A CONDENSED REFLECTION ON 2 WEEKS IN LOUISIANA

From January 16 to January 31, I was in Ruston, Louisiana, at the Louisiana Center for the Blind. I was a guest student, taking courses in Home Management, Cane Travel, shop, Braille, and computers, all wearing sleep shades. I wore the shades a minimum of nine hours a day and there were some days the darkness went as long as 13 hours.

On this blog there is a daily journal of what I did during the two weeks. But for those with less time, or less interest (and I completely understand – what is fascinating to one is not necessarily compelling for another) this is a shorter version, focusing more on what I learned and spending less time on the process by which I learned it. Most of the pictures are in the other blog item, but you can skim through that if you want to see the pictures.

The hardest question for me to answer is, “Why did you do this?” When I first learned of the existence of the several centers around the U.S. that do this kind of work, and that I would be welcome as a guest, I felt it was something I needed to do, both professionally, as Chairman of the Xavier Society for the Blind, but also personally, to share at least in a very little some experience of what our clients (and some of my friends) do as a blind person. Now that I have done it, I am still reflecting and processing the experience, so this little essay may or may not adequately answer the question for you. Heck, it may not answer it for me yet either.

Note – “blind” covers a range of visual conditions, from being able to see nothing to being able to see light and shadows to being able to make out more distinct images in a very small area of what should be a range of vision. In fact, many of the students at the LCB have some sight, but all wear shades when undergoing training and attending classes.

Another note – shades. I mean sleep shades, large black covering for the eyes, originally developed by the military. They are lined with foam, so they rest away from the eyes – you can open your eyes when in the shades – but completely blocking out light, so you can sleep. They are very useful for training purposes, and blind organizations and individuals use them a lot. They have the added advantage of emphasizing that the person coming toward you is not using their eyes. Unbelievably (to me, at least) there are many people who do not realize that a long white cane means someone is blind. They are fairly comfortable, but my eyebrows itched and it was difficult to scratch anything around the eye. You want the shades tight enough to keep out the light, but not so tight that they compress your sinuses or crunch your ears. I know, sounds funny but when you’re wearing these things nine hours or more at a pop, this gets to be relatively serious.

I flew down and was met at the airport, waited with the driver for two others to come in on another flight (a new student and the director of the LCB) and we drove to Ruston, about 40 minutes away. Stopped for pizza, and I was taken to my apartment. No roommate, so I unpacked, ate some pizza (and saved the rest for breakfast) and slept. The next day I took the school bus in, was given my shades and cane, my stylus and slate (for writing Braille – more on those later) and my class schedule. I was walked to my first class, Home Management and the adventure was off.

Since this is not a day to day account, I’m going to talk about each of the areas of training. Home Management is cooking, but also includes budgeting, cleaning, polishing shoes and tying a necktie, vacuuming but also learning how to take a vacuum apart and put on a new belt. There is a schedule of foods everyone needs to cook, including home made noodles, pastries, using a blender, a crock pot – it’s a long list. Each student must prepare a lunch for 8 (by invitation only) and lunch for 40, which everyone enjoys. Each of those exercises has a budget which influences your menu planning.

Ms. Merilynn runs one of the Home Management kitchens

You have to learn the kitchen, how to use the different appliances, how food items are kept and stored (salt is in the peanut butter jar, and the honey bear holds virgin olive oil – I never did learn where they keep the honey). Mistakes happen – one young man used whole wheat flour instead of confectioners sugar for his frosting for a red velvet cake. He only used one cup out of four – he had poured three before he ran out – and the resulting frosting wasn’t bad. But it was also not according to the recipe.

I did bacon and eggs my first morning, biscuits, brownies, a beef stew, fried pickles. I learned how to sew a button (remember all of this is blind, and I now can thread a needle more easily with my eyes closed than ever I did with them open) and tie a Windsor knot (on those rare occasions when I do wear a tie, it’s a simple 4-in-hand knot). I learned how to hand write a check, use a signature form and write on a blank page. Some students who were blind from birth never learned to write and so have to be taught the shapes of the letters by touch.

Cleaning is also part of the process, and includes dusting, bathroom cleaning, laundry and each apartment is regularly inspected and hints given about taking care of the place better. Each student lives in an apartment – some singly, some with a roommate – and students take care of their own space, their own laundry, their own shopping and cooking. The goal is confident independence, and everything is geared toward that.

Probably the most “dramatic” of the classes is shop, because for many it is so removed from anything they have done, and because a tremendous amount of responsibility is placed on the student. There is only one “specialized” tool, and that is the click ruler. Every other tool in the shop, whether hand tool or power tool, is unmodified, and is exactly the same as you would find in any woodworking shop. Safety guards are not removed, as they often are in other places, and safety with tools is a constant lesson. Whenever a major power tool is to be used, the student prepares and when ready to cut, calls out and is approved by one of the instructors, who either visually or manually checks the safety.

Part of the program teaches students to deal with basic plumbing and electrical problems

The student is given a series of arithmetic questions, and then is taught to use the click ruler. When that has been mastered, the student has to score a piece of wood to create a checkerboard pattern, mark the intersections, and then drill a hole at each intersection. Since a blind carpenter cannot see a drawn line, the scratch-all becomes his (or her) pencil. Another series of exercises introduces the student to other tools and in the course of two assigned projects, the student will have learned to confidently use every tool in the shop.

At that point the second instructor steps in and walks them through selecting and designing their final project. It can be a mantel clock, a grandfather clock, a chest of drawers, a chair – the student picks the project, designs it and when the design is complete, then builds it. The process takes anywhere from 3 to 5 months. The students pays 80% of a $200 price and the full cost of anything above $200. That gives the student a sense of ownership and responsibility. If a piece is cut long, it can be recut to fit and only a little wood is wasted. If the wood is cut short, it is wasted (and charged) unless it can be used somewhere else in the project. Students take great pride in their projects and they work hard at it. They learn precision, responsibility, and the work they turn out is very professional.

Cane travel is a foundational course because that’s how the blind move. In the first week or two, depending on a student’s experience and skill, he or she is cleared to travel, and no longer is allowed to take the bus back and forth to the Center. They have to walk, and learn to deal with carrying loads, with bad weather, with walking at different times of the day. Basic techniques are taught and re-enforced and students are given routes to walk. Other exercises include a drop (where the student and usually a teacher both wearing shades are dropped by car at an unknown location, and forced to find their way back to the center). Checkerboard is another exercise, where a group of students go out as a group, and at each corner a different person chooses the direction. At a set time, the teacher selects one to start the way home and at each corner, the teacher picks another student to be the guide.

If the traffic is on my left, then I am NOT lost. 

As I went through the courses, I heard some of the same themes being repeated. Don’t overthink this was one of them. True in shop, true in cane travel, true in the kitchen, true when trying to read a line of Braille. Keep up the pace – true in the Braille room, true when walking with a cane. Keep your focus – in the kitchen, in the shop, when outside walking. Because these are lessons for life, not just for cane travel or cooking. These are things we all need to do, to know, to practice in our lives, and true whether blind or sighted.

One dimension I had not considered is the prevalence of diabetes as an illness among the blind. I don’t know how widespread that is, but certainly in the kitchen, great care is taken to include recipes with Splenda, and teaching students how to use Splenda in cooking. There are regular sessions with a nutritionist for those who need it. And students look out for one another – one wanting to try a piece of cake that a friend had made was refused “because there is too much sugar in it for you.”

When I was given my stylus and slate, I wondered, since I have had only a little practice reading Braille with my eyes, and none using my fingers and I wondered how much I could learn in only two weeks. I found I learned the alphabet quickly, and started with writing rather than reading. Using a stylus, you write backwards, since you are punching holes into a page which are read from the other side. But I quickly got the hang of it, and found I could churn out a fair amount of correct Braille in a fairly short period of time. How I was only using the alphabet. There are also contractions, and as you get more experienced, there are more contractions, which make it possible to read Braille at over 500 words a minute. That is a very fast Braille reader but not terribly unusual. For instance, a letter standing alone represents a word. “b” = “but.” C- can. D – do and so on. “And” is all six dots raised. There are many contractions and combinations and level two Braille is the ability to read a much more sophisticated combination. There is also a level three but it is used almost exclusively for personal note-taking and many fluent Braille readers don’t use level three Braille. (Brl = Braille; bl – blind; cld = could)

The machine on the desk is my Braille writer

I also learned to use the Braille writer, a Perkins like the ones we have back at the XSB. That too came fairly quickly, and in my last class I filled two pages of material. Reading was more difficult – not that I did not know the letters but my fingers found them hard to distinguish. You read with both hands at once, emphasizing the left on the left side of the page and the right on the right. I am right-handed, and so my left hand is actually better at reading than the right. The teacher constantly says not to “scrub,” ie move your fingers up and down to try and sense the pattern but rather to move straight across the line, keeping up the pace, repeating as necessary. It comes very slowly, but it is coming.

The computer class for me turned more into a survey of what’s available. I discovered that I do need to look at the keyboard if only every now and then, to help keep oriented. I can type really fast and really accurately but every now I then I need to check. Not being able to check does me in. I did pass the basic levels of typing to start working on the actual programs, but not the first time. Nor the second. Enough said.

Everything on the computer is sound re-enforced, from having a program echo your letters or your words, reading the material on a screen, whether something you have written or something you get from another source, like the Internet. No matter how fast the little voice reads – and it can read so fast I can’t understand it, although they say I would with practice – it is still slower than my reading it with my eyes. Another lesson – patience. There are times you stand or sit and wait. In the kitchen I was always running late, everything took more time. Walking takes more time. Reading and writing take more time.

Most of the faculty are also blind.

But it was a fascinating survey, playing with the programs I had been hearing about. The technology is changing almost daily, and blind users are become more and more proficient at using it to increase their access to the internet, to jobs and to take part in all the activities of the world.

My biggest post-event reflection is that it’s not extraordinary. Blind people are being helped to realize that they can do almost anything a sighted person can, and they use doing everyday activities as the platform to re-enforce that. They develop basic skills for everyday living – it’s a program many sighted people should undergo – and they “graduate” with both skills and a personal confidence founded on skill and experience.