My son's class was reading Helen Keller's story not so long ago and as a follow-on discussion on what it must have been like to be blind and deaf, my son offered that maybe his sister could come to their class and talk about what it's like to be blind. Everyone thought it would be a great idea, including my husband and me. The one person we had to convince was my daughter herself. Would she be willing to come in front of an entire class and talk about her vision loss and how her life was different?
Surprisingly, she said yes. We positioned it by saying she would be an honored guest in the class and that didn't just happen to anyone. In order to make it easier for her, we agreed to have the students write up some questions in advance so she could write out the answers in braille and read them as a warm-up when she first got there. Only time got away from us, her teacher and the class and we didn't get around to getting questions from the students. So we helped her write something up in advance this morning to read. This is what we came up with:
Hi, I'm Reese, Greyson’s sister. I’m blind. I’m just like everyone else, but I do some things differently than other people. Some of my favorite things to do are: climb trees, ride my bike, listen to audio books, and play with my friends on the playground I could see when I was younger. I went to this school first and now I go to a regular elementary school. There are 22 people in my class, and I have one friend, Aditi, in my class who also is visually impaired. I do everything in school my friends do, I just do them a little differently. Instead of print, I use Braille. I brought some of my schoolwork to show you. I use a cane to help tell what's in front and around me. Some day when I’m old enough I may get a guide dog.The students were so intrigued to see her reading the words on the paper. We pulled out her braillewriter and had her demonstrate how fast she could type on it. Then I passed around some of the work she does at school and how things are made, "tactile" so she can feel shapes or times on a clock or shapes of continents among other things.
We also brought a book she was reading in braille and showed how it was only one in eight volumes that represented the same text in a regular paperback young reader chapter book. Then we brought out games. I showed them card games and how different decks had the names or denominations printed in the corners in braille.
We had the Chutes and Ladders game her father had made tactile for a present to her last Christmas and the entire Monopoly game with all the properties, bills and cards embossed in braille along with the board that we'd modified to go with it.
My daughter handled all of this well. Quite well in fact. There were times where she would say, "does anyone know..." and read something from one of her school worksheets, for example, "What shape does this represent?" She would say, "It starts with a 'T', who knows the answer?" Then her brother would call on one of his classmates who had their hand up and upon hearing the answer of 'triangle' would show the card with a foam shape of a triangle glued on it.
We also showed and passed around her draftsman, saying that not everything could be easily cut out in foam or printed ahead of time. We had the plastic film sheets of the islands we had sailed around this summer with the path laid out in a path of gems. I showed them how the plastic film became raised when you pressed down on it with a stylus (instead of sinking in like you would expect) and said we'd leave the draftsman with the class to try out with some extra sheets.
Then it was time for questions. Some of them were interesting like, "what's your favorite color?" (blue) or "what's your favorite leaf" (yellow fall leaves). I was expecting, "what can you see?" One of the questions was, "what is harder or better about being blind?" She said some things were harder, but being blind made it easier to tell her left from her right, because she can't see anything out of her right eye. They did ask how long ago she became blind and there were discussions about if she could remember seeing. Some of that was hard for her I could tell because she started to roll around and curl up in a ball.
At one point when my son was talking to the class about what it was like to be a brother to a blind sister she jumped up and whispered something to him. He looked sheepish but explained while she lay on the floor, face down (her listening position). He said that when his sister was upset and crying, he had a thing he did that always made her laugh. I was surprised she mentioned this. He said he did this thing called, "nosey wosey" where he put his finger on her nose and said that when she was upset and for some reason, it always made her laugh and made things better. He demonstrated and, of course, she laughed.
She recovered quickly from the emotions of having to think about difficult times though, saying next she wanted to show them about her cane and everyone should follow her outside so she could show them on the playground. When she was confident, she was almost bossy, leading the class as though she were in charge—which was fine by the teacher as she knew this was challenging for my daughter to work through.
While they were outside I put the braillewriter on a desk and loaded it with a piece of paper. As they filed back in some of the students got a chance to type on it. We ran out of time but we're going to have the class borrow it for a day later when she's out of school.
At the end, she read sheets of paper with each student's names typed in braille on them and my son passed them out, ones for them as well as for their siblings we'd prepared in advance. People giggled as she mispronounced difficult last names as she read through them quickly. And then it was time for us to leave as the school day was ending.
We said they could look for her at future school family events and my husband said one thing people could do that would help her is to walk up and say, "hello, Reese, this is <your name>" because she can't see you and doesn't always recognize voices. I said they would most likely find her on the monkey bars on the playground—her favorite place.
As we went out, she went to those very monkey bars and was doing a pullover when I noticed a child two years above my son walk directly towards her. What he said surprised me. He asked her, "do you have a Perkins Brailler?" She said she did and he then said, "did you know you can make pictures on them using braille characters?" She did indeed and talked to him about it until we had to leave a few minutes later. How did Theo know about this and specifically, to ask about a Perkins Brailler? I was really impressed. I emailed his parents tonight saying any time Theo wanted to get together with my daughter and make Braille pictures, to let us know.
Overall, it was an empowering day for my daughter. It was challenging and there were a few times she was uncomfortable as evidenced by her body language. I asked her about it later and she admitted some questions were hard to respond to. But she was my little champion today. Her brother was a gracious host to his classroom. And the students were kind, interested and so polite to her. Hopefully she's proud of going today. I know I'm proud of her.
The Big Boy Update: The most poignant thing about my daughter's classroom visit today was my son explaining to his classmates how it was hard sometimes to be the brother of a blind sister. He talked about how he tried to help her, but sometimes she hurt herself and he felt bad when that happened. We had tried to make the whole experience positive for her, but you could tell it affected her when he said that because she balled up on the floor and said she didn't want to talk for a minute or two afterward so I took over until she was ready to join back in. His words were honest, but it demonstrated how she is helpless sometimes, needs help and isn't as capable as other people, and that's hard for her. He was kind to her and excited about the whole visit. I was quite proud of him
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Today my daughter is eight-years-old. She hopefully had a good day spending time with her cousin, who sadly had to leave mid-day. There were presents and phone calls from family. She, for an entire month, will be eight just as her brother is until he turns nine in December.
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