Week Two, Part Two

During the first week of my observation, Margaret (the O&M instructor) taught Mike (the high school student who is blind) a college campus route in preparation for Mike's class starting the next week.  All went well and Mike was able to find the classroom on the first day of classes.  He sat there for approximately half an hour, but no one showed up.  Eventually he called his mother to say the class must have been cancelled or moved, and she came to pick him up.  The two of them found out that there was sign on the door to inform students that the classroom was changed; how is a student who is blind or has low vision supposed to get this kind of information?

What should Mike have done instead?  Maybe he could have been taught how to find the admin building, just in case.  Or, he might have walked out of the classroom and asked someone if they knew where the class was located.  His solution to the problem was probably typical for a junior in high school, but he will not always have his mom, TVI, and/or O&M instructor there to help him.

This entire scenario highlighted the importance of so much of what is taught to students with visual impairments. They must learn how to self-advocate, they must be able to problem solve, and they should come up with back-up plans.  Margaret informed me that she and Mike had gone back to the college campus the day before his class started to review the route again.  Margaret saw that one of the professors was in his office and wanted Mike to introduce himself to this professor.  Mike declined and the two left.  

The point was that Margaret knew that talking to this professor might provide useful information about the class, but the decision of whether or not to do so was up to Mike.  Mike is at the point in his O&M instruction where it is primarily based on teaching him to learn from mistakes, plan ahead, and ask for assistance in an assertive manner (and not demanding it!).  

To me, this is a hard lesson to teach because it requires a lot of hands-off and letting the student get into difficult or uncomfortable situations.  However, it is absolutely necessary in order for these students to be able to get things done on their own once they graduate from high school.

The goal of this week's lesson was to teach the route to Mike's new classroom and to the admin building, where he wanted to double check that the electronic file of his textbook was being delivered.  As we walked, I paid closer attention to how Mike traveled.  Interestingly, Mike has great travel skills but hardly uses his cane.  He tends to hold it slightly in front of him without tapping it on the ground or having much of an arc.  

Instead, Mike travels mostly with echolocation; he is able to locate doorways, hallways, and stay on a sidewalk mostly with his hearing.  I have heard about these kinds of skills before, but never saw them up close.  Apparently Mike developed these skills naturally and with little help from O&M instructors.  To me, it is very fascinating to watch because I had such a difficult time travelling in a straight line when blindfolded and using a cane.  

Anyhow, Margaret seems to let Mike decide how to travel and has not given him prompts to use his cane, probably because she respects his ability to make that decision.  If Mike was one of my new students, I would be tempted to have him use his cane more.  But as I am learning, every student is unique and has different strengths and needs.  There is no cookie-cutter answer.