be satisfied with a phone job for the rest of your life.Second, you do seem like you can write. If you are truly good at technology, you might look into technical writing. Someone has to write, edit, review, and proof all those wonderful technical manuals for gadgets and stuff. As a programmer writing technologies for other programmers, I have not deeply looked into this field as either someone needing a technical writer or as someone who would be one; I do not know what challenges it poses to a blind person or even what it pays. Im in the unfortunate position of needing to do my own, as Im the only one who can understand my stuff until the manual actually is there. But it is a real job, and it is a place to start looking given what you say your skills are. Other possible jobs include training blind people (I personally hate this one, as there is a vicious cycle of blind people working to help blind people, and I think we need less of that) or, if you are up for a real challenge, you could see if you have an aptitude for programming (which is kind of a stereotype, though way far below blind people are musicians and not generally among the sighted).You could consider college. If you do so, do your homework. Some colleges provide great accessibility. Others provide literally nothing and are actually just open for an enterprising lawyer and student to say hello together. You would need to make up some of the math you dont have for almost any degree. Your college can help you do this: it usually means a few extra classes, and it would probably be somewhat rough. There are many tangible and intangible benefits to college: on top of all of those for the sighted, it helps overcome the blindness stereotype. It gives you some extra time under which you are usually qualified to receive benefits and services from your states agency for blind people, including training in independent living skills (which are a necessity, a true necessity, no matter how much you hate them). It will make up for your possibly lacking education in math, which is actually kind of important for a lot of things. It can polish whatever skills you already have, save perhaps if theyre already better than everyone else in the class. This is a personal choice, and I no longer believe that college is right for e veryone.More generally, just realizing that youre not in the real world and thinking a lot about what that means. Id not suggest a public school; thats kind of like jumping off a cliff, at least if you havent done it before, and youd spend a lot of tie adjusting. While it is true that schools for the blind seem to have the culture and social awareness of a rock, theyre also very protected and protective of you. Now is the time to evaluate your independent living, social, and mobility skills, to be objective and brutally honest with yourself about this evaluation, and to either ask for help now wherever and if possible or, failing that as a viable option (your post hints that it it is likely to be) doing the research to allow you to get this help as soon as you turn 18. It is harsh and will probably also be one of the hardest things youll do, especially when it comes to swallowing pride and asking, and--again--do your homework as to where youll get the help from because, quite frankly, some places just plane suck.Lastly, one strategy that works for me, though I would say Im at a higher level of functionality and that it may not apply without a foundation that you may or may not have: pretending that Im confident. This sounds kind of weird, Ive never been able to properly explain the state of mind, and perhaps its unique to me. Its basically two things: deciding that it is safe (in the sense of no long-term physical harm) to attempt the activity about which I am unsure, and then pretending that I am sure how to do it. Usually, this ends better than youd expect, and if you keep doing it for the same thing, you suddenly reach a point where you actually arent pretending anymore. Basically, its a way around requiring confidence, and I urge you to not apply the technique stupidly or unsafely--assuming you even und erstand the explanation of it, I mean.I hope this helps some. I am fortunate in that I did not have to go through this kind of thing, but I think I grasp your problem at least a little: a series of problems that seem insurmountable, causing a gravity-like effect on your thoughts that means you
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. That was a beautifully written post. I agree with pretty much all of what you said.I dont think I would ever pretend to be confident, though. It seems dishonest in a way.Id much rather deal with what is immediately obvious, rather than waste time and energy trying to force myself into a state of mind thats completely foreign to me.Doing that would probably occupy so much of my thought processes that I wouldnt be able to accomplish anything else, at least not to acceptable levels. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=199555#p199555 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. I can relate to your discouragement.Schools for the blind definitely do stunt your emotional and intellectual growth, particularly if youve been there long enough.Just remember that you do have the upper hand, though. You know that whats going on is wrong. I know that doesnt help you now, and hell, it may never help you. But knowing is half the battle.You can do a lot in the tech industry, if you want to, but this isnt the topic for that. Do a search for some of the other topics on here about employment if you want to. I seem to remember a couple of very productive discussions on that topic that are floating around.And about the food, I definitely know what thats like, too. Actually, a couple of months ago, my sister and I got into an argument that resulted in her not speaking to me for over 2 weeks because of that issue, believe it or not.We were discussing how, in her opinion, its a good thing that kids no longer can have soda in schools. I responded that yes, in theory, this is good, but by the same token, the food and drinks they do provide should be fit for human consumption. When she asked me to expand on that, I told her about how, when I was at school, my friends and I would always have to be really wary of the milk. It was expired a lot of the time. A couple of my friends were partially sighted, so those of us who couldnt see would pass around our little bottles of milk to those who could so that we could be sure the dates were OK.So right away, my sister thought I was making that up. That pissed me off, because I may be a lot of things, but I am not a liar. And why would I lie about something like that? So finally, after about 10 minutes of her saying that schools cant possibly provide expired milk without being sued, and that clearly I was just looking to start drama so that I would get attention, I snapped and cursed her out.Anyway, the milk wasnt the only bad thing on the menu. I got sick a couple of times from undercooked chicken. The food was, in general, quite flavorless, and as a result, I barely ate most days.And I would make that up...why? Ill never know. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=199547#p199547 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Well, I suppose Ill put my view here too. I go to the Alabama school for the blind and i think it da best thang eva. Not! My reasons? First of all, in math class, we only learn about 3 chapters per year. Really. In geometry, thats literally all we learned, because we learn so slowly. Plus, for me at least, it takes so long for me to get the concepts of math. And from a test I took, Im a 12.9, twelfth grade nineth month, which is the highest it goes, in everything except math, which I have an 8.5, eighth grade fifth month. On a side note, anyone know what test that is? Anyway, the food is horrible. The mac and cheese is half cooked, as well as everything else they have to actually prepare for us, but everything already precooked or whatever is half decent. The rules there? Well, we have a handbook that is 2 volumes in braille, and one page is of our rights, which are so crazy. We have right to property, but teachers and all are allowed to take away our personal devices? Yeah, nice. Dorm staff and all are even allowed to take our cell phones, or prohibit us from even bringing them toschool. Oh, and we have to let the school know about the brand name, type, make and model of all our devices when we bring them, or we cannot bring them anymore. The rules cannot be easily changed. The admins of the school is very static and just, unyielding and cold, not on the outside though. When parents come, everyone has to be on their best behavior, but when they leave the students go back to being loud and crazy. Speaking of kids, the school mainly has partially sighted kids. So the TV is usually on, and guess what teenagers, even 17 and 18 year olds, are watching? Spongebob! Yep, cartoons. Thats what their life is outside class. And the kids that arent shallow and into cartoons are usually so afraid of getting into trouble. The school has made them so afraid of doing anything against them. Its so lonely there, because no one else is willing to try anything new or anything. And no one actively opposes the school. I would try going to public school, but I dont have my parents support, and Im almost out anyway. But theyve already done their damage to me. Probably permanent damage. From the day I came there, when I was maybe 6 or so, to around 10th grade, I was babied. I didnt have to iron my clothes like everyone else, even other blind people, (when I say blind, I mean totally blind. Ugh I hate it when I look up how to do something blind and I find well i can see almost good but im blind crap.). PS, sorry about all the punctuation, for those whose tts ignores them, if its confusing to yall. But anyway, they didnt make me clean or anything, even when the most complicated device I had was a gameboy. So when I was spirited off to semi-independent living, There, I had to cook, clean, iron, all that. So yeah, it was a rough time for me, even in my second semester of being there. I never escaped, and may never escape, this mindness of laziness and feeling, most of the time, that my life doesnt exactly matter, that it just passes by and things I do have no consequence for me. And now Im on the road to working for the IRS answering calls and all that. So Im not even sure what to do. Even when I was young, Ive loved writing. If I had enough information, I could write and write about it, and Im good at learning how to use technology. But what the crap can those skills do for me? Thats what Ive always asked myself and others, and they just give simple little answers that I cant even remember now, like there is so much out there! stuff like that. So any thoughts or advice from any of you? URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=199538#p199538 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. The Uk is somewhere between the two and dependent upon the system. In a lot of current mainstream schools I have heard of cases that Camlorn describes, where blind kids are basicaly educated by their classroom assistant and even if they are in the school theyre prohibited from taking part in various activities going on. In my specialist school however the attitude was rather similar to what Afrim described. Indeed, my home was perhaps an hour and a half travel away, and I went home several knights a week because my mum physically fetched me, sinse she didnt want me to have the same experience that she had had, being at specialist school constantly. Other students however stayed five ays a week and just went home at weekends. Apparently the head master of that school actually had words with my mum to the ffect that I shoulnt be going home because it would make the other kids from nottingham jealous to which my mum replied well theres nothing to stop th eir parents from picking them up (heck one of them lived less than half an hour away and they all unlike my mum had cars). On the other hand, in my secondary school the attitude was frighteningly different, sinse the teachers and exec staff were so desperate to pretend that everything was fine despite what was happening on a dayly basis they made the situation considerably worse. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=199064#p199064 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Gosh, cant understand how they felt so sure that they didnt take their children to their homes for months. There was a time here, when I was at the last grade of that school, and we , the most intelligent students reported the biggest problems of the school to a live emission broadcasted on a National TV, and our parents didnt support us at start because the staff, in every annual meeting, or when they needed our parents to talk with them, they kept telling that here everything is alright and there isnt any problem going on, so you dont have to worry about. But everything was completely different, and when a reporter came to interview us, the headmaster told her not to pay attention to these guys, because 90% of students are mentally disabled.Lets keep this post on track! URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=199070#p199070 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. As to Camlorns post: Yeah... this might have had a bit to do with why I applied for the Math and Science school in 10th grade.cuts 5kb tangent about said school and how awesome it was in spite of some scary authoritarianism. Will explain more if asked, but doesnt feel like its on topic enough for this post.Math and science school public school school for the blind, in my experience. Though I was not at the school for the blind long enough to have any horror stories to share, though I know someone who was, who tried to get out and attend public school, but had such a hard time of it that he wound up going back pretty quickly. I dont get the impression he liked the school for the blind all that much, either. His main strength seems to be that he somehow managed enough access to culture to make it into the same college as me and... ur... not crash.(I didnt care for much of the rules or classes or activitie s or whatever it is they were supposed to be doing, there, but I only had to deal with it for 7 weeks total, spread across two summers.) URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=199150#p199150 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Thats really terrible, but I can sadly believe what youre saying.I doubt that teachers or aides would be physically neglectful here in the US, but thats because you can sue someone for just about anything these days, so thats probably why.Its also really sad that parents are basically told to pawn off their kids. If thats their attitude, then its possible that they feel like the parents have given up on their children.I know of some parents who do, but this is usually when the child has a severe disability that requires a high degree of assistance. For example, at the school that I went to, a couple of kids who lived in the dorm had never once had their parents come to visit. Now, granted, everyone had to go home on weekends, but I remember one particular incident when one guy was graduating. His parents came to the dorm, but then they had to ask for directions to get to the auditorium where the graduation ceremony was be ing held, and their kid had been at the school since he was 3. And, from what I understand, the layout of the school hadnt drastically changed in that time, there wasnt any major construction or anything like that. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=199001#p199001 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Yeah, the U.S. has the opposite problem. Aids are required in many cases where theyre unnecessary, blind students are often prohibited from extracurricular activities (even the very obviously safe ones), etc. Why? The pervasive fear of the blind child getting hurt somehow and the parents bringing in the lawyers. I had this a great deal, it depends on which school system youre in, and Ive heard of much worse cases than mine. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=199006#p199006 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. At my school where I went to, there were many students who went rarely at their homes, for example, once in two months, or more. Although my home was around two hours away from school, I used to go every weekend there, and some students thought I was too privileged or at least they called it so, cause they used to go once in two months at their homes. However I constantly insisted that this was not a privilege but every student must go home at least once in two weeks so as not to become isolated. Honestly, I sometimes felt sad to leave my friends alone, because, I already knew that they would only stay at that dorm, talking with two or three other friends, and if it was cold, they wouldn’t be allowed to go out of the dorm. But as years wore on they could finally understand that I was totally right, and they could understand it only when they graduated from that school. I was really unsatisfied with the attitudes of some parents there. As I stated before, some parents called it “the second home” for their children, and they thought everything was alright every time. So they came rarely to visit them, and also, the teachers gave them the phone numbers, but they never called to ask for their child. Fortunately, my parents always paid attention to me, they used to call at my personal phone and they never let me stay there two or three weeks, but I went every weekend at my home. What is so important to say though, those students who used to stay there for months, felt extremely happy when they got told that “for example next week will start the holiday season”, and they kept remembering that all the time untill their parents came to take them home. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=199010#p199010 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. @TurtlePowerRegarding to your conclusion, well, we lose because the blind kids who start to attend a specialist school are unaware of where are they going, and their mind can be easily changed. Also, the associations which stand for blind people recommend to the kid’s parent to send him/her to a specialist school. I lost my site when I was just one and a half year due to a terrible accident, and when the doctors confirmed that my site was lost without an actual opportunity to be turned back, they told my parents to go to the national association where I would gain the status of a blind person so as to get those money which our governments give for us for a certain disability. Then I would be automatically registered as a blind person and my local association of the city would help me in any case. So when I was six years old, they called my father to discuss about my future school. Normally their choice was to enroll me at a specialist school. According to them this was the only school that I could attend. They went even forward, by telling my father to convince me that the school where I would go is very good, a great place where I would really have fun, and I’d be able to make a lot of good friends. Well, they kept telling me that next year I was going to school, it’s a good place for you, you’ll feel happy, you’ll learn many things, you will make a lot of friends and other stuff. So I really was looking forward to the day to going to the school and seeing how it would be. Well, as far as I remember, I imagined everyday how my school would be and how my friends would be like. I really couldn’t wait to go there because I was made to believe all those lies which were told by my parents but not all of those things I was told were true.So this is how it works. The associations or any other institution persuade both parents and kids that is better for them to attend a specialist school. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=197203#p197203 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Hello,I think there is something that rnc run, at least thats what Ive heard about. Whether Ill attend though, is another story, because the way things are going in this thread, I now feel like I will not be able to believe anyone I ask. How would I know if the rnc arent forcing these people to represent them and the good sides all the time? If a lot of these centers are as bad as everyone says, well, this truly turns me off, period. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=197218#p197218 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Hi.Here are my thoughts:Over the last 2 summers, I have been to 2 NFB training centers as a summer youth.Last summer I went to the Colorado Center for the Blind. There were certain things I didnt like about this center, such as my extremely impatient counselor who expected the students to do everything perfectly on their first try, and also who swore a lot. I ended up having to take it to the director of the program, who thankfully was very understanding about my issues. I ended up having to change appartments and counselors, and got a much better counselor.I also felt that I didnt fit in with everyone at that center. I didnt socialize with people a lot, because I felt like no one had in common what I did.Lastly, at that center, they focused very heavily on learning how to slate, which I thought was ridiculous. I felt that it was a complete waist of my time, and not a skill that I would use in my life after leaving the center. Not on ly that, but at the end of the program, my braille teacher had us write a 3 page book report on a book we were reading using the slate. I, of course, did not end up doing this, and as a result, she gave me an alternative project where she told me several sentences and I had to write them on the slate. This wasnt as bad as the book report, but I would have still prefered not to use the slate in the first place. When I was all done with the sentences she gave me, I took my paper out and gave it to her. Then she said, you know this is a quiz. I would have expected you to do a lot better than you did. I didnt say anything to that, but I felt very offended because I was trying my best. The slate has never been my strong point. I am very slow and horrible with it.Despite my negative experiences at that center, I did have a couple of possitive things. First, I had a technology instructor who I got along very well with. He and I had a lot in common, and he had me do tasks based on my skill level. He showed me the braille sense U2, which I took an interest in almost as soon as I got my hands on it. At the end of the program, he told me that I was very teachable and picked up quickly on a lot of technology. The other students hadnt been as easy for him to teach, because they would either refuse to learn or not pay atention in class.Secondly, I had a mobility instructor who I really liked. I ended up going through 3 mobility instructors. The first was my old appartment counselor who got very impatient with me, so I ended up changing to another one. Before that counselor I had had another mobility instructor who I liked, but for some reason they changed me. After my counselor, I got another mobility instructor who I learned a lot from. He and I worked a lot on public transportation, something which I had been wanting, because I hadnt gotten experience with it. Every day, we had to ride a bus from the center to our appartment s, which was about 8 blocks away, and we had to keep track of a bus pass. So despite my negative experiences, I did take some things away from that program.The summer before last, I went to the Louisiana center for the Blind in a small town called Ruston. Overall, I had a much better experience at this center. My mobility instructor was very patient with me, at least the later one I had. Again, I had had a guy who wasnt my favorite, but they changed me over to a woman who I learned a lot from, like crossing streets. I didnt get a lot of public transportation experience, because we were in a small town. But I did get some, because we would sometimes travel over to Monro, which was about 30 minutes away and ride the busses. Then, we would get some mall travel, which wasnt something I got in Colorado.They also didnt focus as much on the slate as they did in Colorado. However, I didnt learn a lot of technology, because we didnt have intern et for the first while when we were there, so we ended up having to use the centers internet, which was about 5 or 6 blocks from where we usually did classes. We usually did classes in the appartments. I also got a lot of daily living experience at both centers. I learned how to cook, do laundry, and clean more effectivly. I also felt that I fitted in much more at this center. I was able to talk and interact with just about every person. I also attended the NFB conventions when I went to both centers, and that was a great experience.Now about blind schools. I attended a blind school for 2 years, my 8th and 9th grade years. I also attended a public school in the morning. My 8th grade year, I took 3 classes at the public school, English, History, and Earth Science. My 9th grade year, I took 2, English and Physics and Chemistry, which was a nightmare, but thats for another topic.Anyway, I didnt really like my blind school. For 1, the staff ther e were very non educated. For example, they had all this technology locked in the closet and no one to teach it to
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Hi.Here are my thoughts:Over the last 2 summers, I have been to 2 NFB training centers as a summer youth.Last summer I went to the Colorado Center for the Blind. There were certain things I didnt like about this center, such as my extremely impatient counselor who expected the students to do everything perfectly on their first try, and also who swore a lot. I ended up having to take it to the director of the program, who thankfully was very understanding about my issues. I ended up having to change appartments and counselors, and got a much better counselor.I also felt that I didnt fit in with everyone at that center. I didnt socialize with people a lot, because I felt like no one had in common what I did.Lastly, at that center, they focused very heavily on learning how to slate, which I thought was ridiculous. I felt that it was a complete waist of my time, and not a skill that I would use in my life after leaving the center. Not on ly that, but at the end of the program, my braille teacher had us write a 3 page book report on a book we were reading using the slate. I, of course, did not end up doing this, and as a result, she gave me an alternative project where she told me several sentences and I had to write them on the slate. This wasnt as bad as the book report, but I would have still prefered not to use the slate in the first place. When I was all done with the sentences she gave me, I took my paper out and gave it to her. Then she said, you know this is a quiz. I would have expected you to do a lot better than you did. I didnt say anything to that, but I felt very offended because I was trying my best. The slate has never been my strong point. I am very slow and horrible with it.Despite my negative experiences at that center, I did have a couple of possitive things. First, I had a technology instructor who I got along very well with. He and I had a lot in common, and he had me do tasks based on my skill level. He showed me the braille sense U2, which I took an interest in almost as soon as I got my hands on it. At the end of the program, he told me that I was very teachable and picked up quickly on a lot of technology. The other students hadnt been as easy for him to teach, because they would either refuse to learn or not pay atention in class.Secondly, I had a mobility instructor who I really liked. I ended up going through 3 mobility instructors. The first was my old appartment counselor who got very impatient with me, so I ended up changing to another one. Before that counselor I had had another mobility instructor who I liked, but for some reason they changed me. After my counselor, I got another mobility instructor who I learned a lot from. He and I worked a lot on public transportation, something which I had been wanting, because I hadnt gotten experience with it. Every day, we had to ride a bus from the center to our appartment s, which was about 8 blocks away, and we had to keep track of a bus pass. So despite my negative experiences, I did take some things away from that program.The summer before last, I went to the Louisiana center for the Blind in a small town called Ruston. Overall, I had a much better experience at this center. My mobility instructor was very patient with me, at least the later one I had. Again, I had had a guy who wasnt my favorite, but they changed me over to a woman who I learned a lot from, like crossing streets. I didnt get a lot of public transportation experience, because we were in a small town. But I did get some, because we would sometimes travel over to Monro, which was about 30 minutes away and ride the busses. Then, we would get some mall travel, which wasnt something I got in Colorado.They also didnt focus as much on the slate as they did in Colorado. However, I didnt learn a lot of technology, because we didnt have intern et for the first while when we were there, so we ended up having to use the centers internet, which was about 5 or 6 blocks from where we usually did classes. We usually did classes in the appartments. I also got a lot of daily living experience at both centers. I learned how to cook, do laundry, and clean more effectivly. I also felt that I fitted in much more at this center. I was able to talk and interact with just about every person. I also attended the NFB conventions when I went to both centers, and that was a great experience.Now about blind schools. I attended a blind school for 2 years, my 8th and 9th grade years. I also attended a public school in the morning. My 8th grade year, I took 3 classes at the public school, English, History, and Earth Science. My 9th grade year, I took 2, English and Physics and Chemistry, which was a nightmare, but thats for another topic.Anyway, I didnt really like my blind school. For 1, the staff ther e were very non educated. For example, they had all this technology locked in the closet and no one to teach it to
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Hi.Here are my thoughts:Over the last 2 summers, I have been to 2 NFB training centers as a summer youth.Last summer I went to the Colorado Center for the Blind. There were certain things I didnt like about this center, such as my extremely impatient counselor who expected the students to do everything perfectly on their first try, and also who swore a lot. I ended up having to take it to the director of the program, who thankfully was very understanding about my issues. I ended up having to change appartments and counselors, and got a much better counselor.I also felt that I didnt fit in with everyone at that center. I didnt socialize with people a lot, because I felt like no one had in common what I did.Lastly, at that center, they focused very heavily on learning how to slate, which I thought was ridiculous. I felt that it was a complete waist of my time, and not a skill that I would use in my life after leaving the center. Not on ly that, but at the end of the program, my braille teacher had us write a 3 page book report on a book we were reading using the slate. I, of course, did not end up doing this, and as a result, she gave me an alternative project where she told me several sentences and I had to write them on the slate. This wasnt as bad as the book report, but I would have still prefered not to use the slate in the first place. When I was all done with the sentences she gave me, I took my paper out and gave it to her. Then she said, you know this is a quiz. I would have expected you to do a lot better than you did. I didnt say anything to that, but I felt very offended because I was trying my best. The slate has never been my strong point. I am very slow and horrible with it.Despite my negative experiences at that center, I did have a couple of possitive things. First, I had a technology instructor who I got along very well with. He and I had a lot in common, and he had me do tasks based on my skill level. He showed me the braille sense U2, which I took an interest in almost as soon as I got my hands on it. At the end of the program, he told me that I was very teachable and picked up quickly on a lot of technology. The other students hadnt been as easy for him to teach, because they would either refuse to learn or not pay atention in class.Secondly, I had a mobility instructor who I really liked. I ended up going through 3 mobility instructors. The first was my old appartment counselor who got very impatient with me, so I ended up changing to another one. Before that counselor I had had another mobility instructor who I liked, but for some reason they changed me. After my counselor, I got another mobility instructor who I learned a lot from. He and I worked a lot on public transportation, something which I had been wanting, because I hadnt gotten experience with it. Every day, we had to ride a bus from the center to our appartment s, which was about 8 blocks away, and we had to keep track of a bus pass. So despite my negative experiences, I did take some things away from that program.The summer before last, I went to the Louisiana center for the Blind in a small town called Ruston. Overall, I had a much better experience at this center. My mobility instructor was very patient with me, at least the later one I had. Again, I had had a guy who wasnt my favorite, but they changed me over to a woman who I learned a lot from, like crossing streets. I didnt get a lot of public transportation experience, because we were in a small town. But I did get some, because we would sometimes travel over to Monro, which was about 30 minutes away and ride the busses. Then, we would get some mall travel, which wasnt something I got in Colorado.They also didnt focus as much on the slate as they did in Colorado. However, I didnt learn a lot of technology, because we didnt have intern et for the first while when we were there, so we ended up having to use the centers internet, which was about 5 or 6 blocks from where we usually did classes. We usually did classes in the appartments. I also got a lot of daily living experience at both centers. I learned how to cook, do laundry, and clean more effectivly. I also felt that I fitted in much more at this center. I was able to talk and interact with just about every person. I also attended the NFB conventions when I went to both centers, and that was a great experience.Now about blind schools. I attended a blind school for 2 years, my 8th and 9th grade years. I also attended a public school in the morning. My 8th grade year, I took 3 classes at the public school, English, History, and Earth Science. My 9th grade year, I took 2, English and Physics and Chemistry, which was a nightmare, but thats for another topic.Anyway, I didnt really like my blind school. For 1, the staff ther e were very non educated. For example, they had all this technology locked in the closet and no one to teach it to
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. @Afrim, that sounds shocking,but worryingly believable. Unfortunately most parents of blind kids do not have much exposure to, or experience of blindness and so can easily get into the mentality that a special school is everything, the same was very true of the parents of various people at my special school. @Aaron, Im not sure what is going on with worcester these days. I have heard they improved after the Rnib dropped their management, but equally Ive heard that theyve been very much in the position of scrabbling for funding and recognition given that a lot of local authorities have as I said changed their minds regarding sending kids to specialist schools out of county, so what they might be like for random training courses etc Im not sure. @Briant, it unfortunately sounds a lot like much ive heard with the Nfb. Yes, they have some good people working for them on occasion but things are very much our way or else! which is not really fare. For example, even my specialist school never forced people to use a slate, and given braillers have existed for the last fifty years, and stainsbies before those, it just seems insane to make people do so just because it is what we teach rather than either considdering whether what is being taught is the least bit relevant or indeed is any good for the person themselves. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=197246#p197246 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Unfortunately this is true and this happens with all the parents who have a blind kid. Some parents find it easy when they are told that his kid will have to attend a specialist school, because they do not have to worry about his child. His kid will have assistants who will care and help him for almost everything, at least, that’s “what’s literally said and promised by school’s staff”, but the chances to be all the promises true are few or less. Some assistants do not care what they have taken over but they keep talking and having fun with their colleagues sitting somewhere and maybe drinking a coffee and forgetting some kids who are in need of them. This was a case of a four year child whom his parents had enrolled in my specialist school, in fact he was too young to start attending the school, but his parents sounded like they wanted to take away his son from their life for some years. I was shocked when I was told from my friend that he was just four years old and I was at my eighth grade. So one day I came him across while I was moving from dorm to school. A number of assistants were gathered close to the outside door of the dorm, and they were laughing and having fun, like they were having a party. As I was walking, I heard a child crying. He was the four year child who was alone, wandering around, with noone to run, and nowhere to go. I went to the assistants and told them, why didn’t you help this guy go to school? They acted like they had no idea if anybody was around and needed help. Then I told them to help him go to school. They said: “where are you going?” I told that I was going to school, and they said me, “why don’t you help him yourself?”I was stunned when I heard this question and I seriously thought, What’s the purpose of these assistants who are getting a fucking salary next to nothing? URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=197262#p197262 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Unfortunately this is true and this happens with all the parents who have a blind kid. Some parents find it easy when they are told that his kid will have to attend a specialist school, because they do not have to worry about his child. His kid will have assistants who will care and help him for almost everything, at least, that’s “what’s literally said and promised by school’s staff”, but the chances to be all the promises true are few or less. Some assistants do not care what they have taken over but they keep talking and having fun with their colleagues sitting somewhere and maybe drinking a coffee and forgetting some kids who are in need of them. This was a case of a four year child whom his parents had enrolled in my specialist school, in fact he was too young to start attending the school, but his parents sounded like they wanted to take away his son from their life for some years. I was shocked when I was told from my friend that he was just four years old and I was at my eighth grade. So one day I came him across while I was moving from dorm to school. A number of assistants were gathered close to the outside door of the dorm, and they were laughing and having fun, like they were having a party. As I was walking, I heard a child crying. He was the four year child who was alone, wandering around, with noone to run, and nowhere to go. I went to the assistants and told them, why didn’t you help this guy go to school? They acted like they had no idea if anybody was around and needed help. Then I told them to help him go to school. They said: “where are you going?” I told that I was going to school, and they said to me, “why don’t you help him yourself?”I was stunned when I heard this question and I seriously thought, What’s the purpose of these assistants who are getting a fucking salary next to nothing? URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=197262#p197262 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. No Turtlepower, as far as I know there arent any centers that run months long courses living together the way the nfb do, the longest course might be a week and would usually be run from another building such as an outdoor activity center. Likewise, there isnt a devide between state run and charity or organization because things in Britain just work differently. In Britain the government palms a lot of its services off to charity organizations which are effectively businesses that recieve tax exemption status and charitable donations. The most prominant of these is the Rnib, but others exist such as Guide dogs (who provide other things than Guide dogs), Action for blind people, and every county locally has its own society for the blind. What gets provided and how good each person is depends largely on where in the country you are, and whom you apply to, and usually involves individual lessons with one person, or at most classe s run from a centralized location with several people.Philosophy wise, as I said the Rnib in general do have a less than good attitude, especially surrounding institutionalisation and age, which is one reason its often a little bad for newly blind people to get referd to them, even this varies according to department and individual however. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=197118#p197118 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. @turtlepower, I didnt say training centers didnt exist in the Uk, only that the way they are organized and structured is rather different. They arent so much do this course as we set it out and pay for it the way the Nfb are, as they are just individually setup by local authorities or charities. For example, several local associations for the blind do run training assistance classes or braille classes (like I believe the ones Cx2 attends), and both guide dogs and the local authorities of various councels, as well as the Rnib employ people whos job it is to teach living skills etc. It is just that it changes from area to area, and isnt centralized, also a large percentage of what the Rnib does is heavily aimed at over 60s as I said, for example I know there is a national blind knitting association run through the rnib with braille magazines, and a blind ramblers (although according to one chap i met they spend more time fe eling the pretty trees than actually cross country walking). However, blind roleplaying society? no way! Well, in the Uk at least the number of specialist schools s declining, ironically because of money, indeed the Tapton Mount school where I went closed in the late 90s. This is principley because local authorities no longer want to shell out the cash to send disabled kids (any disability), to a specialist school outside the county area, as opposed to educate them in a standard mainstream school with provision. For blind students this is mostly a good thing, but like everything else depends upon the staff, the school and the level of interaction, for example Ive heard of blind kids who pretty much spend all their time at school with a classroom assistant, never interact with sighted kids etc. In my first primary school I was lucky enough that firstly my classroom assistant was very good at talking to kids and teaching me the same games other kids played on the playground and getting me included, the fact that it was a very good school helped as well. I will also say that only wanting to hear the good isnt just tied to specialist schools either. With my secondary school, the local authority decided to setup a unit for blind kids in a normal school, so blind kids would be in the class with everyone else and have all the resources to produce braille maps etc but have the experience of lessons with other kids and interacting with everyone else, indeed I went on the local news speaking about how successful Id been. This would have been a good idea in a decent school, however Nottingham county counsel decided to use it as an excuse to keep open one of the worst schools in the county. There was definitely at that point an ethos of dont tell anyone anything bad because the head master and governers were so bent on keeping the school open, despite the fact some of the things that happened on a dayly basis at said school were horrendous.Of course, once I went to a decent school (which took a major fight in itself), everything was fine, albeit I had to relearn how to interact with people decently again. On the school level, in the Uk at least there are people (including blind people), looking into education, the main problem however is still the social perception that if your blind your a different species, despite the fact weve had blind pop stars, blind mps etc, a perception which the current climate of accusing anyone disabled of being a scrounger (whether employed or not), doesnt help either. I wouldnt say its a matter of only listening to people who are employed in the Uk at least (sinse loads of people are unemployed0, as changing the general perception surrounding blind people and getting legislation passed which helps alleviate general exclusion whether from jobs, leasure activities, school activities or what ever Specialist schools for blind people exist because there is a perception that if a person is blind, they need a specialist system and environment. To an extent this is true, a blin person will not live the same, do the same things, perform basic tasks such as cooking in the same way as a sighted person, but where the system falls down is the general perception that this makes blind people inherently different sorts of beings. This is why I am against the ethos that I believe people like the Nfb have of blin pride sinse we need to be letting people know that being blind is no different from being in a wheel chair or having depression. This has occurred to a large extent for other disabilities such as paraplegia or quadraplegia, ie, being in a wheel chair, walking with assistance etc, however due to the small amount of blind people under 60 and the general otherness that seems to cling to perceptions of blind people it hasnt occured yet. After all, when is the last time you saw a blind person on tv whos character wasnt! automatically defined by the fact that she/he was blind? That is one reason I
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Hello.I went to Lindon lodge and honestly found it to be quite bad.OH it was ok when i was in the nerceary part of it, but when I got to the high school part it sucked.I wanted to go to mainstream but was not aware you could change schools back then, oh i know now but a fat lot of good that does me, knowing that now.OH well. the stuf that went on there to was quite bad, bullying, and other things, stupid helpers most of the time, and the teachers well some were good others not so much.I would never send a blind person to a special school since as far as I know theyre all rubbish. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=197042#p197042 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Hi,I agree. From what Im seeing here I am now very disappointed in the hole idea. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=197044#p197044 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Interesting points, Dark.But am I understanding you correctly that the training centers that do exist are not as extensive as they are here? In other words, am I right in thinking that people dont spend months in an apartment or dorm complex, being taught all manner of skills that are supposed to help them become independent?And is there a divide, as there is here, where the NFB preaches one philosophy, but then there are state-run centers, who are usually grossly underfunded, or the staff dont have a very high opinion of blind people anyway, so the actual skills they learn dont end up transferring well outside of the center?Of course, there are good and bad centers. I personally am not a fan of NFB philosophy for many reasons, but that wasnt where I was going in creating this post. Im trying to understand attitudes towards independence in general here. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=197105#p197105 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. So, based on all of your responses, weve pretty much come to the conclusion that, across the board, schools for the blind are pretty crappy. They may have short-term benefits, or, in extreme cases, actually be better in some situations than being mainstreamed.But why are these things allowed to go on? In the 21st century, when the most benign of things can go viral in an instant, why do we tolerate being shamed into remaining silent? Why do we allow ourselves to be treated as though were not human?Were not being shoved in cellars anymore, not hidden and considered evil, yet many of us have virtually been locked in a cage emotionally.Which brings up an interesting point, how many of you had support from your parents, family members, friends, etc. during this time?I for one didnt. My parents always said that I brought it all on myself, and that I was always a difficult person to get along with, and of course the teachers were right in trying to beat me into submission, metaphorically speaking.I guess it never occurred to them that the reason I grew up to be a difficult person to get along with was precisely because I never had much emotional support.But back to the point, replacing physical restrictions with mental ones is not progress. Its humiliating, degrading, and stunting. And yet, we still tolerate it. We only speak about it if someone is bold enough to come forward and ask for war stories. And, even then, how many of you would talk about if this wasnt a reasonably anonymous forum? How many of you would talk if we were all chatting amiably around a fire? Or if people you knew in a professional capacity were present?And what about kids who do go to specialized schools, and end up being unable to think for themselves, or cope in the real world? Who would they have been had they been born sighted? Would they simply be a different breed of automaton, or would they have fallen somew here on the continuum of normal human behavior? Is there a way to break the conditioning, once its been hammered into a person for, in many cases, 18 years? If we take into account that many blind children who enter the special school system start with early intervention, or preschool at the age of 3 or so, then are strongly encouraged to stay there until theyre 21, theyve pretty much had all of their developmental milestones shaped by a fundamentally broken system.As for training centers, Im beginning to gather that theyre not common, or perhaps unheard of, even in places like the UK. Is this so? Why is that? Is it because, here in the US, we tend to value personal autonomy above other things? Is it because we really have more resources? Somehow, I doubt that. Is it really because of organizations like the NFB, who have been pushing their philosophy for so long that its actually managed to seep into the public consciousness on some level?< br />What do blindness organizations in other parts of the world do? Ive gotten a pretty solid idea of what the RNIB is like, but what about other places? URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=197021#p197021 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. I would talk in front of everyone. I didnt go to a school for the blind, but I had similar experiences that were in line with this kind of thing until high school. What does it matter what they think now? They cant make my life horrible even if they wanted to (and, to be honest, in my case they didnt want to make my life horrible in the first place. I think we need to try to remember that-these people do actually want to help in most cases).I think that the reason this persists is that its not up to us to change it. Thats sad but true. we cant get the schools shut down. The best any of us can do is convince parents of blind children that theyre a bad idea, which is hard to impractically difficult. This can best be done by increasing the employment rate, etc, which can best be done by solving the other problem and o look, a cycle. Unfortunately, that cycle looks like it might be be coming a vortex--I kind of expect declining accessibility for the blind specifically over the next few years because the blind consumers are now way, way, way more vocal than the blind producers. to be honest, thinking about it, Im not sure this problem is separable into an individually solveable subproblem because, looked at both subjectively and objectively, blind people are as a rule failing to be successful by the required definitions for this to fix itself. And yes, I know that this is because of the issue under discussion in many, many cases, but were stuck in a chicken-and-egg problem. Society defines success as employment, employment makes blind people visible to the sighted and helps increase legal requirements, we dont have employment. Conclusion: we lose. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=197023#p197023 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Thats a fair assessment of the problem.But I will say that, from my own personal experience, I know that we werent really allowed (in quotes) to talk about our experiences while they were going on.Someone a few posts back was talking about how, when people came around and asked the students what they thought of their school experiences, they were expected to say only positive things. I can confirm that this is true. I remember when a girl was going to be starting at the school. She was going to be living in the dorm, and the principal came into my science class, the teacher stopped whatever she was doing, and they put me on the spot in front of the whole class, asking me what I thought of the school and life in the dorm. And, of course, it was painfully obvious that they wanted me to say nice, cutesy things.Funnily enough, that girl didnt end up staying very long. Apparently, when her mom found out some of what was really going on, s he threw a fit and removed her daughter from the school.Another story that comes to mind is of a friend of a friend of mine who had attended the school I went to for several years. He, and his parents, I guess, decided to try mainstreaming once he started high school. Apparently, it worked out extremely well for him. But, for some reason, he was interviewed for a local newspaper. I cant remember the details now, but it had something to do with sports, I believe. Well, when asked about how he was coping in school, he responded to the interviewers question by stating that he was getting a far better education in public school than he ever got at the school for the blind. I only found out about this because it caused quite a stir among the teachers. Because they were so famous for airing out everyones dirty laundry for all to hear, I heard about how outraged they were that he would dare to make the school look bad. I felt like saying, uh, no, y oure doing a wonderful job of that all on your own, guys.There was talk of writing an editorial piece for the paper, to tell the truth about what really goes on here, but I dont think it ever materialized.The guy who gave the interview became something of a rebel, a badass to me. Years later, when I actually spoke to him, it was something like meeting a celebrity. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=197028#p197028 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. O, no. They can make your life miserable while youre there. But once you leave, they hold no power over you. In fact, if enough people realized that, wed hold power over them.But, heres the thing. This kind of stuff is also happening in public schools with one difference: talking about it is fine because theyre not concerned about PR. Some are fine, and Id encourage any parents of a blind child to find out which those are by asking around, but a lot arent. I had a lot of these problems, but I know someone who had it a lot worse: up to and including being told shed not be going to the prom. The parents ultimately removed her from the school system. In my case, 3 years of my education were spent home school while my parents fought long and hard for basic accommodations-this got to the point where they were half-seriously joking that they should hire my mom as an accessibility advocate eve n though she had no formal background in it. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=197029#p197029 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Yes, but public school has one huge advantage: there are more of them, and they are not as far apart as their specialist counterparts. They are also more visible. Shopping around and stirring up the kettle are slightly more viable. (Depends on the region and the socioeconomic opportunities, etc. But on average, theres actually something resembling a market. Emphasis on resembling.)That... sounds a lot like most of our problems, actually. Tiny, tiny market. We cant really get what we need (never mind want) because no one has any incentive to give it, and doing it ourselves is... considerably harder than it would be for a financially secure sighted person without any other significant disabilities. And unlike a lot of disabilities, things that work out for us dont usually do anything for anyone else. Costs stay high, incentives stay low. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=197030#p197030 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. It really sounds that we have almost or totally the same experiences. I was also in a position where I was being called a gangsta and a stubborn ignorant guy. In my last year of specialist school, “the 9th one”, we had a director which was a real and an alive monster. He used to be like a president of a country for our school, and sometimes we thought “in a funny way” that he would keep some bodyguards to protect him although he set students and some teachers who didn’t obey him under a high pressure and often worned me and some friends that he would suspend us from school. If a newspaper or local TV came to our school to make some interviews with blind students, and if we stated that we live in very good condition, we really make a good life here, and this is like the second home for us, that student would be called to go to his office and the director would thank and would speak to him in good words like he was the best student of the school. But in case we told the truth, or spoke in contrary to what it was bad for the school and staff’s performance, we would immediately be added to the list of bad guys who come to school just to cause troubles. When I was in the fifth grade, I remember it was a similar situation, where some older guys in the 8th grade or the 9th one were presented to us as trouble makers, we were told not to be friends with them, because they were only some rude guys who want troubles with all and we would become like them if we became friends and trusted them to what they say. So we believed the teachers and we never thought to get along with them. But soon I grew up and I realized that those guys were right. Me and three of my friends were the best students of that school, (and still we are if we go there), they didn’t like us and used to avoid any troubles with me and some others. Also, if anything was broken or destroyed in the school, we were the first ones to be accused of doing it. Teachers came to the class, started the lessons and assessed by charging us with several questions and those who were listed as bad guys were told to talk about what they remembered from the lesson. Also in the 9th year of my specialist school, the teacher of music subject showed in the school, but never came to give us lessons for more than two months. One day, I decided to go to the director and say: “Why aren’t we attending music lessons?”. He told me that he couldn’t give so much details right now because that teacher wasn’t at the school but (I heard her voice when I was going to the director talking with another person). After one week, she appeared at the class and started to yell at me. “you Afrim, who claim that I haven’t attended lessons for more than two months, come here and talk about the last lesson. But we hadn’t been given lessons for two months so I didn’t remember at least one sentence. She assessed me with a very bad mark, although I was one of the best students at music and at accordion literally and practically. She started to hate me so much and if I spoke in another discussion which was not related to the lessons, She immediately said, Stop now, let’s go on with the new unit. On the other hand, those who got along with her, and didn’t complain of her absence got good marks, even though they had nothing to do with the music, and they didn’t even know what does the music stand for. I was an inspiring musician who had participated in almost all concerts hold by our school, and I had succeeded in every test. But that teacher was not agree. In the end of the year, when the final marks were launched, he asked me, why’s your mark in music so bad, while in accordion you got the best one? I told him to ask the music’s teacher, but soon she avoided the topic and another discussion was already started. I felt very bad, but this is only one story and others would occur soon. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196876#p196876 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Well, I had almost the same, if not worse or better , experience to you guys. Even though I studied in special schools for about 8 years and only on mainstream schools for 2 years (Im still 14), I think mainstream schools are better, even though they might not have the accomodations like special schools. Then again theres a special unit in the mainstream school... And guess what? Were still! using Perkin braillers in classes every day, carrying them all around and having sighted teachers who knew braille transcribe it! The kids at special school learn much, much slower than normal, and the teachers slowed down just to follow their pace, which annoyed me so. The good thing though, is that my school (The special school) brought us to trips sometimes to foreign countries for free... still mainstream is better. Some people asked me Well why not go to the special school thats near yoru house? admitedly the mainstream school is about a 45 minute car r ide from my house, but I said, I wanna blend in with the society like a normal person. Not just hang around the blind. There are a few blindies in the mainstream school Im attending, and admitedly they act more like normal people than blindies after they attend mainstream schools! Though I think some of the teachers there are overprotective sometimes, like hey dont punch each other, even though we did not and just look like we did, and, were simply playing! Sigh... AND well, te special school had too much accomodation that mobility is almost too easy, but they didnt! teach us how to use canes and such until were about 11! admitedly my o and M skills are like crap... but thats for another topic. And many more points I wont raise cause this post is getting long and Im getting tired (wrote this at 11:10 PM... I shouldve gonne to slep, lol)... URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196892#p196892 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. @Gamedude, While I am not surprised what you say about the slow pace of education in a specialist school, that is quite surprising. In Britain, specialist schools usually have a fairly high standar of eucation, for example I was doing things at age 9 an 10 that I wouldnt do in mainstream school for another three or four years such as the rock cycle and at least basic atomic structure. this is in fairness more due to small class size and individual teacher attention than specialist education (my class at specialist school had 6 people in it), and also the fact that with literally nothing else, nothing social, no friends or activities outside the school there was nothing to do but work, indeed Ive heard of several students who went to university from specialist schools, recieved good degrees but spend their entire time working (often living from home, just going to lectures and coming back rather than living at the university or oing anything social, particularly s inse usually their basic independence skills werent up to much anyway. @Danny, I can well believe a specialist school saw braille as propper writing and a laptop as a toy. Writing in Braille after all is only understood by blind people, an that is what a specialist school is focused on. As I said, while in the early 90s there certainly were options for using a computer that I couldve had, my specialist school didnt even teach me to type let alone use a computer, even though i started using a laptop with Windows 3.1 only three years after I left that school. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196764#p196764 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. @darkYes you can do equations but it’s again difficult, isn’t it?You should learn commands which are a three key combination. For example, a command in math may need Alt+shift+3+5+9 and it’s hard to do these commands quickly. But I never have liked math so I tried to learn something just to get a mark to improve my average.I was not such bad at math in my specialist school because we had special items and there were some brail symbols which our teacher learned and we could progress somewhat.Also, there were some musical instruments in my specialist school like accordion, piano, clarinet and guitar, and I learned so much accordion. Instruments were provided as an accessible alternative for blinds which they can follow and graduate in it cause an instrument needs less site than a scientific subject like biology or math.@GamedudeWe have almost similar experiences regarding our specialist schools. The students were not fast. They performed at a low speed. For example, sometimes they used to spend an hour and a half to learn a simple unit in geography or biology, while I could do this in my regular high school for no more than 45 minutes. I also stated that the students in my specialist school were out-of-date and me and my close friend were the only ones who were up to date. We used to read news and headlines and when we discussed about them in class, they kept asking us: “oh, really? When did it happen?”, or “where do you find all these informations”. The staff of teachers really thought that we have less chances to progress when we go out of that school. They used to say: “don’t complain so much, when you go outa here, nobody will help and care for you like we do in this school. Nobody will forgive you if you go late at school or make a mistake like we treat you here”. But when I went out of that school, I realized that it was totally different. the teachers where polite and they tried to do the best for us. I am really thankful to them because they really worked better and harder than the teachers who were in my specialist school, and when they couldn’t explain something exclusively for me, they felt really sorry or tried to explain it in other words with the view to make me understand it. On the other hand, in my specialist school, for example, in math or physic we had some structures which needed special items to illustrate it. But the problem for the teachers was hopefully resolved because foreign companies from Switzerland, Holand or America had previously donated for us by providing everything we needed and now we could demonstrate the structures in our own through our imagination and fantasy and the teachers had not to do a big deal to make us understand it.Also the teachers in the regular or normal school were more reasonable. Once we had to prepare a performance using body and sign language. The teacher thought that I would claim to do it, but I was aware that I couldn’t do anything to perform something through my body language. She said, “I am really sorry I can’t involve you in the team, and I hope you understand why”. While in the specialist school the teachers would hardly insist to do something even if it was almost impossible. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196771#p196771 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Afrim, most software has an insert symbol option in the menu so you dont have to type in the numeric code for the symbols. Jaws also has a menu of its own on insert + 4 with some of the more common symbols.Im noticing a trend here, I myself found my science teacher particularly helpful. While most teachers didnt seem to have been told about the onset of my visual impairment at all she suggested I sit around the side of the large table at the front which the teacher stood behind to teach, and even read notes onto tape for my GCSEs. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196775#p196775 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. As Cx2 said, finding the symbols for equations isnt that ifficult on a computer if you use a decent program and the correct commands, indeed most of what youd need for gcse physics is on the number row anyway, (I was even able to write formal logic when I did it at university). Music was a major thing at my specialist school, however it was so regimented as to be completely joyless, even though they taught to a high standard. You got no choice about what instrument you played or what part you sung and woe betide you if you went wrong, Indeed part of my intensive dislike of braille music likely stems from this point where it was absolutely rammed down your throat to ridiculous levels, (not helped by braille music being quite illogical anyway), with extreme castigation, one could almost call verbal or emotional abuse if you didnt learn it, just as if you disobeyed any rules. I was frequently told that if I couldnt obey the rules I had criminal te ndencies and would end up going to prison for not obeying the rules of society Even though the so called rules were so arbitrary as to be ridiculous. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196789#p196789 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. So if you disobeyed the rules, because you might have not like that part of lesson or extra lesson in music you would end up being sent to prison one day? ahahahaahhaahhahahahahahahaha, funny. it didnt happened in our school, but however, some teacher were violent and there is a story, when the director called me a Criminal, idiot, such an ignorant guy just because I had broken something by accident, but it was expensive though. However it was donated by somebody else and our school didnt pay anything to get it. I felt so angry indeed and my friends too.There was a time or a whole year when they didnt treat me and some of my friends, who were looking for much more fairness in the school and we wanted our rights to be respected and to be taken in consideration more. But these are other stories and I will tell them in newer comments. Indeed, very sad stories and I hope no other blinds should have gone through them. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196822#p196822 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. So if you disobeyed some rules, because you might have not like that part of lesson or extra lesson in music you would end up being sent to prison one day? ahahahaahhaahhahahahahahahaha, funny. it didnt happened in our school, but however, some teacher were violent and there is a story, when the director called me a Criminal, idiot, such an ignorant guy just because I had broken something by accident, but it was expensive though. However it was donated by somebody else and our school didnt pay anything to get it. I felt so angry indeed and my friends too.There was a time or a whole year when they didnt treat me and some of my friends well, who were looking for much more fairness in the school and we wanted our rights to be respected and to be taken more in consideration. But these are other stories and I will tell them in newer comments. Indeed, very sad stories and I hope no other blinds should have gone through them. We have been violated and worned for more than 5 or six months. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196822#p196822 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. @dannyMy parents really only considered that my complaints about the school could have been serious after I had gotten suspended for a huge argument I had with the schools supervisors. i could tell that my parents feelings towards the school rapidly declined as they interacted with the residential supervisors and noticed how poorly they performed. *sighs* Its not surprising that the specialist school I used to attend now is getting attention from the press as former teachers are coming forward to verbally attack administration. My fathers job relocated him to Florida, so this is where we currently live as well. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196824#p196824 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. hi.[[wow]] guys. your experiences with specialist schools sound terrifying. I on the other hand have had a nice experience during specialist school, I was there for 12 years and after that I went straight to university. what was different about our specialist school is the fact that we were not treated like prisoneers, we could get out if we wanted, even on our own with the agreement of one parent. most of the teachers were really nice, many of them encouraged us to socialize with the sighted world and they let us choose which method to use when writing in classes. I started to use a laptop in high school and the teachers found it easier to read my homework so they encouraged others to do this too. we even had 3 or 4 completely blind teachers. I think that me and my class mates were just like normal highschool guys, we used to date girls, to smoke and drink in the school... I can say I had a wonderfull time there. also worth noting is that my school was not designed entirely for completely blind people, there were also partially sighted students and we were not such a small group. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196829#p196829 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. [[wow]] Nin, sounds like your school avoided a lot of the pitfalls of most specialist schools, however equally it sounds like yours was better because! it wasnt specialist in the same way most are, eg, you could go out and were encouraged to interact with sighted people, rather than the opposite. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196830#p196830 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Hello all,So I just checked some stuff about rnc, and, these guys have definitely improved. They now offer trips to theaters and cinemas, and believe it or not, brace yourself because I think this next points going to make some of you quite excited:The RNC is the place where Vinux originated. I dont use linux, Ive heard its quite hard to get used to, but if thats the sort of stuff they are developing over there then all I can say is [[wow]], thats kind of epic. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196841#p196841 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. [[wow]], there are a lot of interesting anecdotes here.I can definitely relate to having to follow ridiculous and strict rules. At the school for the blind that I went to, we werent allowed to go out on our own, either. Admittedly, most of the students who lived in the dorm had multiple disabilities, and quite severe ones at that. A couple of the students were nonverbal, couldnt feed themselves, etc.But for those of us who could think for ourselves, interact in normal ways, things werent great. It was heavily implied that we were blind, so why would we want to go out alone anyway?On the other hand, there was also a rather disconcerting double standard. We werent expected to go to college after we graduated, by default. But if someone said that was what they wanted to do, God help them if they changed their minds later. We would be put down incessantly, told that we didnt know what the real world was like, we were unprofessional, and that we would never be successful.The teachers had their favorites, who could get away with everything, and people like me, who were considered troublemakers, were constantly made an ass out of.The reason I became a favorite punching bag for the four years I attended was that, when I first arrived, I noticed an appalling trend. Teachers and classroom aides would congregate in the doorways of classrooms and talk none too quietly about students who, more often than not, were sitting right there, and could clearly hear everything that was being said about them. Even in cases where the students couldnt understand or respond to what was being said, it infuriated me that such behavior was allowed to go on, and that no one was doing anything about it. So, one day, about a month after I first began attending the school, I pulled two of the worst offenders aside, and told them, politely but firmly, that it wasnt right that they were doing that. They were extremely sho cked that I had said anything.While I wasnt punished outright, from that day forward, teachers told other students that they shouldnt be friends with me, that I was a bad influence, and, of course, they held me to a much higher standard than everyone else. While I will be the first to admit that, during that time, I fought back, and didnt make their lives any easier, it wouldnt have mattered what I did. I was already a scapegoat, and I knew it. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196855#p196855 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. @Turtlepower, that sounds worryingly believable, although the school I attended only had blind kids, at one and the same time we were told that the staff were attempting to make us be normal, and yet that we had to obey the rules without question and just act as the staff desired, for example for some silly reason if someone bought a tape recorder with an audio tape and listened to it at night in bed, it was literally a crime to touch the machine. Indeed on one occasion when myself an another boy woke up early at about six Am, started a quiet conversation and stuck on a tape with a double set of headphones, not only were we bought up in front of the head master for a severe yelling at, but there was an assembly to the entire school on the theme of crime and learning from mistakes, and for the next three mornings we were ordered to get up at six and do extra copying for an hour. Yes, things really were! that victorian!Frequently I remember things Id done or discovered or achieved attributed to other students, indeed I used to use my intelligence as a weapon sinse it was quite satisfying to force one of the teachers who literally hated me to admit I was right. @Aaron, it isnt so much just about trips out, (we had highly supervised trips to plces occasionally, I remember getting in severe trouble for daring to drink out of a can of coke, and to open it myself rather than waiting for someone to open it for me), its more about the attitude an the institution. The idea behind my specialist school (and I suspect from what people have said behind many others), was that there was a system and ultimately the system took pressidence over everything. Actually this seems true of a lot of blindness organizations now I think about it. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196869#p196869 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. I was fortunate enough to attend a public school from pre-k through 12th grade. I dont know if three hours was too far away, or if my parents were just blessedly ignorent of the resources out there.My braille teacher thought I might like to attend a two week independent living program at the blind school in my state. I was about nine or ten at the time, and thought it would be a grand vacation. I learned how to microwave an egg instead of using the stove. I learned that the blind school is located right next to the womens prison. I learned that the dorms have these painted cinderblock walls, bare cement floors, and mattresses that feel and sound like theyre covered in plastic. I learned that the school is an old, antiquated building that feels brilliantly like a prison unit.After I lost the rest of my sight a couple years later, I went back. I had to take some homework assignments from regular school to complete while I was there, since the program wa s in October or something. I dont remember why I couldnt use my Braillen Speak, I just remember having to write my homework out on a Perkins brailler.12 year old me: But how are my teachers going to read this if I dont print it out?The solution was to have some sighted person transcribe the braille into print above the line of braille... what?Even though I only attended a few breif two week sessions and a couple three day summer sports programs there, I got enough of an impression to make me extremely thankful for my mainstream education, even if I was an awkward introverted nerd who nobody talked to. At least I learned how I should be interacting with the wider world.All the things said previously are true. Isolation, antiquity, dirty, absolutely unsanitary conditions in one of the dorms which was empty at the time. (They said it was a dead rat.) I did get introduced to things like tactile maps, and I did get told, Dont let your jacket drag from your arm on the ground like that. It makes you look like a lost little blind girl.I was very new to being completely blind, not even a year into the ordeal. We were coming back from a trip, and I suddenly noticed that I wasnt with the rest of the group. I was completely alone and terrified, standing there with a cane in my hand. Having no idea what to do, I backtracked, and found my way to where I was supposed to be. The orientation lady came up to me and said, I was there watching you the whole time. So while I appreciate the sink or swim lesson, I battled mobility terror all through the rest of middle and high school.As for a training center aspect, I went back to the adult portion of this school when I dropped out of my first university. I wasnt prepared, I was having anxiety problems that were affecting my physical health, and I was in a panic about what to do with my life since Id left univer sity and sucked at everything. I was dropped off, and the place was desserted. No welcome tour, no explanation of what would happen, no tour of the campus, no orientation, no assurance that Id be shown what to do or where to go. Just, Heres your cinderblock and cement room with no internet... bye. Still in my anxious state, I sat alone for a couple hours, then went to knock on another bedroom down the hall. I asked the woman who answered if she knew what time dinner would be, did she know where to go? I can only assume she had multiple disabilities, because I couldnt understand her mumbled response. Someone was indeed there to show me where to go, the first staff face Id seen in hours.So on the first day, they set me to take a career analysis questionaire of some 300 questions. But the lady who usually administers it on the computer isnt there, so I would have to write everything out on the brailler by hand. About two hours and seven p ages in, I broke down in tears and told them I couldnt do this anymore.It was 2009. Why was I filling this out on a Perkins brailler? Why wasnt there wi-fi in the building, or at least a computer lab?I did wind up going back to college and completing my BA, and now I capture hapless students and tutor them until theyre miserable and hate me.I dont think I had any education experiences there at the special school, but it is a very isolated, growth stunting sort of environment. I assume they are typically underfunded, and the construction shows it. While I did learn some useful blindy skills, it is definitely not a place I would ever recommend for any extended amount of time. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196870#p196870 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Hi,Im wondering how something like new college woulser or rnc or whatever its called these days, will fair. I think they have programs for people who are sixteen and up and such, so targeted at those who have already been through school. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196702#p196702 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. I know I didnt go to a specialist school but its perhaps worth noting that my mainstream secondary schools headmaster asked my mother to remove me shortly after my sight loss was diagnosed. Luckily for me she flat out refused.Ill admit that not having learned braille or daily living skills was a real pain in the posterior. In fact it was only a few short years ago since I found a braille class and started learning it, and even more recently since I was shown how to safely use a sharp knife to cut vegetables which sounds obvious but the idea of using a sharp knife really terrified me. Ive always been poorly coordinated which just made the concern I had worse.Luckily Ive always been comfortable with computers so I pretty much managed to teach myself how to use Jaws just from the help files, and with my interests I was always heading for computing courses blind or not. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196705#p196705 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Hello,First of all, thank you for this great post. I was really looking forward to a discussion like this.In fact, if we start to discuss about a topic like this, there is plenty to say, and there would be needed to write tens of pages to really explain some problems and general mentalities of some blind persons and special school for the blinds.Well let’s begin.I’m a 19 years old blind from Albania. As I have said before, Albania is a poor country which has to face many problems to become a better place for all. Not only blinds but also other kinds of disabled people aren’t treated well. There are some people who “want to improve” our lives in such ways, but unfortunately, some, and most of them do this for profitable purposes, which makes me feel terribly bad. There are some local associations who get some foundations of millions of dollars, but only few of them will go for blinds. However, this is another point.I am really against the special schools which are designed for blinds. As it’s stated before, special schools consist of few people who sound the same, and when it lasts for long, it becomes repetitive and a boring routine. I went to my primary school, which lasts nine years. It was a special school, and we were 60 or 65 students in total. There were some special services there which may have helped us in some ways, but however, we really felt very isolated. We had brail books for all subjects and late in 2007, an American company introduced some typewriters, again, “introduced some typewriters” which were surved only for the best students and I was lucky enough to get one. But what about others? The others had to type with an item whose name I don’t know in English, which was very primitive, and it really needed a lot of time to take notes. Learning computer also started in 2008 when a company invested in our school by setting up 5 computers. That was not a big deal, but the staff and some students considered it good. Less people knew how to use the computer and among 65 students, only ten students including me had some knowledges on how to use the computer. Others didn’t even know how to turn it on and off. However, there are some other problems a part from what I’m saying. The staff was not so friendly except some old teachers who were good and I still remember them. If we unintentionally caused a problem, they would start yelling and lecturing you for hours. I still call them very disrespectful staff and hope somebody from the government will go there to refresh the staff. The students were unsatisfied with the life incide of school. We were very isolated, out-of-date and a routine which always remained the same. We had to wake up in the morning at 6:45 AM, have the breakfast at 7:15, and go to school at 7:45. We lived in a dorm. I often heard a phrase from many students there: “I’m looking forward to the day when I’ll go out of this fucking place”. There are also some other sad stories but I’m not writing them because the post will go very long.After I left that school I went to a normal high school, with no blind people. I was the only one blind person among 600 other students. It lasts three years. At start, I assumed it not to be good, I thought no person would pay attention to me, nobody would care for me, and I thought the teachers would treat me like I was a very retired person. The first days were a little difficult. I had no friends and I talked to less students in the class. Also there were some other problems. The students were fairly better than me and I thought I wouldn’t be able to pass the first grade. Eventually things started to become better, and I found many people who loved and respected me. I made some friends who were lovely, but a little different from us. The teachers were polite, respectful and amazing, although none of them were specialized to give lessons for blinds. They helped me a lot in all lessons and payed special attention to me. They even used to ask me in the end of the lessons: “Do you have any question?”I really found this school better than the special school of blinds and I could learn more on almost all lessons. Today I am one of the best students on my class, and this is due to my extensive work I could do in this three years. I really think I have gained twice knowledges comparing to the special school for blinds. It’s important to say though, brail books are missing for me, and I am using my laptop and some audio books. I can’t for example, do my homeworks in math or physic. But fortunately I had to study Physic and chemistry for only one year because the school is especially designed for languages as it’s called, “The school of linguistics” Or “The school of foreign languages”. If the school offered some PDF books, It would be very very good. Although I myself do not participate in some local activities of the school, I really feel great and comfortable. However I would
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. @Aaron, the boy I mentioned with the theory about the lake, and the girl I mentioned who didnt like pouring liquid without the indicator were both from worcester where they went after they attended the same special school I did, Tapton mount school in Sheffield (the same one the blind MP David Blunkit went to). I have heard worcester changed a lot when it was no longer managed by the rnib, though what it is like now I dont know.@Afrim, thank you for a very interesting post. What I find fascinating is though, as you said the economic situation and likely the organization is very different in Albania to what it is in Britain, a lot of experiences were similar. For example, my specialist school, though we did have enoughb equipment for everyone to have a perkins brailler and to have braille books (albiet you never got a choice about what to read), did very much the same in terms of living in dormitries, having very static and set routines etc. Heck there were even bells for people to go and clean their teeth and a set rotor on when each person coul get to have a shower. I dont know if the information technology business changed, but at the time in the early 90s when I was there there wasnt much by way of computers, heck even my so called typing lessons (which were so slow as to be ridiculous), were taught on a print type writer. I can say it is possible to learn braille in a normal school, but you need to learn from a teacher who knows braille. The issue I had was that the county counsel would only provide such a teacher once a week, and the rest was taught mostly by my mum, hence why I ended up going to the specialist school to learn braille, ineed I believe at the moment currently in Britain that is what is one. Regaring physics an maths, well you can certainly write the equations on a laptop with speech provided you set your screen reader to read all the punctuation marks, inee this was how I id my phy sics and my A level biology. What however is harder is all the graphs, information in vertical tableles etc, which you probably do need some braille graph paper for, sinse though you coul generate them with computer programs, making sense of them would be more difficult without a fully tactile representation (one reason I still hope for a decent actile isplay for computers at some point). Then of course there is creative teaching, my a level biology teacher was bbrilliant for that, one thing he id for example when i didnt quite get the atomic exchanginge in rrespiration was stick a tenis ball and a foot ball together to be the oxygen atom, then walk me aroun the room with the path through the lungs and the various reactions such happening along the way to give me a spacial sense of the graphical information of the set of chemical changes. He actually liked the iea so much he used it later for every class he taught .@Cx2, fare enough on the living skills thing, it cant be easy to learn when youve done things ifferently constantly. For knife use, my coorination is also terrible but what I o is put my index finger up the blunt edge of the knife so I always know where it is. I Even did this in biology when wielding a scalpal and dysecting various bodily organs, the teacher used to say it gave him a heart attack to see my finger so close to the cutting edge of the blade but once I explained the reason I held the scalpal like that he understood the point. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196715#p196715 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Well, you attended the school in nineties but in those years the term computer didnt exist in Albania. I mean the modern computers, which run windows OS and we used only windows XP. Although I never got used to it cause I had a computer running windows 7 at my home.We also had some assistants who helped and told us when to go to school, when to have shower and even when to go to bed. Also, there were a very funny salary which we got by the end of months. They used to give us like 4 dollars but here is another currency which is almost equal to dollar. But however it was never enough and it couldn’t meet our needs for even one day. However food and dormitory were gratis. You may have used some brail writers which were modern and may have worked using electricity, but we used some type writers who made a lot of noise. In all normal schools here teachers don’t know to use brail and some other teachers don’t even know what is brail. However some teachers on my high school asked me if I used brail. As I said before, they didn’t have special knowledges how to work with a blind student, but they acted through their common sense and they are doing this not bad. They try to describe in the way they can, regarding to the subject they stand for. Sometimes it works and they try to do the best of them and I really thank them in advance cause they are helping me more than the teachers in the special school of blinds who were specialized to give lessons for us.But fortunately I don’t have to do with subjects which require site because I study three languages so far.But I admit that I suck at maths. We should use a brail display or any other brail reader to perform equations. This does even stand for physic and chemistry. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196718#p196718 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. I, myself, have quite a long, difficult education process history, but I can say that most of my experiences in nonspecialist, public schools have been miles better than any experiences I have had in any specialist schools. The only negative experience I have encountered with a nonspecialist school occurred when I first lost my vision while I was very, very young. The administration leading the school I was attending at the time simply refused to accommodate me. They refused to slightly modify lessons or inform teachers about my visual impairment. Instead, there only offered solution was to throw me in the back of a Special Education class for students with learning disabilities and be done with the whole situation. Instead of immediately withdrawing me from the school and searching for a more friendly school for me to enroll in, my parents argued ferociously with the administration for weeks and weeks on end. While they fought for my accommodations, the temporary solution was for me to have one on one lessons with a single teacher for around an hour and a half after school days.After realizing that they were fighting a losing battle, my parents decided to enroll me into a specialist school. At the time, things were not bad, as I was quite young and didnt understand the neggative impacts of a specialist school for the visually empaired. As I grew older, I spent more and more of my time noticing the neggative aspects of the specialist school. One of the first things I have noticed was the speed of teaching. I am not quite sure if anyone else has had any experience in regards to this, but I found that I learned more in one day at a nonspecialist school than I learned in three days at a specialist school. It was mortifying! The speed at which most of the students performed was quite low. This could be understandable in some cases, but it seemed as though the instructors slowed right down with them instead on working to increase their performance. I noticed how different social interactions were between students in the specialist school and students in regular schools. I was quite a main streamer, so I constantly discussed the latest main stream news and updates, only to find that a couple of students knew what I was talking about. Trying to have a conversation with most specialist students was almost scary. I noticed the different attitudes students in specialist schools had versus attitudes in regular schools. I noticed how dependent the students were in specialist schools verses students in regular schools. And most importantly of all, I noticed the difference between staff members. The behavior of staff described by forum members above pretty much sums up my experiences with specialist staff. The staff at the specialist school I attended always ranted on and on about why it was so important that visually impaired students needed to attend a specialist school. They always insisted that the outside world was not a nice place and that it was important for visually impaired students to learn among other visually impaired students. I often thought if they even ever actually stopped to think about their reasons for visually impaired students to attend a specialist school for most of them were beyond ridiculous. Students were always punished for problems that were out of their control, as discussed above, and most of the staff were unfriendly. I literally spent most of my time arguing with administration and trying to improve the situation at the specialist school, but eventually I realized that I was fighting a losing battle. The only reason why my parents believed that it was alright for me to attend a regular school was because of a relocation we went through. The specialist school in the area refused to take me in so late into the term. My parents were absolutely mind-blown at how willing the school was to meet my accommodations. So even though a specialist school may have fancy resources, I would always rather attend a nonspecialist school. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196720#p196720 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. I, myself, have quite a long, difficult education process history, but I can say that most of my experiences in nonspecialist, public schools have been miles better than any experiences I have had in any specialist schools. The only negative experience I have encountered with a nonspecialist school occurred when I first lost my vision while I was very, very young. The administration leading the school I was attending at the time simply refused to accommodate me. They refused to slightly modify lessons or inform teachers about my visual impairment. Instead, there only offered solution was to throw me in the back of a Special Education class for students with learning disabilities and be done with the whole situation. Instead of immediately withdrawing me from the school and searching for a more friendly school for me to enroll in, my parents argued ferociously with the administration for weeks and weeks on end. While they fought for my accommodations, the temporary solution was for me to have one on one lessons with a single teacher for around an hour and a half after school days.After realizing that they were fighting a losing battle, my parents decided to enroll me into a specialist school. At the time, things were not bad, as I was quite young and didnt understand the neggative impacts of a specialist school for the visually empaired. As I grew older, I spent more and more of my time noticing the neggative aspects of the specialist school. One of the first things I have noticed was the speed of teaching. I am not quite sure if anyone else has had any experience in regards to this, but I found that I learned more in one day at a nonspecialist school than I learned in three days at a specialist school. It was mortifying! The speed at which most of the students performed was quite low. This could be understandable in some cases, but it seemed as though the instructors slowed right down with them instead on working to increase their performance. I noticed how different social interactions were between students in the specialist school and students in regular schools. I was quite a main streamer, so I constantly discussed the latest main stream news and updates, only to find that a couple of students knew what I was talking about. Trying to have a conversation with most specialist students was almost scary. I noticed the different attitudes students in specialist schools had versus attitudes in regular schools. I noticed how dependent the students were in specialist schools verses students in regular schools. And most importantly of all, I noticed the difference between staff members. The behavior of staff described by forum members above pretty much sums up my experiences with specialist staff. The staff at the specialist school I attended always ranted on and on about why it was so important that visually impaired students needed to attend a specialist school. They always insisted that the outside world was not a nice place and that it was important for visually impaired students to learn among other visually impaired students. I often thought if they even ever actually stopped to think about their reasons for visually impaired students to attend a specialist school for most of them were beyond ridiculous. Students were always punished for problems that were out of their control, as discussed above, and most of the staff were unfriendly. I literally spent most of my time arguing with administration and trying to improve the situation at the specialist school, but eventually I realized that I was fighting a losing battle. The only reason why my parents believed that it was alright for me to attend a regular school was because of a relocation we went through. The specialist school in the area refused to take me in so late into the term. My parents were absolutely mind-blown at how willing the school was to meet my accommodations. Teachers at the nonspecialist school went far out of their way to ensure th at I understood all of their concepts. A teacher of Science worked for quite some time on a tactile graph to ensure that I understood her explanation. (It wasnt a simple graph either) While in Specialist schools, they might have machines and fancy technology to make these graphs without issue, said teacher completed the entire graph by hand out of concern. Other teachers always approached me and asked me if I had any questions. I was never given the chance to approach the teacher if I had any troubles, they always approached me first. It was a great experience and I always thanked them for being so flexible. So even though a specialist school may have fancy resources, I would always rather attend a nonspecialist school. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196720#p196720 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. @Afrim, well the school thing souns remarkably similar. Even though in the 90s there were! laptops running windows 95 and 98 with Supernova, jfw etc, everyone used braille, and we didndt have any braille note takers either, they were all perkins braillers, ie the huge metal devices with the braille keys at the front which as you said make a lot of noise. The timing for going to bed etc was about thesame, though no special school in the Uk to my knolidge gives students a salary, inee even if they did sinse most students werent allowed of school grounds until they were 16 plus (and 18 without a teacher as escort), then there would be no where to spend such money anyway.I will say its surprising what teachers and indeed university lecturers are willing to describe if asked correctly, though of course it depends upon the individual. The setup in my secondary school would! have worked in terms of teaching being that blind kids were in the same class and under the same teacher as everyone else, but in some lessons (such as science), would have a sighted assistant, who also provided braille materials in important subjects, the only problem was the school this was done in was a complete dump. You actually dont need a braille isplay for writing equations, indeed the price of braille displays meant the government would never buy one for a student in the Uk, you either got a computer with jfw, supernova etc, or a manual braille writer or more usually both, so I can say equations and even chemical symbols are possible on computer. What isnt possible is vertical columnized mathematics, drawing of graphs, labeling giometric diagrams or the like. I can say this sinse I personally did not only do standard maths but additional maths and science lessons at my secondary school, I was the only student (blind or sighted), in the school to take the full higher level maths and science papers whos grades went up to A, an d indeed was the only blind student to take two humanities subjects as well, albeit I didnt do half as well as I know I couldve done owing to the school being a complete shithole. Blind students were exempt from the practical technology gcses, such as design technology or technical drawing, but maths, science, a language and English are sort of a given in Britain until your 15 plus, so cutting out maths would be a bad idea especially to anyone who wanted to go on to the last part of school much less to university as I did. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196724#p196724 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. @gamedude Yours sounds almost like my time in speshelist schools, accept my parents didnt even realize what was going on until late in the last year I was their. Before then whenever I would approach them about sirten things going on, their simpple excuse was to go talk to the schools counceler, who was no help one bit. They only realized it after both of our old cats had past, my brother had snuck home another cat, and after I at least tried talking to my teacher about letting me use my own laptop. That goes into a hole different subject, but it should be good enough to say that she simpply brushed mom and I off, told me I needed to work on my brail reading just because it happens to be slow, and acted like the computer was simpply a toy, something I played games on. In thoughs days I was missing so much school from point blank refusing to go the school had basicly tried to say, if you came every day you could bring your laptop on frydays, which I didnt fall for . In the end my parents, shortly after our second cat past away 2 days after my birthday said screw it, and told the school they wernt having it anymore. So in short I got an extended summer, punctuated with a move to florida, which is where im currently at. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196726#p196726 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. @Turtlepower, Ive commented on this issue before, but I dont mind discussing it again. in the Uk, there are a few specialist schools but not as many as there used to be, and its certainly not manditory to go. I myself went to a normal school from age 5-7, then went to a specialist school for the next three years to improve my reading. Then, because my local authority decided it was cheaper to setup their own unit I went to a normal mainstream school from age 11-15, but one which had about 15 other blind kids and supposedly specialist assistance. After that from doing my A levels onward I went back to normal school and was the only blind person. In general, from both my personal experience, the discussions Ive had withb people whove been to specialist schools and the research Ive done, Im very much against specialist education. Im sure there are some decent people working in such, (indeed I can think of a couple of nice staff at myy own specialist school albeit my teacher was a ringer for prof umbridge), however there are two major problems. The first is social. With such a small group of people, generally isolated from the outside world, people do not learn to communicate with sighted kids at all, or with others in the world. A lot of people I know who went right through the specialist school system come out the other end and spend all of their time doing nothing but sitting and talking to those few blind friends they made at specialist school on skype and it wouldnt occur to them to learn how to socially interact with sighted people. the second is practical. In specialist schools (just as with a lot of specialist institutions), while training exists, generally ecause the children involved are inherently within that set system, the system becomes God. For example in my specialist school there were things like the liquid level indicators specially designed for a certain measure of tea and one of milk, the set routine on bells, the way of learning things like typing which was so slow and stratified that people learnt in groups of letters, not to mention bells for everything and abslutely no care given to individual preference. My brother once coined the term clockwork mice for those who came out of that sort of system, and he was correct. Such people often have little motivation to try things for themselves and also have been taught to take what they are given and like it (a favourite saying of my specialist school). To take one example, one person I spoke to who I used to know at my specialist school said he was a fan of racing games after hed been to a blindness camp and someone showed him top speed. I asked him if he knew about this forum, about rail racer, about Jim Kitchins mac one, he replied I didnt look Hed found something he enjoyed, but instead of thinking h old on lets try and get more out of this he simply took what he had been shown and left it at that (he didnt even have any extra cars or tracks for top speed other than those he had been given). Ironically in fact, one thing Ive noticed is that very few people from the specialist system tend to become involved with audio games which I suspect is to do with this lack of motivation, sinse fundamentally audiogames are something a person has to go out and try for themselves!This isnt to say mainstream education always works either. My secondary school failed sinse the school itself was a complete and utter hole! Ive also heard of cases where children have a perminant classroom assistant and so never interact with other sighted kids at all sinse the assistant is always hovering over their shoulders and the class teacher does nothing to include them in lessons expecting the assistant to effectively teach the blind child. Equall y, without skills like mobility and dayly living skills provided in a specialist school (or in my case at home by my parents), a person is dependent upon whatever training either a local authority or charity can provide and these can be extremely hit and miss depending upon the person and the organization. Still, despite the issues sinse Ive seen people very badly stuck due to specialist education Id say mainstream is a better option provided that it is firstly the right school (really anyone wouldve had a bad time at my secondary school), and that the staff are decent. As regards training centers, camps etc, well actual centers or courses are less common in the Uk for younger people, though there is a lot for old folks (mostly because the Rnib is very good at forgetting anyone who wont give them money in their will doesnt exist). Ive seen smaller camps, occasional courses and the like, indeed i did once go to one sinse I knew the lady who was running it and knew her to have a good attitude about blindness. It depends however very much upon the person and the organization who runs these, and they tend to vary hugely, and unfortunately sinse
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. The social aspect is rarely emphasized, IME.(See: http://www.perkins.org/news-events/eNew … story_jump for an example of someone noticing this, not that I was impressed by the sound of it)I cant really judge the local school for the blind all that fairly, since I was only there for two of their summer things, and most of the people there could see better than me (and I could see better at the time), but suffice it to say, I did not get the impression that there was much to gain. But I did get braille/Jaws/OM during the normal school year, so theres that. It struck me as more of a networking hub, unless you were one of the totally blinds whose local public system couldnt be bothered.World Services for the Blind would have been good if I was into sitting in a chair all day talking to angry people about their taxes/computer problems. I already do the sitting in a chair all day thing and I hate it; becoming the faceless tax agent who everyone hates would not do me any favors. And I sat in on the IT or whatever it was called classes. Hopefully it was just a slow time of the course.Im still pretty screwed and will probably try the Louisiana Center for the Blind next, if DSB will pay for it. ... Or answer their phones. (Im half wondering if there wasnt a sudden outbreak of blindness around here this year, since DSB and all the psychiatric offices mysteriously stopped answering their phones at the same time.)But since I havent been there yet, I cant really say anything other than It looks like theres a chance I might get something out of it. Only two ways to find out, and I dont have precognition, so really theres just one. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196627#p196627 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Im also against specialist schools for those very reasons. But my very first girlfriend, whom Ive mentioned before in other topics, is yearning even fifteen years after the fact to return to the Oregon School for the Blind and the restrictions they imposed on us or at least to impose those same restrictions or as close as possible on herself now that shes graduated and still lives with her folks. But she wants me to take her back and to willing embrace her narrow, dull way of life. But she cant understand why I dont yearn back to the OSB days. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196632#p196632 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. Hi, as someone who whent through 6 years in a public school, and then most of my middleschool years in a speshelist school, I can say I prefer public school vastly to speshelist schools.My main problem was the restrictions, and the fact the teachers got mad at you if you did one thing rong. Brail note breaks down? Your falt, lets yell at you for an hour. Dont show up for a few days? We give you a 3 hour talking too. Decide to not go to school because your cat died? Its a cat, move on.The services wernt helpful either. I got a simpple brail note mpower because the school didnt trust us with apexs because their policy was blaim the student, not the device, and well, brail notes have a bit of a reputation for breaking down. I was their for 4 years before my cat past in late october of 2011, than right after my birthday we lost another one, and I couldnt take it anymore, so I stopt coming.In terms of socializing, while I was their I was a far different person. I wasnt open at all with my own parents about problems, and the kids had no idea what I was even talking about, accept for a select few. I was mainly a mainstreem video gamer, I watched tv, and they really didnt get much of it. So thats why my parents in 2011 decided we would move out of arizona and move to florida. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196645#p196645 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. At Dark, thats true. We have had similar discussions about this on the forum. However, I think theyre kind of buried within other topics, and I wanted a centralized location where people could exclusively discuss this.Besides the fact that this is an interesting subject to me on many levels, I have another reason for bringing it up now. But I would prefer not to reveal that yet.At Bryan, I often wonder what it would be like to experience life inside the mind of someone who is so limited. I would like to actually feel what it would be like to be so terrified of stepping out of a comfort zone that the slightest deviation from it would be something akin to blasphemy.Why, you may be asking yourself? Because, in order to help a person see things differently, you have to understand their perspective. The way it stands now, you or I or anyone who never lived with that mentality could ever really understand what it was like. I think that less independent bli nd people are intimidated by those of us who are more independent. While I dont want to get into the particulars of definitions of individual independence in this discussion, I will say that people who build their own cages, so to speak, also intrigue me quite a bit.Keep the responses coming, guys. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196646#p196646 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform.
Re: Schools for the blind, training centers, and how they perform. danny wrote:Hi, as someone who whent through 6 years in a public school, and then most of my middleschool years in a speshelist school, I can say I prefer public school vastly to speshelist schools.My main problem was the restrictions, and the fact the teachers got mad at you if you did one thing rong. Brail note breaks down? Your falt, lets yell at you for an hour. Dont show up for a few days? We give you a 3 hour talking too.[[wow]] Danny that is frighteningly similar to something that happened to me at specialist school. My brailler decided to break and started writing faint letters. This was of course my fault, and I was given a regular tung lashing and made to spend literally hours copying in braille (which is tantamount to torture) for several days running. Sinse the braillers had no names on them, on one of the nights when I was resident at the school I sneaked down to the classroom, and sw aped my brailler with the classes spare one that the teacher used. Not only did the teacher commically then say oh your braille has improved but on the occasion she had to use the spare brailler oh dear, the brailler seems to be broken, so not her fault then? Of course, as the most independent minded person there i was their personal punching bag, so anything went wrong it was automatically my fault, and I regularly got yellings at or work I did attributed to someone else, the fact that I was also into Heman, the Ninja turtles, computer games etc didnt help either, indeed they had a tv which I was the only person in the school who used despite the fact that some of the others there had better sight than me. Then again they were absolutely against anything involving sight, if I said I watched a film I was instantnly corrected with you listened! to it etc. @Turtlepower, I do have something of an understanding of that mentality. my mum went through specialist school for 20 years, (which has left her with some issues thataffect her right into her sixties), which was the very reason she was insistant first that I went to mainstream school and even when I had to go to specialist school that I only stayed there a couple of nights a week (something which greatly annoyed them). What I have seen in terms of mentality isnt so much to do with wanting restriction, so much as it is to do with not really having the motivation to try anything different. I remember for example speaking to a girl I went to specialist school with who genuinely thought it was too dangerous to pour liquids without an indicator. When I told her that I personally didnt bother with one because I liked propper coffee and the indicator wouldnt fit over the cafeteire she responded with but if you cant do it the propper way why not just drink instant coffee? Similarly, when I w as looking at what universities to go to, one boy whod been through the specialist system told me to avoid the University of york because their disability services arent very good Someone he knew had gone there and fell in the lake! This is the standard of thinking. Where I! would first decide what I wanted to do, and then if the service was there get the best out of them, and if they werent manage without (services at my own university are pretty shoddy), this boy judged where he should go only by what was already provided. Similarly, this boy judged the experience of another blind person falling in the lake as a failure of the system and services, where as I myself judge it as a failure of the mobility skills of the individual. This I think is the key difference in motivation. People Ive noticed who have been through the specialist system have their expectations shaped by whatever services are available and what b lind people usually do where as someone with a more independent bent looks around for what they themselves want and ways to make that happen, with or without services. Similarly, someone within the specialist school system is only atuned to interact with people from that system, where as someone else will learn to interact socially with others wether sighted or not. The problem is that there is a grain of truth to the specialist outlook, sinse frankly the world is pretty shit if your a blind person,a and a lot of people and institutions will not! treat you in any way farely, so it is considerably easier to just narrow the confines of that world to a set of expectations and what is provided easily, sinse hay its easier to take what is prepared than struggle for something different. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196650#p196650 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
