Career Education: Our Peers
Knowing the history of education and assistance for marginalized people, I admit that I had some doubts when heading into my first AER conference. Though I’ve had membership for a while, my involvement is new and though I was sure there would a be a lot gained by attending I was not so sure about how many blind adult would also be involved.
One of the fun aspects of being pessimistic is getting things incorrect. The sensory diversification was fantastic! It was good for many reasons, most important of which was the direct involvement of those we have signed up to serve. If all goes as planned, blind children turn into blind adults. If we not talking directly to blind adults, everything we’re doing is automatically flawed, sometimes to severe ends.
I was lucky enough to have blind colleagues both during professional prep and at my first job. However, I have encountered a stunning number of professionals who don’t have experience with blind adults beyond setting up student-adult mentor relationships and, maybe, a one time guest speaker for a class. We have to ask ourselves consistently — who is writing the guidance we’re reading? who gave feedback? who actually composed the words we are using to create common practice? Teaching K-12, one of the things I hear most frequently is the desire to help kids have a typical childhood, just like their peers. There are good elements of that, no doubt. But the fact is, our kids aren’t typical and following that aspiration involves two risks: 1. perpetuating the idea that being atypical is an inherent flaw, and 2. overlooking areas of support that will hurt them later on.
Mentor programs for students and blind adults is crucial, but that should be extended to professionals as well. We have great ideas that, if checked, might only be great in a bubble or to someone who has doesn’t have a visual impairment. It is an accepted notion that we are accountable to team members who support a student, we should also be accountable to the person that student will be when they leave our schools. We need to sit down with willing blind adults to look at our practices and say: “is this really a good idea? are we helping in the right way? are we giving them what we need?” And then, we need to take the potential ego-hit and be better.