Equal Expectations: Does It Need to Be Exactly the Same?

I just read an article in the most recent issue of Future Reflections (the magazine of the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children). Of course, it was about equal expectations, as this organization aims towards the “good enough” standard for disability rights: blind children should be expected to achieve at least the same as sighted children.

What struck me, however, was how the writer emphasized completely the same expectations. For example, blind children should be expected, according to him, to have the same reading speed in braille as sighted children do with print: the commonly-accepted belief that braille readers read only 120 words per minute, while sighted print readers read at least 300, should be abandoned.

I have no problem with encouraging reading, and stimulating a child to read faster than what is believed to be the norm. Automatically giving braille reades double time on reading tests (as happens in the Netherlands) is stupid. After all, we won’t have double time to complete our job projects either. However, if a child cannot read as fast as his sighted peers, this is not in itself a dramatic problem. I have always hated reading test, cause I was very slow even for a braille reader. I have no idea of my current reading speed, and don’t know how it would be measured most accurately, as I rarely if ever read from braille paper now (I read using my braille display), so I think measurign my braille display reading speed would be more realistic than having me read from paper. In any case, I’m pretty certain that I won’t even reach the 120 words benchmark believed to be the norm for blind readers. However, I rarely required extra time on tests in school (I was entitled to 20% extra time), even foreign language reading tests. The reason is that, while I cannot read as fast as my sighted counterparts, I don’t need to read something as often in order to remember it.

I did have academic problems due to my slow reading speed. For instance, in Dutch literature, where my sighted peers didn’t read a book multiple times either, it took me considerably longer to finish the project. In foreign languages, I was closer to my peers, because of my better fluency in these languages (for example, most people take longer to read an English book than that same book in Dutch, but I don’t).

I was a good student with above-average grades in high school and college and got an excellent grade on the one test I took at university, three days before my hospitalization. I was not a straight A student. Maybe I would’ve been one if I’d been able to read 300 words per minute, but I didn’t reach that point. Still, I was better than most of my sighted age peers academically. I may not have been better than my imaginary sighted clone – or whatever that “full potential” thing is considered to be -, but there is no such clone.

I am all in favor of equal expectations. If possible, this includes stimulating a child to reach the same objectives their non-disabled peers reach. After all, you don’t want to have the situation where you expect the child to go to college somehow when she’s grown-up but don’t care how she’s going to manage her reading now that she’s in third grade. Just because a child is blind, doesn’t mean she cannot achieve the same academic goals as her sighted peers – and that may include, for some, that they will eventually read 300 words per minute as an adult. However, if a child happens to not meet a particular expectation that her sighted peers do meet (such as 130 words per minute reading speed in third grade), that doesn’t mean there is no way she is eventually going to go to college. If a child, blind or sighted, lacks particular skills, do you need to force her to acquire them exactly as her peers do, at any cost (and note how much extra training children with disabilities already get to normalize them, leaving hardly any time for them to be children), or can you also encourage her to use the skills she does have (such as an excellent memory) to compensate for her weaknesses? Setting short-term objectives (such as a third-grader reaching age-appropriate reading goals) is important, because it will encourage a chidl to learn when she’s capable of it and it will allow you as a parent or teacher to spot potential deficits if she still turns out to have difficulties. However, just because a child doesn’t read at his grade level, doesn’t mean she won’t go to college or get employment. Not all sighted children read at grade level, either.

As a side note, of course my slow reading was influenced by factors relating to my blindness and the expectations set for a blind child. For one thing, I started out as a print reader even though my vision was too poor for print. However, I was stimulated to read (my mother and sister are both avid readers). Maybe I would’ve achieved higher if the double time standard hadn’t existed in the Netherlands or if I’d been exposed to braille from an early age on. I just want to say that just because a blind child doesn’t have the exact same abilities that her sighted peers do, doesn’t mean she cannot achieve, or that she’s not expected to achieve in the long run.

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Thoughts on High Expectations and My Parents

I found yet another article promoting high expectations of blind children and this time it made me wonder what it is that I’m terribly mistaken about in my situation. The main reasons why I’m wondering about this are that this article has not been written by an NFB folk, or if it is, has not been published in an NFB-sponsored publication, and secondly my slow realization over the last month (since I returned from rehab) that I’m often projecting my own ideas with regard to expectatiosn upon others, mainly my parents. Does that mean that my parents didn’t have high expectations for me? But then what does that feeling about expectations come from? The thing that I’ve come to think is that it’s *my* expectations that I’m attributing to others. But in this “expectation equals outcome” mindset, does it matter whether it’s someone else holding the expectation or it’s the person herself, especially if she thinks it’s someone else? I mean, I’ve always been convinced that I could achieve as much as another person my age, and so have my parents – at least, that’s what I think -, yet here is another article stating that if parents “get high” about their children, these children will become independent and confident.

The stuff about high hopes especially bothers me. It’s the most noticeable component in my parents’ attitude about me. My parents never let an occasion go by to express their hopes (I translate expectations) for my achievement in academics, independence, and just about everything. When I was nine, I knew beyond doubt that I would have to move out on my own at age eighteen. Yes, would *have to*, and the next memory I get is that fear which I felt and the relief as I calculated that I still had another nine years. When I was eight or nine, at the St. Nicholas celebration at my Mum’s job, St. Nicholas asked who did not want to grow up, and I was the only one. Is this normal childhood insecurity, or what? And if it’s something else – that has been extremely pervasive over all these years -, what’s its relation to “raising the bar” for me?

In virtually any article about high expectations, over-protection etc., it is assumed that parents don’t genuinely believe in their blind children and that this is at the root of their lowered hopes/expectations (either consciously or subconsciously communicated), which will lead to their children’s low performance. Both the first and the second assumption I have always disagreed with when it came to my parents, but I sometimes think that the second is truer than I want to admit. Not when I was young, but at least for the last couple of years, my parents have had lowered short-term expectations of me. I remember last year my parents discussing going on holiday together, and saying they couldn’t go when I was home and Sigrid was not cause I couldn’t care for myself and the cat (Mum mentioned the cat as I tried to reassure her that I could care for myself, but caring for the cat is pretty easy). At eighteen! That magical age when I would have to move out on my own, according to the 1995 plan! No, my parents didn’t expect me to be a normal person my age, over these last years. But they did before, and furthermore their lack of short-term expectations (probably also partly cause they found it was my responsibility, since Sigrid doesn’t have chores either), did nothing to their high hopes.

What I’m also having trouble with in admitting that my parents haven’t expected me to be age-appropriate over the last few years, is that “she can’t” philosophy that seems to be behind it, which is most certainly not as my parents think. Rather, they tell me they can’t teach me daily living skills. It’s nothing to do with their not thinking I’m capable or their feeling I need a caretaker, that they don’t expect me to do daily living skills, but rather that they can’t show me how to do them, at least that’s what they say. I still don’t know if that’s something of my parents’ – eg. that they don’t want to invest the time and energy into showing me how to do something, or that they don’t know about the alternative techniques blind people use – or some problem of mine, like there being something that prevents me from being able to pick up things the way another child would pick them up. But one thing I know is that my parents never, ever thought I was incapable. They have always had high hopes – to the point of totally troubling me the way they expressed them -, have had high expectations at least up till a couple of years ago, and as for high exposure: they’ve not feared putting me in “dangerous” situations anytime. I mean, I was allowed to go to Russia for four weeks without my parents when I was fourteen; I wonder if even the majrity of parents of sighted children would allow their children this experience (I was, notably, the youngest of the Dutch group, and the only blind person). My parents never forbade me to do things on my own that sighted children my age do, like going into town on my own. I never did it cause I didn’t know the way in the town centre and so I couldn’t find any shops, but if I had wanted to, my parents would surely have allowed me to. Is this something about expectations? I mean, should they’ve expected me to go into town on my own? But Sigrid usually went with friends also, and only very recently went completely alone. I had no friends to go with. So what? I don’t know.

I know that parents are sometimes afraid that their blind children will get hurt when they go places on their own. I know that parents worry about their sighted children, too, but that this is to a lesser extent. When we were living in Rotterdam, both Sigrid and I had restrictions with regard to where we were allowed to go: Sigrid was not allowed to walk to school alone cause she had to cross two main roads, and at least till nearly the end of our stay in Rotterdam we weren’t allowed to cross the street alongside our frondyard, which is a busy one, and I don’t remember anyone of our neighbourhood children crossing that road. Both of us could cross the street on the other side of our house to go to the playground. I know that at some point I didn’t dare to cross that street anymore. I can’t remember if my parents just left it that way or wanted me to cross the street. Mum’s always said that I’m too fearful and that I just need a good kick in the butt to get outside of my comfort zone. Why would she not have kicked me out of my comfort zone, if she always preached it? She most certainly did. But still, I’m feeling terribly restricted and I’m behind in all sorts of daily living skills. I so hope this is something of my thinking too little of my abilities or my capacity to learn. I feel my parents always pressured me to go out of my comfort zone, yet at some point they decided it was my responsibility. I know this. I mean, if a nineteen-year-old does not resemble a ten-year-old in some areas of independence, will expecting her to be a normal nineteen-year-old get her all the skills she’s lacking? My parents can now legally kick me out of the house – well, I think they are obligated to provide food and shelter till I’m 21, but that’s it -, and they’ve at times threatened to do so. Probably the “high expectations” gurus would applaud that, for it’s making clear that I can’t be dependent anymore. But I’m happy my parents dropped their rule that I could only live with them as long as I was in school/college, so I’m having this year to learn some new skills to be more independent.

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Yet More Thoughts on Rehab, Expectations, and Seeking Help

If I think of what future dreams or plans I used to have when I was younger, I see that – and I assume this is true of most people my age – I have pretty much followed my plans. I at times hear older people complain that they haven’t reached what they imagined becoming when they were in their youth, but for a person not even nineteen, there haven’t many important life decisions come by. Even if you’re going to college to study in a certain area, you may still change your mind. Mum complains that she only has a low level high school diploma, and that she wishes she had studied at university like Dad. I wonder if she could do it, but I also wonder what she is actually frustrated about – what job she might have had if she had been educated at a higher level, or the simple fact that she doesn’t have the same degrees Dad does and as a result thinks she’s dumb.

I did not walk the path in life people expected and hoped me to walk, but I’ve pretty much reached the destination they’d set for me by this age. I think people expected I’d go to normal school as soon as possible, but once I attended the school for the visually impaired in Rotterdam, my parents did not take much effort to have me transferred to normal school upon our move to Apeldoorn – or at least Mum says she didn’t, but it may also be that the remedial educationalist advised against it (I don’t have her 1995 report at hand). In 1997 came the first real drawback, when the school, without my parents’ consent, performed a psychologocal evaluation and determined I’d be perfectly fit for their low level high school and residential programme. My parents asked for a second opinion of the same remedial educationalist who’d evaluated me in 1995 (and 1992). She drew the conclusion that I’d not be fit for normal school. This was probably the first time my parents were truly disappointed with my (academic) achievements. So was I, at first, cause I believed that if I wasn’t fit for normal school, I’d failed. The report sounds pretty much like that, too, and the situation is, that we sought a positive conclusion to counter the negative ones Bartiméus had drawn.

I still transferred to normal school in 1999, and managed to graduate in six years. My Mum seems to have been very disappointed for the “lost” year, but I think once she saw that I did well at high school, she probably got over that. IN my high school years, there’s been only one time when I felt I couldn’t carry on anymore, and that was the second half of ninth grade. I was greatly troubled and that got me to totally lack any motivation for my school work, but I eventually moved up to the tenth grade and my parents’ worries about me were over (probably also cause Sigrid got to underachieve at school).

As I reached the eleventh and twelfth grade, I was convinced that I would need to “step back” and learn other skills first, before moving up to college. It tends to come across to me as if my parents are disappointed with my decision to delay college a year. They have always had to fight to get my academic abilities recognized, and they knew I used to be greatly bored when I wasn’t challenged academically. Furthermore, they had/have a problem with service agencies to the blind, I used to think cause they didn’t value my abilities and only criticized my deficiencies, but Dad said it was cause they kept patting each other on the back and are so bureaucratic and the like.

I don’t know what all this is with my parents and the service agencies for the blind. The way Mum talks about it, she seems to have accepted sort of that I’m poor at everything but academics but thinks I’ll get over it once I need to. Dad rarely talks about my going to the centre, but with his academic paradigm, and given the fact that Mum said she’d had to convince Dad to allow me to go to rehab, he seemed to disagree quite as much. I was happier that Dad attended the final discussion on Thursday than Mum, not because I thought their opinions would differ – they seem to differ quite a bit from what I’d thought -, but cause Dad will easily say it when he disagrees (as also with the low vision/sight training thing) and Mum will remain polite and get more negative once we’re out of the folk’s office. I was a little scared that Dad was pretending to agree but would tell me how stupid this folk and the entire recommendation and the discussion had been afterward, but with Mum that’s much more likely. Dad didn’t do this, and I suspect he didn’t mean to either. Mum sounded next to indifferent when I called her, even though as I told it her, the situation was exactly as she pictured it (the situation nor the recommendation are). I don’t know what that meant – probably that she’s happy that I’ve gotten something out of it but that it’s still my business.

I don’t know what this is with my delaying college a year and people’s ideas about it. I at times feel ashamed to tell people I’m going to attend a rehab programme. People who haven’t ever known about it, so who haven’t formed their opinions on it, like the student counsellor (I E-mailed her yesterday). I think still deep inside I’m feeling a little ashamed of my situation – what nineteen-year-old that’s always been visually impaired, is so behind in everything that she has to attend this programme? – and I suspect that I’m quite a bit projecting my feelings upon others. Still, my parents still did come across to me as they did, and only on Thursday did it get to me that Dad did agree with my decision.

My situation of this moment is much different from that in 1998, when it was neither my, nor my parents’ decision to have me go to special ed for another year. Now, it’s my decision and there is no authority figure who says it shouldn’t be, or you should see my parents as authority figures, and even so they let me decide for myself cause I’m eighteen and Dad says he agrees with my decision. I don’t care about college – I don’t feel like going there right now anyway -, but I think it still to an extent feels like a failure that I’m having to seek out help now, just like the situation in 1998.

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Thoughts on Over-Protection

Why is it that the word “over-protected” always pushes my buttns? I am very often being referred to as such, merely on the basis that I don’t have good self-care skills. People seem to assume that the statement that when you expect a child to be delayed, she will be delayed, can be used in reverse mode without a problem, stating both that if you expect a person to be normal, she will be normal and that, if a person has delays, she was expected to have them. Also, the topic of over-protection is always connected with being spoiled, “because the poor thing can’t see”.

I always feel hurt by these statements, for they seem to assert that blind children are lazy unless they’re given a good kick in the pants, and that just pushing the child outside of his comfort zone will make him a normal kid. Of course I do agree that anxiety or a feeling that one cannot do something will seriously limit the child’s abilities. I just remember that when I was in the first and second grade, I used to be very afraid when going for swimming classes, to go into the deep water where I couldn’t stand on the bottom anymore. I could swim, but I was scared to go into the deep pool, and that could’ve limited my making progress if my teacher hadn’t pushed me to go into the deep pool (first, with her, and later only with the swimming teachers) to see that I could swim safely there. My teacher believed in me and guided me so I could get out of my comfort zone.

Blindness was no significant factor in this, since all the other children at my school were also blind or visually impaired and none of them feared going into the deep water, and none of them were pushed any harder than I were. Still, it makes clear how, indeed, a child needs to be pushed out of her comfort zone at times. It also makes clear how people who believe in a child’s abilities can support the child to reach her potential. Yet my teacher would not have pushed me out of my comfort zone to go into the deep water, if I hadn’t been able to swim.

And that is where the over-protection movement clashes with my feelings. Too often, it is being assumed that blind children who are not expected to do age-appropriate things, do in essence still have these skills, and yet, that everyone who does not have these skills just wasn’t expected to have them. So pushing a child out of his comfort zone will sort of unfold skills he has always possessed but was never expected to use. Am I far off-base if it leads me to think that a toddler can read if you just expect him to?

What I’m trying to say, again, is that a child will need instruction in the skills he’ll need to master. He’ll need the knowledge of how to do certain things, and if the child doesn’t have that knowledge, expectations won’t get him to master the skill. That counts for every child, but more so for blind children, as they cannot learn by observing as easily as sighted children can. A parent will have to show him how to tie his shoes, hang out the laundry properly, and do his bed. I do not doubt that blind children can master all of these skills and many more, but they’ll need to be taught to, and probably more consciously than sighted children.

Of course, this takes a parent who not only believes in the child, but is willing to push the child outside of his comfort zone. I know how demotivating it can be when you keep failing on a skill, and I know that when you don’t get pushed to keep trying, you may eventually give up on the skill. I experienced this with tying shoes, and that is probably one of my most embarrassing skills deficits: I wear shoes with zippers, sandals or loafers not only cause I find them much prettier than shoes with laces, but also cause I still can’t tie laces.

And that is where I come to the effect inproper instruction may have on a person. Too often, people who were not taught to do the same things their peers did at the same age, are being criticized as if they were spoiled, lazy brats. That’s also related to the prevailing attitude that pity and lack of instruction go hand in hand, and that if a child wasn’t instructed in basic self-care skills, it should’ve been cause the parents felt sorry for her. And being pitied is too often seen as a cool thing for the person who is being pitied, however inaccurate that may be. I hate pity, but for some reason the people in the movement critiquing over-protection see it as the most enjoyable state, that must however be avoided cause otherwise the blind child will think that the world owes her a living once she is an adult. I have never met a blind person who thought the world owes him a living, and yet I’ve met many who don’t have the skills they ought to have. Some of these people did have overly-protecting parents who spoiled them and cared for them way too long, not taking into account the fact that they wouldn’t be there to care for the blind person when he was forty. But many also had parents who simply didn’t know how to teach the blind child. My parents are an example of that. It’s very rarely occurred to me that they took any ability of mine into question, but they didn’t give me the knowledge I needed to accomplish these things. My parents have never questioned that I would go to college, would move out when I was eighteen, would get a great job and maybe a family of my own. I’ve heard visually impaired people and their families saying that they have a very limited range of choices of careers because of their disability, but my parents never thought that way and neither do I. At times, my Dad says something like: “You would probably have done the profile (collection of subjects) of Nature and Technology (instead of Culture and Society) if you were sighted,” but when I was twelve, I was convinced that I wanted to study maths at university, and my Dad was convinced I could do that. My interests just changed. The only subject in which my blindness played a role in my decision not to take it in tenth grade, was biology, but my general lack of motivation in ninth grade also contributed greatly. That’s not my parents’ fault. In fact, in seventh grade I wanted to participate in a maths contest. My teacher doubted my ability, but my Dad was convinced I could do it, so he and another maths teacher together made tactile graphics for me.

That is about academics. My parents are good with computers (Dad is a system manager) and my father is really good in maths and has studied physics himself. They have always found adaptations to let me do the same thing as the others in my class did. When teachers questioned my abilities, my parents were always there to reassure them that I could do the same as my peers and that they could expect the same level of accountability of me. An example is the Model European Parliament debating contest in tenth grade. Ten students were chosen (out of about twenty-five candidates) in a school selection procedure. At the selection, the teacher who guides the project was ill, so a couple of participants from the year before were the only ones to elect participants. They selected me, and the teacher was very worried. I’m almost certain I would not have been chosen, had the teacher been present to help with the selection. The teacher went up to my father with all sorts of questions and doubts, and Dad made clear that I could do the same things as the other participants. And he was completely right. When I wanted to participate in Saturday’s debating contest, I indeed was afraid that the guiding teacher (another one) would not allow me to and that almost kept me from applying as a participant, but I was positively surprised when the teacher was happy I wanted to participate in the training and even said he would like me to participate in the contest (it appeared we wouldn’t need a selection, but he’d made clear his appreciation of my participation).

With daily living/self-care skills, the situation is a bit different. My parents always made clear that they did expect the same of me as of sighted people my age. But what do you do when you don’t know how to teach a child to do something for herself? My Mum is, indeed, a little too eager to help me, especially if I’ve tried doing something and she thinks it’s not done properly. My father makes an art out of telling me that once I’m out of the house I’ll need to do certain things, but never teaches me to do them. Which is why I think they don’t know how to teach me: they do realize that self-care skills are needed, otherwise they would not tell me that it’s expected of me, but they don’t tell me how to do these things. Is that over-protection or just ignorance? I would think the latter.

Is that to blame on the parents? I don’t think so. Over-protection is not to blame on the parents entirely, but it is an attitude the parents can change about themselves. If a parent is ignorant of ways to teach a child, he may get the knowledge, but that may not be that easy. Not everywhere are parent organisations, and those that do exist may have poor attitudes about blindness, so they won’t help at all.

Is it to blame on the blind person, either as a child or as an adult? The “the world owes me a living” attitude may be, but what about the lack of skills, either resulting from over-protection or from lack of instruction? In the first instance, I imagine an adult may be ashamed for the image that generally exists of the person who thinks that the world owees him a living. He may become an advocate of the “don’t over-protect your child” movement, and send the messages that are so pushing my buttons. People tell me that there are lots of blind adults who have been in my situation, who didn’t magically acquire their skills. They likely mean these people, who didn’t receive a needed kick in the pants when they were little but who realized that they should have, and who hence went to a “kick in the pants” centre (ie. the NFB-type of rehab centres) and there learnt that blindness is only a nuisance and that everyone who doesn’t think so should get a good kick in the pants from the people who once believed blindness was a tragedy.

But I don’t believe blindness is a tragedy. It has greater implications, for me, than being a physical nuisance, but that has to do with my lack of skills and also with emotional problems not at all like “the world owes me a living”. I do believe that with the right training I can learn to care for myself. Only I wished that people would take the time to teach me these skills. I wished that people would stop their continuous kicking in the ass and come up with something that’d truly help me. But my parents keep nagging that I should have the skills, as if that would magically get me the skills. Is that over-protection? Is that spoiling? If it were, I could’ve all the skills I needed by now, for it’d imply that by merely deciding that you need them, you’ll have the skills. It’s been nearly two years since I first realized that college was coming near and that my parents’ telling me what skills I’d need wouldn’t get me those skills, and yet I still don’t have the skills. So I’m obviously spoiled? Is it strange that I feel hurt by these allegations?

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Thoughts about Dependence, Expectations, and Learning Life Skills

Today, I threw a horrible tantrum again. I don’t know why it occurred, but it was with Sigrid needing to do something for me or me wanting to do it for myself, and it made me think about dependence and what I think of it. “You should just ask,” Mum will tell me when I get upset over not being able to do something or over not getting something done (by somebody else). Today, as I was thinking over this, I realised that a couple of years ago such a statement would have relieved me: I was allowed to need help, wow! Now it doesn’t: who says I actually want to ask for help?! I want to do the thing for myself! I realise that one needs to ask for help at times – everyone does -, and that this is something one should accept. This has always been difficult for me, and it often was in situations that also occur with sighted people (like when having a question in class: this is pretty normal and everyone asks for help then). However, sometimes, just accepting I need help with something means accepting I’m dependent on others more than I should be. In many situations, I for now can’t avoid this situation (I simply don’t have too great life skills), but I have a real problem just graciously accepting this position. In these situations, getting better life skills would in fact enhance the situation. I cannot demand of my parents and Sigrid to do things for me, and at most times I feel I cannot ask for it, either. Not because they aren’t willing to help, but because I can’t accept such a position of dependence.

Memories of Rome come to my mind. In the first weeks that followed, I was eager to believe that my needing so much help wasn’t wrong and that it was just NFB philosophy (or my perception of it) that found it was. But that was just NFB philosophy, and the NFB was a radical organisation that just aimed to defeat those blind people that are less than perfect anyway, so I didn’t need to believe the idea. No-one seemed to feel I was too dependent, so what was I complaining about? I wasn’t comfortable with my position, but I was happy to think I should just accept it as the way it is. Now, I think there lies some truth in these previous statements: I cannot pretend to be more independent than I am. Someone from the NFB E-mailed me while we were having the discussion on BlindKid about me paging throguh Future Reflections and the whole expectations of blind kids, multiple disabilities etc. discussion. She made some comments that I still find difficult to unite: first, she said I devalue people’s help by pretending not to need it, but she also said that it’s no-one’s right to be helped and that I don’t need to stay in this position of dependence. But somehow there indeed seemst o be some unity in all this: while I cannot and should not pretend not to need folks’ help, I should be very appreciative when it’s offered and I don’t need to remain in this dependent position. While in words I can figure it out – these statemements aren’t contradictory -, it’s difficult to see what this means in practice. I have often felt bad about the statements NFB folks make about blindness and its implications and the attitudes sighted (and some blind) people have about it. And still that E-mail causes me to have a strong feeling or disagreement. For me, clearly, blindness isn’t merely a physical nuisance, but I believe there must be ways to reduce it to a lot less than it is now. But I DON’T think sighted people have lowered expectations of me. But who knows, maybe I can’t determine that, for I have lowered expectations of myself. Not that I don’t expect of myself to get a university degree, to get a job and to live independently, but with my current skills level and rate of progress, it’s an unrealistic goal. It’s that same long-term goals that lack short-term objectives thing I see so many others have for me. Therefore, domy acquaintances have lowerd expectations of me? They expect me to go to university and do wonderful there, to get a job, to live indepdently. But they’re eager to do all sorts of stuff for me.

Then, I come to something else: with my last phrase, I may have implied that the folks shouldn’t do so much for me and should insist I’m more independent. I do know that sometimes they do things for me I can do for myself, but with these things I make sure I regularly do them for myself also. But, for example, not everyone will wash his own plate and silverware after dinner (one will do the washing-up for everyone), while all of us can do the washing-up and we’ll all do it at times. So, does the fact that I can do certain things for myself mean I should do them for myself all the time? However, of course, folks’ current “short term objectives” indeed are lower than they should be. But, one’d say, having said this, why would I need others’ expectations to go ahead and be more independent? With some situations, this is a correct statement: I can just take the initiative and practice skills without folks insisting I do them. This si true for some things, such as frying eggs and making my own bed. With the latter one, it used to be something about expectations: I could do it, but if not expected to would indeed let othes do it for me. But with many things, it isn’t about practice and not about expectations either: I have never done the thing and people will have to show me how to do it first. If, for example, Mum would expect me to vacuum my own room, she would first need to show me how the vacuum cleaner works. Or if, which indeed happened, I want to do my own laundry, someone will first need to show me how the washing machine works. And this is where I keep disagreeing with NFB philosophy: EXPECTATIONS DON’T DO EVERYTHING!!! I’ve been greatly struggling with this over the last couple of years, for it is the situation I’ve encountered so often. Not only with daily living skills, but generally with many things: folks just tell me to do something and I don’t know how to do it and consequently won’t do it. Sometimes, it will not happen then, sometimes people will end up doing it for me, and in rare occasions people will offer some help, assistance or information, so I’ll indeed be able to do it myself. But often, when I tell people I don’t know how to do something, they’ll tell me to “just do …” or they’ll in the end do it for me. Often, they do initially expect me to do the thing, and they’ll very often insist real hard on it, but there’s something that will eventuall cause them to drop the expectation. I don’t know if it’s because they think I’m just seeking excuses to escape my responsibilities (of course, here, I’m not referring to those “lazy moments” that everyone has at times, including me , if they don’t want to or don’t know how to teach me how to do it myself to explain to me how to do it, or if it’s me having some sort of deficit so that their cosiderable effors in explaining or showing to me how to do something don’t work. I’m convinced there must be some way for me to learn these skills, but I don’t know what causes me to so often want to scream to people to please show me how to do something or explain some situation to me. I still don’t know why I so often have the feeling as if I’m expected to just rub along somehow while seemingly missing so much knowledge and skill i many areas. Is it my delayed or disturbed whatever, or what else is wrong?

This feeling of just needing to rub along also is a reasonw hy I can’t agree with the idea that people have lowered expectations of me. After all, as I said, all folks expect me to go to university next year, do great there, move out in a few years, etc. No-one expects any less than what my sighted peers are doing – they will all go to university next year, and, while many will move out then, also, there are also many sighted people that live with their parents for some years into college. What’s wrong with me that I increasingly feel disagreement, frustration, or even resentment when people tell me they have these “age-appropriate” expectations of me?

Astrid

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Reflections on Expectations of Blind Persons

I said I would write about that article in Future Reflections I’d read. The article is titled Expectations: The Critical Factor in the Education of Blind Children. I like its philosophy of believing in children’s abilities, and I love the story where the seven-year-old wants to play tag, the teachers initially plan to tell him that tag is a game designed with sight in mind, but the boy in the end finding a solution so that he can play with his friends. It makes clear that, with some adaptations, blind kids can do (almost) all games the sighted can.

I also like the idea of mainstreaming kids only if they can compete on terms of equality with the sighted students. It makes clear what is the real goal in the education of blind children: competition on terms of equality with the sighted. I’ve seen it all too often that parents and educators simply want their blind kids to be mainstreamed, no matter how many help, adaptations and special privileges they’ll need. But now I’m getting controversial, cause the programme described in the article isn’t available in most schools. Here in the Netherlands certainly not, for most students are the only, and often even the first blind student in their school, and there are often only two options: the school for the blind (with its weak academic programme and negative attitudes about blindness) or the neighbourhood public school. And from what I understand many blind students are the only in their schools in the States, also. They may have better services due to IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) requirements, but the mixture of special ed services and inclusion that’s described in the article isn’t possible in most schools.

Also, there seems to be an idea as if integratio/mainstreaming is a higher achievement than special education, for it’s what most parents and educators ultimately strive for – having their child learn together with the non-disabled kids. Then, I’ve increasingly gotten to wonder, does it matter how this kid is going to “rub along”? In the article, schools are instructed to quit the special privileges for blind kids, but then good education must be in place to teach the childen to do the same things the sighted can. They must learn to walk quickly to the playgoround and cafeteria. What do we do first: not allow them to leave early aymore, or teach them good O & M skills so they have the ability to make it in time for lunch or recess? I think the writer of this article disagrees with me on this topic. Like I’ve said so often, expectations don’t do everything. Of course, if the child is capable of something, he should be expected to do it, but the blind kids who have always left early for recess so they could find the playground while wall-trailing, won’t suddenly become great cane users if they aren’t allowed to leave early anymore.

Also, this article makes me wonder about some issue related to this: what are appropriate adaptations for blind students to use? I mean, most blind students in the States have more assistive technology and adaptive equipment than I ever did, and in many article the need for kids to learn to handle these things is even highlighted. On the other hand, when the principal of this school asked for a sidewalk so that the blind kids could get to the swings, the writer of the article (who was the VI programme administrator) said that blind kids should be expected to run to the swings like the sighted did. Why would a blind child need to learn to use a Braille notetaker, while he can also use a slate and stylus, but wouldn’t a sidewalk be made to indicate the direction of the swings, cause blind kids should be expected to run in the right direction? I wonder what sort of philosophy lies behind this. Maybe that in the “real world” not everywhere are sidewalks either. Still, why would kids need to use a Braille notetaker, than? Not all sighted people use electronic organisers, do they? It’s weird.

I try not to be too sentimental while writing this article. I’ve edited a couple of times. This Future Reflections article, again, reminded me of how I rub along at public school: I will start 12th on Wednesday, but there’s already an extensive discussion of what adaptations I’ll need on my final examination. I need some (well, at least math and geography won’t even be standardised exams), I’m sure, but somehow I wonder why I need them, while apparently all those folks in the Future Reflections and other magazines rub along so easily without any special privileges. I had many (inappropriate) special favours in seventh and eighth grade, most of which weren’t because I needed them, but because teachers thought I needed them. Thgroughout seventh, eighth and most of ninth, I tried to refuse these privileges in all circumstances, whether I needed them or not. In tenth, when I started doing my tests in classroom 9, where everyone had some adaptations, I accepted the adaptations/privileges I needed. And now… I’m not the one to request adaptations (as you could see with the French reading test on June 14), but that has little to do with the question if I’m allowed to need them. Still, I’m totally unsure of what’s allowed. Clearly, blind kids don’t have magical compensatory skills. I should’ve been able to learn them as well. (I hope I can still, but these articles about children suck cause I’m not a child anymore.) Are they expected to just rub along, like the “expectations do everything” movement seems to imply? That’s what I sometimes feel I’m expected to do, and it sucks and I am certain I can’t hold on much longer doing that. Am I allowed to ask for help and/or adaptations? Clearly not in the way I described in What I Realised. By the way, how can I ever have viewed the realisations I described in the article as so important? Maybe they are, but I just have to find the right balance between the overly dependent attitude described in the article and the idea that blind people should have magical compensatory skills and just be able to function normally in life without any help or adaptations. Extremes are never good, but it’s so difficult to find out what is appropraite, and certainly to act accordingly. Back in 2002, the conclusion I drew in the article (that it isn’t bad to ask for help, but that I still need to learn not to be too pushy, either), was a great accomplishment. Now I realise it isn’t complete, and in some ways it’s just plain flawed. It sucks, cause now I have to find the right balance, and that’s not easy, especially with these weird feelings of mine (the “ladies” and so forth).

I realise that I’m not like one of these children discussed in the article, and I realise I wish I were. I’m behind in so many things, and for now I have to accept some help and adaptations that I actually feel are inapprorpiate. Cause, I still feel that just being left to accomplish something, hence the “expectations do everything” idea, doesn’t work – I have had enough experience with it in many areas to say so. I realise that people have had to allow me some “favours” (well, not meant as in me being favoured, but as in having special privileges). I’m not totally sure which of these are appropriate and which I actually shouldn’t need. If I’m correct thinking that many of these are actually inappropriate, but I still need them, I’m also correct to say that if I were expected to be just “normal” I wouldn’t rub along. That’s what scares me about life after high school. I realise that at least at some point folks will not allow me to be less capable than the sighted anymore (well, some adaptations remain acceptable, of course). For now, I’ll just try to rub along, but at times I feel I only do it to meet that ultimate goal – being included in “normal” society. Ah, and most people already get mad with excitement when they learn I’m in public school. Maybe expectations aren’t as high as I think they are and as NFB wants them to be. Does it matter I don’t WANT to be less capable? Well, most sighted folks don’t expect us to be capable, so, who knows, maybe I’m wishing too much.

Astrid

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Thought Provokers: Abilities and Expectations of Blind People

Read over my response to Robert Leslie Newman’s Thought Provoker entitled The Road Best Taken. In the Provoker, two blind people are conversing about the jobs they want to have: one wants to work in the blindness field and the other wants to have a “normal” job. They both give arguments of why they choose their respective career paths, and then people respond to this issue. I responded that we need both blind folks who work in the blindness field and blind folks who have “normal” jobs: the blind people in the blindness field can make clear what abilities blind people actually have and hence advocate for the needs of blind people – cause most agencies assume blind people don’t need advanced services (like libraries only offering old-fashioned books, cause they don’t realise the blind need modern books). And the blind in other fields can show society what blind people can accomplish – ie. they can hold “normal” jobs.

I also reread my response to Thought Provoker 72. The situation in this Provoker is that of a couple of which one is blind who want to adopt a child, and it questions whether blind persons have the same chance of adopting children the sighted do. I can be pretty straightforward on that: they don’t. I once discussed the topic with a blind acquaintance of mine who wanted to adopt a child, and as a rule blind folks aren’t allowed to, cause it’s thought they can’t build stable families. In my response I made clear how stupid I found this assumption. And I really think that whether someone can adopt a child doesn’t depend on one’s amount of sight.

Then I also reread the Thought Provokers 06 and 78. They both discuss so-called “overly-protected” children. In Thought Provoker six a night-staffer at a camp mumbles about an 8-year-old boy who can’t dress himself, and accuses his parents of over-protecting him. In TP 78 two children are portrayed: one, Timmy, is not expected to do anything for himself: his Mum dresses him, prepares his food, and his Dad guides him on holding hands when they walk to school. Another kid, Angie, is expected to dress by herself, prepare her own cereal, and walk to school using her cane. Then, as the kids are both in class, the teacher introduces a new aide to the kids and informs the aide of the kids’ totally different attitudes and learning styles. Then we see how Angie and Timmy are playing in a playhouse: Angie does virtually everything for Timmy.

I found mainly Thought Provoker 78 to be very stereotypic: it just shows what all the literature shows, that “overly-protected” blind kids are worthless folks who can do nothing for themselves. The story could’ve provoked thought, had it not been so one-sided: what on Earth does the inability to pour juice in a playhouse have to do with learning styles? I’d loved to see the kids do some acadeic thing, and then it doesn’t even make a difference who’s better – that could be discussed.

As I read through all this, I found how difficult it was to match all these opinions of mine. On the one hand I find it stupid that folks in services assume we can’t lead normal lives and that agencies assume we can’t for example adopt children. But on the other hand each time there comes up a topic on the so-called “overly-protected” blind kids, I’m the first to write a depressed response of how stereotypic this is. I have really no idea of how this all tallies… I don’t know… I know that there are blind folks who can lead normal, fulfilling, productive and happy lives… but why does it make me feel so depressed when I read about all these so-called “overly-rpotected” children?? Not for the reason that many blind folks feel bad about it – that this is an all too familiar story: they are fortunate not to be such folks, but all too many folks are… I want to be a normal person just like all the blind adults I meet on the lists, but I am not… and I feel totally deflated when kids who are behind in daily living skills are discussed… cause invariably they’re said to be spoilt or protected and that too little was expected of them… Is this true for me, too? And if it is, why do I even find some expectations currently set upon me to be sooo difficult to meet?? It’s all sooo confusing…

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