Norbert Mueller, Germany:
What can the EBU do to improve the status
of education of the blind and partially sighted
and how can the EBU go about this?
When I started my school career back in 1959 it was – at least in
Germany and many other countries – common knowledge that blind people had to
attend special, residential schools where they would get an excellent
education. Looking back I must admit that this was true – with one exception:
during the first decade of my school years we did not get enough training in
mobility and independent living skills. But our academic training was very
good.
My first six school years I spent in a small institution which at that
time had not more than 35 students. Except for weekends and vacation time we
all had to live in the dormitory. We had teachers who were very much dedicated
to their jobs: They all were able to read and write Braille – including Grade
II Braille – and even in their leisure time they often worked on models which
should help us get a better understanding of the world around us. These models
were made out of wood, plaster and other materials and showed buildings and
streets around our school, landscapes, islands and more.
My teachers were sighted, with one exception: there was a blind man who
was not a teacher by profession, but he came and taught piano and accordion. We
all knew that he was the President of our State Federation of the Blind, an
organisation we all would join once we were old enough (at that time, you had
to be 16 before you could become a member).
Yes, those were the good old days! During the last four decades, many
things have changed in the education of the blind and partially sighted, and –
as with other facts of life – it is not always easy to say whether things
changed to the better or to the worse. I mentioned above, that during the first
decade of my school career there was not much training in mobility and
independent living skills. This has changed, and that definitely is a change to
the better.
Educators have discovered the partially sighted as a separate group and
have developed special curricula for them. That is a change to the better;
however, we hear complaints: blindness skills, which in some occasions might be
of help to this group as well, are totally neglected. So this coin shows two
sides.
Whereas in my school days segregated education was the rule, we nowadays
see more and more visually impaired students integrated into the regular school
system. The emphasis at the schools for the blind has shifted to multi-handicapped
children. If educators speak of multi-handicapped, they usually mean visually
impaired plus mentally retarded and maybe with other additional handicaps. So
in this sense, the blind student of average or above intelligence using a wheel
chair would not be regarded as multi-handicapped. You may argue that this is
not a good terminology, but to my knowledge no one came up with a better one so
far.
Now the shift to integrated school training of the visually impaired
would be a wonderful thing, if the students would get the quality education we
received in our school years. In order to achieve that, we would need many more
teachers who are specialists in the education of the visually impaired and more
so-called “media centres”, where school books and other materials could be
produced in Braille and large print; at these centres, they would also have to
be able to produce up-to-date maps and other models as required by the
individual students; after all, they should have the same material available to
them as their sighted class mates.
That’s the theory. Many people, including myself, have complained that
the reality is totally different. Many governments see an integrated school
system or – to use the up-to-date term – mainstreaming as a good way to save
money: It is very easy to justify the reduction and even destruction of special
services for the visually impaired with the “Full Inclusion” ideology. And it
is unfortunate that some blind people – without considering the final
consequences – fall in the same trap. This already is one area where EBU can
and must help: We must make those visually impaired people feel at home in the
organisations of the blind; we must make them aware that as sensory impaired
people we have special needs which are different from those of other
handicapped people, and we must show them that the blind are the best advocates
for the blind!
There is another problem associated with mainstreaming: very often blind
students who attend regular schools do not know any other blind persons who
could serve as role models for them. This is also true for their families and –
with the exception of the special education teacher who may see them once a
week – also for their teachers. This can prevent them from developing a healthy
attitude about their blindness, thus causing a low self-esteem; after all, as
they see every day, they have more limitations than their sighted peers and
they may not know that other blind people have overcome many of those. When I
was living in the USA I got to know a man who went through the regular school
system seemingly without problems; only when he started university, where he
wanted to study psychology, they found out that he had a learning disability.
So while he was at school his limitations were attributed to his blindness. He
certainly did not get a school education tailored to his individual needs.
The skill which is most important for blind people is the ability to
read and write Braille efficiently. Studies conducted in the USA have shown
that about 90 percent of blind people who are in employment read Braille. We
all know that this is the skill most neglected in the education of the blind
today. And we know the reason: Unlike the teachers in the little school I
attended 40 years ago, many teachers of the visually impaired today are not at
all efficient in the use of Braille. In their university training they often
are not even required any more to learn Grade II Braille – even in countries
like Germany where Grade II is the common form of Braille. So is it any wonder
that those teachers start questioning the value of Braille? Whenever a new
technology becomes available, be it the reel tape recorder, the cassette
recorder or the computer, people tell us that this is the end of Braille, that
Braille will become obsolete now. Experience has always proved them wrong, and
we who are able to use Braille efficiently know that nothing else can give us
the same degree of independence. By the way, all these technologies are also
available for the sighted; why doesn’t any one get the idea that finally print
will become obsolete?
Let me add two remarks here: 1. Not only sighted teachers have the
tendency to try to make life easy on themselves; I have been a member of the
commission who worked on a reform of the German Grade II Braille – something we
had to do because the official rules for proper spelling were changed in the
German speaking countries; there were some blind teachers who, at times
successfully, tried to change the rules in a way which would make them easier
to instruct. Of course, the official argument was that the proposed new rules
are easier for the student to understand. But many of us wonder why things we
were able to learn suddenly are impossible to grasp for today’s youngsters. 2.
What I said about the importance of Braille is not only true for totally blind
individuals, but also for many persons with low vision. The argument is that
they should use print because there is much more reading material available for
them; but what good does that reading material do them if they can only read
for a few minutes at a time and then have to suffer from eye strain? Wouldn’t
it be better to teach Braille to them and let them decide when they want to use
Braille and when print is preferable for them?
So where do young blind children of normal intelligence get a quality
education? Mainstreaming often does not provide it, and at special schools they
have specialised on the multihandicapped?
We cannot answer this question if we just think of a dual model:
integrated education on the one and segregated schools on the other hand. We
need a system in which both sides cooperate: There are skills which can better
be taught at special schools; there are times when a student may no longer be
able to handle the frustration of being one blind student among hundreds of
sighted youngsters; there are times when the student in a segregated school
really feels closed in and should go out into the unprotected world. We need a
school system which meets all these needs. There must not be integrated schools
on one and segregated institutions on the other side; both must cooperate and
be available whenever a student needs them; and it must be possible to switch
from one to the other without difficulty.
I have used the term “quality education” several times already. For me
it means an education which is tailored to the individuals needs and best
capabilities, enabling him or her to lead a full and productive life as an
integrated member in his or her society. It will be up to this conference and
to bodies like the EBU Commission on Education to fill this term with life.
So far, I have described the current state of the education of the
visually impaired. Of course, in this short speech I cannot touch all areas in
this field. We should not forget the issue of vocational training, social
skills and computer training. It is almost common that sighted youngsters have
their own computer and become computer experts at an early age; but what about
the blind? Their parents have to dig deeper in their pockets, because they also
have to pay for the expensive screen readers, which enable their youngsters to
perform at least a part – but still only a part – of the things their sighted
peers do on a PC.
So what can EBU do to improve the situation?
One of the many strong points of EBU is that it represents organisations
OF the blind as well as those FOR the blind. Take as evidence the national
delegations at our General Assemblies; if I may use my country as an example:
One of the members in our delegation is a representative of the German
Association of the Educators of the Blind; and of course the European President
of the International Council of the Visually Impaired, Herman Gresnigt, is a
well liked guest at the assembly as well. This already shows you that all in
all we have a good cooperation between the “Professionals” and the “Consumers”
within EBU. And in this context, I should not neglect to mention the parents of
visually impaired children, who are also represented in some national delegations
as well as in some of our commissions, for example the Commission for
Activities of Multi-handicapped People. At the same time, it is clear that our
Union is lead by people who are visually impaired themselves. Thus it can be
ensured that EBU really represents the interests of the blind and partially
sighted.
Organisations of the blind to a large part consist of people who have
gone
through the educational system and may or may not have found employment
afterwards. Thus, we can judge what was useful in our education, which
errors have been made and which qualifications were most effective for
us.
Because of that we can give our advice to professionals in the field of
education of the visually impaired as well as to those who make important
decisions in that area (e.g. politicians). This is a major reason why we
established the EBU Commission on Education.
Organisations like ICEVI are not only made up of sighted people. We have
many blind people who work in the field of education. They should not only join
professional organisations, but they should participate actively in their work.
Our experience and advice is needed within organisations for the blind, and we
should not withhold it or preserve it for bodies which are run by us. After
all, decision makers outside the blindness field do not understand and are not
interested in the difference between organisations OF and FOR the blind.
Therefore, it is good if we can speak with one voice, like we do as European
Blind Union.
If our advice is not sought or accepted, we must make our voice heard
louder. We can do this by strengthening our organisations of the blind at the
grass root level and by being present when and where decisions of importance to
us are made. On the European Union level, we have established the Brussels
Office, so we are right where the heart of the European Union is beating. On
the European level in general, we have established contacts and started a
fruitful and increasing cooperation with the Council of Europe.
Lobbying is not the only channel available to us. This conference is a
good example for what we can do; we must make sure that the conference will
have fruitful results and we must publish those as widely as possible – not
only within EBU.
We have the EBU Newsletter whose circulation is increasing steadily. So
this is a perfect place to inform about this conference and its results.
EBU has established an internet site at <www://euroblind.org>. As
the director of our EBU Office, Mokrane Boussaid, reports, the number of
requests for information he receives has increased enormously since we are
visible on the world wide web. More than half of these requests come from
people outside the blindness field. So again: This is a place where we should
inform about our views on the education of the blind.
It is a nice coincidence that there is another EBU in Europe - the
European Broadcasting Union. At our sixth General Assembly in Prague we had a
speaker from that organisation. We should take advantage of this situation and
try to get them committed to a closer cooperation between our "sister
EBUs".
What about a mailing list on educational matters within the EBU Internet
structure? The EBU Social Rights Commission has set up its Hermes Network. The
Technical Commission had its mailing list already many years ago. We should
follow their examples. A lot of work can be done through the internet.
So, as you can see, there is a lot of work ahead of us, during and even
more after this conference. Therefore let me close by wishing you a successful
and fruitful conference. The National Federation of the Blind in Baltimore,
USA, the World Blind Union and many other organisation claim that they „change
what it means to be blind“. This is a very worthy cause. Let us do our part by
beginning to „change what it means to be educated as a blind student“.
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