I met Margaret at the front office of the school (which happened to be the elementary school I went to; some of it looked the same from 20 years ago and some of it looked different). We passed one older lady (was she one of my teachers? I'm so bad with faces and names, or maybe it's just my memory). We finally got to the Vision Room, and the first person we came across was one of my current classmates. She and I took a few minutes to gripe about the travesties of it all and our slave-labor professor (ok, maybe not so much).
Then the teacher of the visually impaired (TVI) showed up, who I also knew. I'd never met her formally before, but I'd seen her on numerous occasions. Next the mom arrived, and then a woman who looked incredibly familiar to me came in the room. She looked at me but didn't seem to recognize me. When I introduced myself to the mother I looked at this familiar woman and said "I know you...." (what the heck is your name?) She asked my name, I told her, and she immediately said, "Oh, Lizzy!". Definitely a childhood name I do not hear very often anymore, unless I run into someone who knew me then.
It was such a sweet moment; this woman had been my speech therapist and knew all of my teachers in the small program I attended as a child. She even told me that my kindergarten teacher (the one teacher whose name and face I'll never forget) had stopped by to visit the school earlier that day, so I just missed her.
At that point, I felt bad about drawing too much attention to myself and away from the purpose of the meeting. By the way, the mother didn't even know I was going to be there (yikes!). Anyhow, the speech therapist was acting as the LEA representative, and she did a great job of reassuring the mother and helping her follow the meeting. The mother looked uncomfortable from the moment she arrived; at the end of the meeting she even said how hard IEP meetings are and started to cry. My heart nearly broke for her, and I wanted to say something to reassure her ("No one here is judging you; we're all on your side!")
As the meeting progressed I found out that the student has a degenerative eye condition, which is part of what made this meeting so emotional for the mother. The student's father has the same disease but doesn't seem to have accepted it (from my interpretation of what was said). All of those at the meeting did a great job of saying how well the student was doing and were also sensitive when talking about her visual impairment.
The mother asked some hard questions about whether the teachers thought her daughter's vision was getting worse or not. I am sure TVIs get asked these kinds of questions a lot, and there doesn't seem to be any easy answer. There were also several things said during the meeting that I felt might have been confusing or hard for the mother to understand (jargon, etc). At those points, I was hoping that someone would explain what was said or make sure the mother got it. But overall, the meeting felt so comfortable and everyone was so considerate.
When the meeting ended, my former speech therapist took me to see another one of my teachers that I had way back then (does anyone ever leave this school?) That was a lovely encounter too. When we all parted, I headed back to the Vision Room to check in with Margaret about my observations with her tomorrow. At that point, another teacher showed up who happened to be the first teacher I observed before starting the Visual Disabilities program. I also worked for this teacher last year at the Lighthouse. What a small world!
The field of visual impairments really is such a small one, but it's almost nice in a way. It's so comforting seeing people you know no matter where you go. Even the other teachers at my elementary school knew the visually impaired staff. This whole experience felt like going home, and it also helped me remember why I chose this career path.
