4 Comments

Very interesting. I've visited the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind in one of my jobs in education technology. I spent time on the deaf/HofH (hard of hearing) side and afterwards, spent some time with a guy who had attended the school.

I asked him how the four different groups there - the deaf/HoH, the blind, the deaf and blind, and those with even more challenges - got along. Here's the answer as I remember that he told me.

"We did NOT get along. Why would we want to spend time with the blind or the others? They're not like us, they're dumb and whiney. Also there's no way to communicate. What was fun was in high school, we would sneak up behind the blind kids which was hard because they had such good hearing. The idea was to box their ears from behind and to get away and not get hit by their canes afterwards. I think they hated us too."

BTW, I don't have a point here (and I certainly don't endorse that behavior) other than a school combining the deaf AND blind might not be the best way forward. And I have puzzled over the point that the deaf and the blind do no seem to have an obvious way to communicate (without technology to facilitate it).

Expand full comment
author

The school was founded in the 1880s, at a time when the prejudice against disabled people (ie, that all the groups attending this school would basically occupy a very minimal role in terms of work and intellectual development was really strong) probably accounts for them being grouped together. I think one of the things I learned from Andrew is that there are even so many ways of being blind, that it is like teaching a history class where the students all come in at multiple levels, maybe are from different countries, and the common ground to teach to may shift constantly. What's really astonishing is that un employment is *still* so high among blind and low vision people--and that social class/economic resources play such a huge role in how kids develop. In 20 years at Wesleyan, I never had a blind student--and I only once had a deaf student.

Expand full comment

Thank you for facilitating this conversation, I learned so much. Will definitely grab a copy of Leland’s book. ♥️

Expand full comment
author

So glad you liked it--the book is terrific: big recommend. And if there is an audio book, Andrew has such a terrific voice that I might do that instead had I not already read it :-)

Expand full comment