Debunking 10 Myths About Blindness

1. Blind people have supersonic hearing.
This is maybe true for some people. I can’t speak for all of my people. I personally feel like I have selective good hearing. If I am paying attention, the environment is just right, and it’s a Tuesday… I might have a little extra special hearing. Don’t even bother talking to me on Wednesday’s though.

2. Being blind means you can’t see a thing.
There are so many degrees of blindness. Some people identify as blind and they can still see. However, their vision could be as low as light perception only. Or, maybe the person can only see shadows. I have also met people that can’t see when they are in bright conditions. When I could still see, I had night blindness. Other people can only see using their peripheral vision. There is a definite grey area to blindness. It is not all darkness.

3. We all know Stevie Wonder.
You would not believe how many times someone wanted to know if the famous singer and I were buddies behind the scenes.

4. Just because I am blind does not mean I know every single blind person who has ever lived.
When my youngest daughter was in pre-school, I had a man come up to me and ask me if I knew *insert name*.
“No, does he have a kid that goes to this school?” I said a little confused. I should point out I had never been introduced to this guy one time.
He put a hand on my shoulder. “Oh no. He lives in Minnesota. I thought maybe because you were both blind…”

5. Not all blind people like to be touched by strangers.
Think back to the example I just gave in number four. When that guy touched my arm, I fully admit, it kind of creeped me out. I am not opposed to contact from other people. My problem was that I didn’t even know this guys name and yet he thought it would be a great idea to touch me. Another time I don’t like to be touched is in cases of my face. I can’t explain it. There is no real reason why. Ever since I lost my vision, I hate when someone randomly touches my face. They could be doing me a favor and getting a crumb off my cheek or a hair out of my eye. I appreciate it, but please tell me first. It saves me the awkward embarrassment of jerking back like I just got electrocuted.

6. No, I don’t want to touch your face.
This is a big one folks. In my experience in the blind community, it is extremely rare that you will find a blind person who wants to be introduced to you and get acquainted by giving your face a rub down. It’s no offense, but just yuck. I have yet to meet a blind person who does this. You know that expression, you don’t know where that has been? This kind of applies to that. It is no disrespect, but we don’t know if you are clean. We don’t know if you are greasy. You could have a poor complexion problem. You could have an open wound on your face. We also wouldn’t want to accidentally recruit you by poking you in the eye. There is just so many reasons why this is just not a good thing. Please, for the love of all blind people, just shake our hand.

7. Yes, I can hear you.
While it is true that some blind people are also deaf; this is not true for all of us. Even still, I can recall on several occasions where someone yelled at me rather than just speaking. Once, I asked a person why they were yelling. I am not kidding here… they actually told me that they did so because I was blind.

8. Blindness does not mean that I am a baby.
People mean well. I don’t in any way think that this is done out of malice for most people. Frequently however, I have had many people talk to me as though I am five years old. I’m not sure what it is about my cane. Sometimes though, it brings out the baby talk more than child-birth.

9. It is alright to talk directly to the blind person in front of you.
I believe this one happens because people are not sure how to act around a blind person. This is nothing against them at all. For instance, I come from a small town. This means that the blind population is not very big. This in turn means that people have little to no exposure to my people. Consequently, this means that sometimes the awkward interaction occurs. It sometimes goes something like this…
“Store Clerk: “Can I help you?” Their eye-contact is held with the sighted person beside me.
Me: “Yes, can you help me find *insert item*”
Store Clerk: Again, looking at my friend. “Does she know what color she wants?”
My friend: “I’m not sure. Why don’t you ask her?”
Unfortunately, this happens a lot. Again, I don’t think they are trying to ignore me. I just don’t think they quite know what to do about the whole blindness thing.

10. Blind people can’t do anything productive.
HA!!! This one is hilarious to me. Blind people are capable of doing so many things. We have jobs. We are athletes. We are parents. We are writers. We are musicians. We are volunteers. I have met so many amazing blind people over the years. Some of them impress me to the point of WOW! I have met blind people who go skiing and sky-diving. I have met blind lawyers. My husband is a blind drummer. There are blind Chefs and actors. There are blind people in the Government and politics. There was a blind person who played college football at one point or another. And the list goes on and on… Blindness is just a part of us. We can almost do anything a sighted person can do.

Thanks for reading.

There is more that could have made the list. Maybe there will be a second edition, so keep your eye out. If you are blind, what would be on your list? Visit the Facebook page and right yours in the comments for this post. If you are sighted, please don’t think I am bashing the way you do or don’t interact with blind people. I am fully aware that the vast majority do not mean to be offensive or hurtful. This post was done like most of my list posts are… to entertain and bring a little humor to the subject of blindness. As I have said a million times, blindness is not the end of the world. It is okay to laugh at experiences. It is even better to talk about them. In fact, that is how people learn.

First Online Class At Grand Canyon University

I am in the final week of my first class at GCU. I have so many thoughts on this experience so far. I can't wait to tell you all about it. So far so good!

The first class they have you do is University Success (UNV-108). This is an introduction to the online platform. It gives a taste of what life will be like through out all of your courses. It also is taylored to your specific degree program which is amazing! This means you get to jump into your major right away!

There is more than one teacher who teaches this class. The Professor that I have is fantastic. She is so responsive to private messages. She is super engaged through out all the elements of the class. She gets grades back fast. That last one is my favorite because Lord knows I am crazy when it comes to grades.

The support behind the scenes from my Student Services Counselor, Field Experience Counselor, Library Staff and Enrollment Counselor has been great. This is another fantastic aspect of GCU. You are not in this alone. You have an entire graduation team who has your back from start to finish.

So far, everything has been very accessible with my screen reader on both my computer and my phone. I am currently using JAWS and Voiceover on my iPhone.

I am able to navigate all of the different areas of the online classroom with no problems at all. I tend to bounce between using two different browzers, Firefox and Google Crome. I use Google most often.

I am able to get my textbooks so far in PDF format. I download them onto my phone using the Voice Stream Reader ap that I purchased from the ap store for $14.99. This has been a fairly plainless process. I admit that I would rather have a real person reading than a computerized voice though. In some of my classes this will be possible because I am an ENglish major. I can't speak for what is available for other programs.

I took one quiz in this class and it was also totally accessible. I was worried because tests on online platforms are sometimes glitchy with screen readers. How refreshing it was to realize that I had nothing to worry about.

The library section of the school website is accessible for the most part. I will say that it does sometimes take longer to find exactly what i am looking for when I am searching for journal articles. Once I have found the one I want, click on it, and try to read... It takes a while to find exactly where to go. I wish there was some more fine tuned key-commands to navigate this. Honestly, there could be and I am just not aware of them yet. This is all so new to me.

Last week, we had to do a video submission assignment about our disposition to teach. I was really nervous about this. I have to admit though, it makes me want to get back into my YouTube channel again. Want to see how I did?

Watch Disposition To Teach Here
Overall, I am really happy with this decision to start GCU. I am proud to be a Lope! Stay tuned to follow me on this journey. Comment down below and let me know what videos you would like to see on the channel.

My First Week at Grand Canyon University

The first week of my online school experience is down in the record books. In fact, we are half way through the second week. This makes me expert enough to chat with you right?

Maybe not...

I'm going to do it anyway. I love my school so far guys! It so far has been a wonderful experience. If this is any indication of how the rest of my program is going to go, I have nothing to worry about.

Gran Canyon (GCU) has so many resources to set students up for success. The level of student support is outstanding. Haven't been to school in a few years??? That doesn't matter. They have tutorials and webinars to help you with everything.

They have a dozen librarians on staff to help you utilize their large library to best meet your needs. Have no idea how to format a paper in APA or MLA format??? That doesn't matter... They have a tutorial and a template for you. Not sure if your Reference List is on point? Send it to a librarian for some advice.

I'm telling you, this University is amazing!

One of the best parts is, the accessibility. GCU uses an online platform called Loud Cloud. I was worried about this going in. There is no ap like there is with Canvas. I had never heard of it before. It was possible based on this, I was making a huge mistake right?

Wrong!

Up to this point, I have not experienced any issues at all with accessibility. Has there been a few minor hiccups? Sure, of course there has. Honestly though, that is to be expected with anything.

The faculty has been more than willing to help with anything I need. My teacher automatically offered to send me any class documents if I had issues finding something. She is very quick to respond to any questions I have about navigating the platform.

Grading...

It's still early, but this process has been fantastic. I have had experiences where you are waiting practically until the end of the quarter to receive a grade on a single assignment. This has not been like that at all. Don't quote me on this, but I believe GCU has a policy in place that gives teachers a four business day turn around on grading. This is a game-changer for me. I'm not going to lie. I get so stressed waiting for a final grade on an assignment some times.

I will leave this post here. I will explain more another day. If you are considering going back to school and you don't know where to go... I would absolutely encourage you to check out Grand Canyon University. They are a private school. There tuition is not much different than that of an in-state school. Check out some of their videos online, visit there website, or chat with an enrollment counselor. What have you got to lose? Nothing! That's what. You do have everything to gain. I promis you that.

Until next time friends

Volunteering At A Blind School

As most of you know, I was not born blind. Since I didn't go blind until basically adulthood, I have zero experience with blind children. I figured I should probably take care of that since I plan to get a teaching credential to be able to teach visually impaired students.

Where is the best place to do this you ask? Well my friends, let me tell you. I decided to start volunteering at a blind school. Great idea right?

So far, it has been a wonderful experience. I am loving it! I am learning so much and having so much fun in the process. All the staff are fantastic too.

It has been so interesting seeing how this works. I love watching the kids learn on an equal playing field. They don't have to fight to understand. The material is accessible and put in their hands in a way that best fits their needs. Accomodations are a part of every day life and totally normal. Technology is at their finger tips. The staff go above and beyond to give their students the best learning opportunities possible. It is beautiful.

I really love it here. Sometimes I wish I could volunteer more often. It is a great place to be.

I'm still not sure if I want to teach in a general ed school or a blind school, but I'm loving the process of sorting it all out.