Going to school as a legally blind child
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One thing that Antonia and her older sister, Marga, always
had in common was their love of books. Accessibility:
Two girls sitting on a couch, smiling and holding thick books.
The one on the left is a younger Antonia with long
platinum hair in a pony tail. On the right, a blonde with
short wavy hair and glasses.
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As a legally blind student I received a lot of the support I needed from Spain's equivalent to the National Federation for the Blind, O.N.C.E.. In the nineties CCTVs were new and expensive so they weren't given away as easily as they are today. For those of you who don't know, a CCTV is a really good tool for low vision individuals to read print; basically, it is a camera with a monitor over it, you place your reading material under the camera and then you can magnify it to as big as you like on your monitor. One of the advantages of CCTVs is that they help maintain good posture. One of the disadvantages in a classroom? They are bulky and everyone can see what you are doing. The tools I used in school were an adjustable desk, kind of like a drafting table, and a lamp. I used a pair of glasses that had a 6x magnifier attached to the lens, a monocular, and an array of other (old school) magnifiers. I had ZoomText (accessibility software for the computer which enlarges text and manipulates color contrast) on my computer, but I wasn't taught how to use it properly so I didn't use it much.
In elementary school teachers would give me large copies of handouts in A3 papers, which made it easier for me to see. This continued into middle and high school, but as I got older, I had more teachers and they had a harder time remembering to bring my large copies. So, I stopped requesting them for a number of reasons: 1) even though it was easier for me to see, they were bulkier and harder to maneuver, 2) I didn't want to keep on reminding my teachers and 3) I wanted to be like everyone else in my class so I chose to use my magnifiers more often instead of enlarged papers. The point is, I could still see the materials and learn. Frankly, going to school is as much about academics as it is about socialization and learning who you are. I am glad my parents didn't push me to use enlarged copies because they were told that was best for me; I am glad they gave me the freedom to figure it out on my own and allowed me to experiment how much I could see and how many adaptations I actually needed. Sometimes, not standing out is just as important as not getting eye strain from trying to read a handout.
My books were never enlarged, except for piano books. As I became older, and print on the books got smaller, I just learned to use my magnifiers full time, especially my glasses. I really liked those because they allowed me to work hands-free and still see what I was working on. I think back to it and probably a lot of my posture problems today are due to those glasses, but that's what was available to me back then. Nowadays kids have so many more options with perfected CCTVs, electronic magnifiers and tablets -it's fantastic!
I always sat in the front of the classroom so I could use my monocular to look at the board, I was also allowed to move freely about the classroom so I could see the board well. However, in a lot of cases, teachers only used the one half of the board that was closest to me to make it easier. I know my parents had yearly meetings with my teachers to let them know about my albinism, but they always pushed me to be my own advocate and to say something when I couldn't see something.
I remember a particular instance in elementary school where we went for a walk to the park and our teacher asked us to make a realistic drawing of what we saw. It was afternoon in winter so the sun was starting to be low and there were a lot of shadows. Therefore, all I saw were silhouettes of things -and that's what I drew. It was the brown ground, the blue sky and everything else, trees, a house, etc. were all black. When my teacher first saw the drawing she was so mad because I hadn't followed instructions, but I stood my ground and reiterated I had followed instructions, that that's what I saw. As we were having this discussion, I remember noticing how realization set in and she let it go.
Another time, I must have been 12 or 13, we were in an adventure camp for one or two nights with my school. One of the activities we did was orientation with a compass on the cliffs by the sea. It was getting close to summer and I was wearing shorts, so I was using sunscreen every couple of hours. Now, in this situation, I can tell you a couple of issues that I had right away: 1) the sun was bright, so I was being really blinded by it, 2) I don't have depth perception so walking on things like rocks is very difficult for me because they are similar color but I cannot see whether there is a drop or anything like that and 3) I could not see the landmarks that were being pointed out for orientation because they were too far for me to see. To be fair, this wasn't one of my teachers, but a camp counselor whom I had just met that day. He first made a comment about me being too pale and that I would be able to get a tan if I didn't reapply sunscreen so often. I just explained that I get sunburnt easily and moved on. However, this didn't end there! My classmates, who knew I had trouble in uneven terrain, were holding my hand and doing sited guide with me. The counselor called me clumsy and said I needed to learn to walk by myself. I explained I couldn't see very well, to which he proceeded to hand me a compass and asked me to find North. I couldn't see it! I told him that and my classmate started to help me, he asked them to stop and told me to quit playing, at which point a lot of my classmates became my advocates and proceeded to explain that I wasn't lying and that I truly couldn't see. I was so young and I had to advocate so hard for myself. In fact, my classmates were so used to seeing me do so by now that they became my advocates as well! I still get teary when I think about it.
As you can read, I had incredible classmates and peers who accepted me from a really young age. I was, of course, teased in elementary school but, since we all went to school together from a really young age, my albinism became their normal pretty early on. Also, I lived in rural Spain, where my class was very small, so I am guessing that helped too! Socially, the hardest part for me as a young kid was actually playground time because, if my friends ran off, I couldn't find them and I would spend a lot of breaks playing by myself or wondering around. However, once I had a solid core group of friends in grades 6 or 7 this stopped being a problem and they would wait for me on our way out of the classroom. Again, going to a small school really helped me recognize people, especially by their voice or their clothes (no one would buy a new garment without my knowing!). It is so much easier for me, even as an adult, to recognize people by what they are wearing than by their face.
I was very fortunate that I got to finish 11 and 12 grades at a boarding school in Norway and then was offered a scholarship to go to college in the U.S.. In Norway I had the same accommodations that I did in Spain, however, the difference was that instead of having teachers come to our classroom, I had to go to the teacher's classroom. This made it so I couldn't use my lamp and adjustable desk in class. However, I kept using my magnifiers and my monocular. I was given extra time for exams and for my SATs as I was getting ready to apply to college in the U.S. At that age I became very proud of being able to say that I was able to do everything everyone else did without accommodations, in spite of my visual impairment, and that was essentially true except for my magnifiers. This sentiment became my mantra until some time in my mid-twenties.
The same was true for college. I attended a small school, the kind where you called professors by
their first name and they invited you over for dinner at their home. The Disability Resource Center was available to me, however, in those four years, I only used it once to solicit a note taker for a math class (I guess I should say taking notes for math was a problem throughout my life, but I mitigated it by making photocopies of my friends' notes, which is essentially what the Disability Resource Center offered me). I had the same size handouts as everyone else, I used my monocular to look at the board and, whenever I couldn't see something, I advocated for myself with my professors and they were very accommodating. The only other time I used the Disability Resource Center in my four years was when I was getting ready to take the GRE and they made sure I had extra time to take it. If I am being completely honest, I don't remember ever turning in any medical paperwork about my disability to the university, they just magically knew I was legally blind (although I am sure that either my parents or my high school passed along the information!).
When I got to graduate school I had absolutely no accommodations from either my professors or the Disability Resource Center. This time, my medical paperwork did not magically make it to graduate school as it had to college and the Disability Resource Center wasn't willing to take my documentation from Spain. Therefore, I decided I had made it this far without barely any accommodations, I could make it all the way to graduation. I used my monocular (the exact same one I had in elementary school if you can believe it!) and my magnifiers. I purchased an iPad to read all the articles and I set forth. I got a lot of headaches and migraines in graduate school, probably from reading for so many hours, but I made it!
All in all, I did really well in school throughout my life. I guess I was fortunate that I had very good memory and learned to memorize a lot of things from early on. I guess that my biggest takeaway from my schooling experience is to be creative and think outside the box and to learn to become your own advocate. I have come to accept that accommodations make my life easier and that I am not less of a person for using them. However, during my middle and high school yeas, fitting in was more important than using all the accommodations available to me. The point is, I still got myself through school and my parents let me choose what I thought was best for me. Graduate school without any accommodations as a legally blind individual I do not recommend to anyone. I made it, barely, and paid for it with my health.
What are some of your tips to go to school as a blind or visually impaired student? What are some of the things you know now you wish you knew then? Can you share some of the most memorable anecdotes where you had to advocate for yourself?
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