Blindness

Last night on Charlie Rose he had a bunch of guests talking about curing blindness. Very interesting science, but quite humiliating depictions of blind folks.

I'm all for a cure for my blindishness. Sign me up today! But what are you going to do for me if it doesn't work on my condition?

The only representative from the blind community lost his sight at age 20. That's rough for anyone. Going from one state to the next, all of life's major transitions, come as a shock.

Add to this how Charlie and some of the other guests spoke of the devastation and fear associated with blindness. Be afraid, be very afraid. Live in fear of losing something and fail to prepare for reality. Yeah, that's a great strategy.

Stop projecting your fear onto our existence. JUST STOP IT!

Sighted people's fear creates a public that lives in fear of associating with blind people. Then there are the do gooders. The software makers who decide what accessibility features work best without consulting those with visual impairments.

For example, the magnifying glass application that I use has a major flaw. It puts the mouse right in the middle of the enlargement window, enlarged of course. This covers up what I'm trying to read. I can't change where the mouse rests within the window. So I make the window bigger than necessary and read on the other side of the mouse. This imperfect solution works okay. It's better than having to download and test yet another piece of software.

I image there are all kinds of published studies on imperfect people. I bet they show that we are happy and sad and angry and fearful at about the same rate as more "average" people. We want to have meaningful lives and get married, just like the average person.

I expect that if you see me struggling, you'll offer to help. JUST like if I am aware of your struggles, I will offer mine. Both of us can say no thank you. Don't assume your help is needed and just try and do something for me. Some things I want or need to work out on my own.

I realize my disability factors in as part of my existence. It's rough to find work if you don't fit into the mold of the potential employers. We can change that mold by requesting that people are portrayed more as they are and less as a caricature of who someone thinks they are.

Kind comments encouraged.

School's Out for Summer

Science and math compliment each other. Most of the classes I took had a math prerequisite. Having them taught with two different instructors, left me somewhat confused.

While taking chemistry and pre-calculus during the same semester, we covered logarithms at the same time. Finally the value of logs made sense. I aced the test in both classes because the subjects paralleled each other.

I told the math teacher that the "word problems" within the text book were vague and difficult to understand, but doing the exact same thing IN chemistry, made it all become clear.

I think that math and science classes need to be taught together. I mentioned this to some friends and they suggested that humanities have similar complimentary classes. Things like social studies, literature and even history all go together. Often my literature instructor talked about the times in which a story was written and explained how that colored the perspective of the author. Dry history  turns into exciting river rapids if taught with a flair for the social nuances of the times in which it was happening.

Teaching these classes in a complimentary way would benefit students by engaging them more in the topics. With math, it's way easier to understand logs if you use the calculation for something you can see. With literature, Jonothan Swift's "A Modest Proposal,' takes on a whole new meaning if you understand the Irish famine and political problems of the day.

Yes, it's a more complicated educational model and would require far more educator coordination. Plus it goes against the status quo.

Perhaps such a plan could begin with a simple coordination of subjects. When I took college level theater as literature along with film as literature, the professor complimented the two classes. Not everything did a direct connection, but we did watch two different films about Shakespeare's Richard III while we read the play. We also saw a live performance. All in the span of a week.

We didn't, but we could have talked about the history of that king in our history class. Those two professors could have simply coordinated and shared a brief examination of the truth versus reality of the fictional accounts.

We did talk about these things with regard to the fictional portrayal of William Wallace. Though Braveheart wasn't one of the films we viewed in our literature class.

What class combinations would you like to see? For educators, have you had experience with any kind of coordination with other subjects? How did these work out? Kind and thoughtful comments welcome.