WHEN DARKNESS LIGHTS THE WAY: How the blind may function as specialists in movement and navigation Daniel Kish, M.A. / M.A. / COMS Copyright 1997: California State University, Los Angeles Copyright 2003: WORLD ACCESS FOR THE BLIND, Inc. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 SOME WORDS OF CARE 2 A LITTLE PERSONAL BACKGROUND 3 THE AFFECTS OF BLINDNESS ON PROFESSIONAL STYLE 4 LAYING THE GROUND WORK 4.1 Expectations 4.2 Skepticism? 4.3 Liability 5 MONITORING STUDENTS' TECHNIQUE AND SAFETY 5.1 Key Components of Monitoring 5.1.1 Attention 5.1.2 Perceptual Integration 5.1.3 Perceptual Contact with Students 5.1.3.1 Remote Contact 5.1.3.2 Discrete Tactile Contact 5.1.3.2.1 Explanation 5.1.3.2.2 Discrete Touching 5.1.3.2.3 Indirect Physical Contact 5.1.4 Poise and Preparation 5.1.4.1 Maintaining Instructional Poise 5.1.4.2 Preparing All Needed Adaptations 5.1.4.3 Preparing the Training Environment 5.1.4.4 Prior Familiarization with Training Areas and Situations 5.1.5 Practice 5.2 A Little About Terrain Irregularities 5.3 Instructor Position and Facilitating Self-Reliance 5.3.1 Facilitating Functional Self-reliance 5.3.2 Facilitating Emotional Self-reliance 5.3.3 Facilitating Natural Interactions Between Student and Public 5.4 Monitoring Student and Environmental Variables 5.4.1 Observing Students and Traffic 5.4.2 Observing Student Alignment 5.4.3 Monitoring Cane Technique 5.4.4 Stairs and Escalators 5.4.5 Gait and Postural Issues 5.4.6 Special Circumstances 5.5 A Little About Solo Lessons 6 UTILIZING STUDENT RELATED RESOURCES 6.1 Accessing Student Records and Instructional Materials 6.1.1 Reader Services 6.1.2 Access Technology 6.1.3 Transcription Services 6.2 Selecting Instructional Materials and Settings 6.3 Administering Assessments 6.4 My First Real Functional Vision Assessment 6.5 Maintaining Records, Reports, and Other Paperwork 7 PERCEPTUAL ASSESSMENT AND INSTRUCTION 7.1 Residual Vision 7.1.1 Familiarity with Students 7.1.2 Good Communication 7.1.3 Familiarity with Instructional Environments and Settings 7.1.4 Control Over Instructional Materials, Adaptations, and Paradigms 7.1.5 Strategic Use of Sighted Assistance 7.1.6 Setting Limits 7.2 Nonvisual Functioning 8 INSTRUCTION IN SKILLS AND TECHNIQUES 8.1 Some Key Distinctions 8.2 Basic Skills Instruction 8.3 Dropped Objects 8.4 Cardinal Directions 8.5 Numbering Systems 8.6 Sensory Awareness Training 8.7 Rapid Transportation 8.8 Concepts 9 ADAPTABILITY AND FLEXIBILITY 10 COMMUNICATION WITH STUDENTS DURING TRAVEL 11 FACILITATING POSITIVE INTERACTION WITH STUDENTS 12 SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS 12.1 Entrance Criteria and Hiring 12.2 Reasonable Accommodations 12.3 Who's Responsible? 13 PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT APPENDIX A: MANAGING INFORMATION ACCESS AND TRANSPORTATION A-1 Acquisition A-1.1 Public Sources A-1.2 Private Sources A-2 Preparation A-3 Managing the Expense A-4 Confidentiality and Liability APPENDIX B: BIBLIOGRAPHY APPENDIX C: INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES, AIDS, AND MATERIALS C-1 Auditory Stimulus Enhancers C-1.1 Remote Sounders C-1.2 Keys C-1.3 Bells C-1.4 Transmitter/Receiver Systems C-1.5 Zip Ties or Cable Ties C-2 Light Probes and Detectors C-3 Canes and Tips C-4 Instructional Aids C-4.1 Braille and Talking Compasses C-4.2 Laser Pointer C-4.3 Auditory Enhancement C-5 Clips, Holders, and Fasteners C-5.1 Belt Packs and Back Packs C-5.2 Universal Belt Clips C-5.3 Safety Pins C-5.4 Retractable Key Reels C-5.5 Extendable Gripper C-5.6 Stationery Clips and Clasps C-5.7 Batteries APPENDIX D: FUNCTIONAL VISION ASSESSMENT NOTES APPENDIX E: CONTRACT FOR DRIVER EMPLOYMENT WHEN DARKNESS LIGHTS THE WAY: How the blind may function as specialists in movement and navigation The intent of this report is to provide information to assist both blind individuals seeking to become effective specialists in nonvisual movement and navigation and also the instructors and supervisors of these blind trainees. I know from experience that both parties can find themselves at a loss in striving to develop and manage the logistics of nonvisual mobility instruction. This is not necessarily because nonvisual instruction is especially problematic. It's actually quite straightforward and sensible for the most part. The primary reasons for the difficulties that may underlie nonvisual instruction stem from historical precedent. Nonvisual movement and navigation professions have, by and large, taken several decades to develop a repertoire of instructional approaches and knowledge. Due to the preponderance of sighted professionals in the field, this repertoire, with notable exceptions, is primarily based on visual methods and perspectives. The application of nonvisual approaches and perspectives has been relatively rare and has historically applied primarily to totally blind or blindfolded adults. For example, the long-standing traditions supporting blind cane travel instructors in agency settings have not been accessed to support visually impaired Orientation and Mobility Specialist trainees at traditional university programs who may be seeking certification through the Association for the Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired (A.E.R.). Because cane travel instruction has historically focused on blind or blindfolded adults, their methods and strategies, however effective, may arguably not apply to many areas of instruction covered by university settings, such as low vision training, and the broad student population including young children and the multiply. The blind seeking A.E.R. certification as O&M Specialists have thus not benefited from the same wealth of professional knowledge and experience that has supported their sighted counterparts. In like fashion, instructors and supervisors of would-be blind O&M Specialists in training have found themselves at odds to assist their blind trainees in developing effective, alternative approaches that are nonvisually based. The predicament has exasperated, frustrated, daunted, and discouraged many who are concerned with this issue. This schism between vision based and nonvisual instructional competence eventually lead to the imposition of official sanctions against blind individuals seeking A.E.R. certification as O&M Specialists. Concurrently, many blind cane travel instructors developed successful and noteworthy practices as administrators, private or agency based instructors, rehabilitation counselors, and other positions where A.E.R. certification was not required. Even so, tension brewed around the issue of A.E.R. certification policies which were thought to be discriminatory by many. I suppose that one key reason for misunderstanding the nature and relevance of nonvisual approaches to instruction lies in the over acquaintance of sighted professionals with blind students needing instruction, rather than blind peers who have already reached competence. It seems to be a built-in factor of the blindness field that sighted professionals most often relate to the blind through a didactic, instructional mode where the blind individual is usually the recipient or beneficiary of the sighted professional's expertise. Quite simply, sighted professionals have been over-exposed to "the blind in need" by virtue of their roles as professionals. This unfortunate state of affairs has contributed faultlessly to the skewing of perspectives of those in the blindness field to the belief that the blind function below optimal capacity as a consequence of blindness. This is not just a function of sighted vs. nonsightedness; I have known many blind people who hold these beliefs as well. While many professionals have managed to escape, the long-term implications and impact of this insidious trap have been devastating. Fortunately, a new dawn crests the horizon. Certification policies have changed. With the growing recognition and appreciation of the successes of blind movement and navigation instructors, the receipt of national certification (now handled by ACVREP) by several blind individuals, and the development of a combined university and agency training program for blind O&M trainees, the professional controversy concerning blind instruction thankfully draws to an end. Recent surveys conducted by A.E.R. among its members indicate that only a small percentage of those in the O&M profession continue to cling to traditional preferences for visual based instructional approaches and perspectives. In truth, the question of whether the blind can teach optimal levels of movement and navigation competence has died in the face of recent demonstration and precedent. The question of interest now is "how is it done?" All aspects of a quality, effective program of instruction for the diverse visually impaired population are fully manageable by nonvisual means with a minimum of special accommodations. I now assert this with the solemn assurance of having successfully completed and fulfilled all requirements of a University based, Orientation and Mobility Specialist training program, and obtaining certification in O&M 6 years ago. I have secured two unrestricted itinerant Orientation and Mobility positions in the public schools, as well as multiple private contracts with rehabilitation agencies, school districts, and private persons. I have recently co-founded and now operate a private agency called World Access for the Blind, which develops sensory enhancement technology and provides instructional, therapeutic, and enrichment services for visually impaired students and their families. I have traveled throughout the U.S. and other countries to provide services, and people have traveled to me from other countries to receive services. Most importantly, I am not alone in successfully functioning as a blind movement and navigation specialist; I stand with others. In preparing this report, I have decided to focus my attention primarily on those issues that seem most salient to totally blind trainees and their supervisors. This is because the concerns that have pertained to nonvisual instruction have centered on the totally blind. I am totally blind and most of this report is based on my experiences as a trainee, instructor, program developer and coordinator, and supervisor of a blind O&M intern, as well as other instructors. However, I do include some information about how other blind people have conducted their specialty in movement and navigation. I also include what I can concerning strategies that an individual with low vision might employ to facilitate the use of their vision as instructors. This report is not intended to serve as a synthesis of others' techniques and styles. I see no way to encapsulate how others perform their jobs better than they, themselves, may already have done. Appendix B contains a list of original sources for more information. Though my approach to this report may result in the presentation of a relatively restricted and potentially biased view of this topic, I expect nonetheless that the information and perspectives presented here will at least contribute to the development of a comprehensive body of knowledge that will facilitate the success of blind people who wish to enter fields of movement and navigation. 1 SOME WORDS OF CARE I'd like to start by recognizing openly that there are aspects to the understanding of vision based and nonvision based instruction which some people still find irksome and confusing. This is inevitable given the turbulent history surrounding these issues. Feelings still run hot and biases still run deep in some quarters. This report is not intended to judge. Even approaches that have been found inadequate may still be regarded as well intended opportunities for learning. There is no approach which can yet be upheld as without flaw. In a report like this, some distinctions between blind and sighted instruction cannot be avoided, though these are certainly not my emphasis. I'm not going to say that blind instruction is better or worse than sighted instruction. Everyone, blind or sighted, has strengths and weaknesses. During my first lesson of teaching cane technique, I was a mess. I kept stepping on my partner's cane, bumping his shoulder, and generally making a nuisance of myself. It was awful. One might have decided then and there that "blind guys just can't hack it." During that afternoon break, I did some serious soul searching about how to remedy this. At the same time, my partner struggled with issues about being an effective instructor. His first go of instruction was wooden, stilted, and completely uninspiring. He was a total bore and not very informative. We both returned to each other that afternoon having largely worked out our distinct yet mutual struggles. There are a few marked areas where blind instructors are likely to find themselves handicapped in meeting critical instructional demands, and I say the same thing about sighted instructors. There is no question in my mind, for example, that a congenitally blind instructor will probably struggle more than a sighted instructor with some issues of vision training. Likewise, sighted instructors generally struggle more with optimizing sensory awareness and engendering positive, proactive attitudes in their students and the general public. It is fundamental to all our success to recognize that handicaps are simply challenges that can be managed. Is this not the foundation of what we propose to teach? A handicap is not a road block; it is an invitation to find another way. Any approach that recognizes and applies this truth will find success. I also recognize that this report is based largely on one case - me. While this necessitates a somewhat narrow focus, it offers the opportunity to present a rich, detailed, and penetrating exposé of what I do and how I do what I do as an instructor totally blind from infancy. I am as honest as I can be, and I leave few stones unturned. However, as this report unfolds, I urge the reader to bear the following in mind. Though I consider myself to be pretty well acquainted with movement and navigation professions through many years of personal training, experience, observation, and research, most of my students have consisted of children and young adults who lost their vision some time before I began working with them and who had already received some instruction in movement and navigation before-hand. I have not worked with the elderly, and my work with the newly blind is scant. Therefore, I must make clear that what I present in this report is not intended to suggest that my approaches are the only way or even the best way to implement successful instruction. I recognize that student populations vary beyond my current experience. Furthermore, the variation of instructional talents, skills, and styles spans beyond measure. For example, one of my talents that figures prominently in my ability to monitor students and facilitate positive instruction is the strategic use of echolocation. My echo skills may be considered potent and very informative, and they serve me as an integral part of my capacity to monitor students effectively and travel efficiently. Commensurately, I talk about echolocation a lot in this report. This does not mean that echolocation stands as the single means to effective instruction anymore than vision does. I have known other blind individuals for whom echo ability may not serve as intensely as it does me, but who exercise very effective skills and talents. One individual observing my instruction learned by a brief touch on a student's backpack as much information about his gait patterns as I learned over the course of weeks. Also, while I am able to become quickly oriented to and immediately comfortable in new territory, I have known individuals whose skill surpassed my own in this area. There are countless skills and qualities that comprise effective instruction, which no one person can epitomize, and a countless diversity of students to which these may be applied. This report is in no way intended as a "how to" manual. Rather, my intention is to share what I have learned in the hopes that it may help smooth the road for others. Blind instruction, due to its relative rarity, is still in its early stages of growth as a body of knowledge, and no single individual can address all the questions in all possible ways. I recognize and respect the many approaches taken to teaching movement and navigation including Cane Travel Instruction, Orientation and Mobility Specialization, Discovery training, and Guided training, to name a few. If those reading this report have aspirations of becoming a blind instructor in movement and navigation or training one, I welcome you and your perspectives to an uncharted realm, not altogether sparkling with polish, but nonetheless burgeoning with exciting promise and potential. Happy reading. Finally, I do not intend to suggest that all blind individuals would make good instructors any more than all sighted people would. I've known plenty of sighted who would not make good candidates or whom should never have entered the field. Likewise, I've known plenty of blind people who might do well not to consider this avenue. Two blind individuals who shadowed me during my work have stated, "This is way too hard." Not having access to the standard conveniences of a car and printed information can require strong medal to manage the logistics of the job, especially in an itinerant position. The process of monitoring student safety and technique can also be quite tricky under many circumstances, requiring strong powers of concentration, good instincts, refined perceptions, excellent people skills, a level head, and sound judgments. This is required of sighted instructors as well for optimum effectiveness, but sight affords the ability to accomplish many of the tasks more easily and with less stress. This isn't to discourage any blind person from taking this road; I have no regrets, and I welcome company. Nor is it to suggest that I exemplify all the fine qualities that make one an excellent instructor. I've made my share of mistakes. I'm just trying to present a realistic picture of what it takes. It isn't always easy, but it is always doable and with great rewards. 2 A LITTLE PERSONAL BACKGROUND I wrote this section last in this report. I did not know what elements of my background, if any, would be relevant, but it struck me upon completion that some background information may help the reader to place this presentation in a useful context. I was born in 1966, and I lost both eyes from retinoblastoma by the age of 13 months. I have always attended regular schools including preschool, though I was bused to a far away district until the 5th grade. From that point, I attended regular, neighborhood schools. My movement skills are primarily self taught. My movement training was largely irregular and inconsistent. It was extremely limited and sporadic through my late preschool and elementary school years. Starting with junior high, movement training by O&M Specialists became more regular, but instructors came and went like leaves in the wind. I encountered six between the 7th and 12th grades. The experience was further complicated by my having developed many of my own techniques and strategies, which worked quite well, and my lack of willingness to relinquish them to formal training practices and protocols. I wouldn't trail walls or square-off; I rarely used sighted-guide; and you wouldn't have caught me with a cane outside mobility lessons. I had developed other skills to the point where I fancied myself not in need of formal training. I was already traveling far and wide independently, even insofar as orienting myself to unfamiliar neighborhoods and other environments. Most of my formal training, therefore, was fraught with conflict and strife. This is not to say that I had nothing to learn, but it was not possible to convince me of that at the time. Though my cane skills were considered quite good, I did not begin using one regularly until about the age of 24. This was after 6 years of traveling with a dog guide and deciding that a dog wasn't for me. Some have raised questions about my decision to become a specialist in movement and navigation with O&M training and certification. "Is he out to prove something? What'll he try next, fly an airplane?" When one of my master teachers related this comment to me from a conversation he'd had with a colleague, I wondered about just how confused people could be about their job. Though I don't know a lot about airplanes, I know quite a bit about nonvisual movement and navigation. I fail to see any relationship between the two, other than airport travel. To my knowledge, pilots undergo a rather different course of training than O&M Specialists, and the job requirements are quite different. As for trying to prove something, my decision to enter the movement and navigation field was an accident. I had completed a Developmental Psychology Master's thesis on the affects of echolocation training on movement and navigation in blind children, when I was asked to present my results to several forums. One of these was a California state wide O&M conference. After the presentation, the Director of the O&M training program at California State University, Los Angeles, asked me if I had ever considered becoming an O&M instructor. Though I had considered entering the field as a part-time consultant, I had given no thought to direct service delivery. My mind was quite set on acquiring a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. My goals were to work with abused children and their families and to become a policy activist. I'd not considered anything to do with blindness. But, after some thought and long discussions with the Director about issues relevant to blind O&M instruction, I decided to give it a try. In addition to my Master's in Developmental Psychology, I currently hold a Master's in Special Education/Orientation and Mobility with national certification from ACVREP. I have also received a full training course from Dr. Leslie Kay, inventor of the Sonicguide, in the use of his ultrasonic sonar technology. I am currently in training for my V.I. credential, certification in assistive technology, and certification in information counseling of the visually impaired. I have appeared almost a dozen times on National Television to demonstrate the effectiveness, teachability, and high potentials of sonic and ultrasonic echolocation, and nonvisual travel abilities. I have also given dozens of presentations and workshops throughout the U.S., Canada, and Mexico to parents, students, professionals, and the general public on echolocation and many other topics related to blindness. I am currently engaged in directing and developing a global organization to bring blind functioning throughout the world to levels that defy traditional expectations. Ultimately, I believe that the best way to learn is through sharing, and the best way to teach is through learning. 3 THE AFFECTS OF BLINDNESS ON PROFESSIONAL STYLE One consideration regarding blind instruction deals with the way in which the lack or absence of vision may affect instructional perspectives and professional style. The diversity of styles makes it impossible to draw general conclusions about this. However, some broad generalities may be argued. In so doing, I would like to point out that I'm very open to alternative points of view, and that, once again, I do not hold myself as representing all blind instructors. While I am certainly biased in my preferences by my own blindness and experiences with the blindness field, I do not cast value judgments on any given style. I ask the reader please to consider my observations amicably as they are meant with no offense. One area where my approach may differ in style, as a result of blindness, is a tendency to emphasize function over form. Because of the information schemes that sighted people can access so readily, I have observed a tendency for sighted professionals at large to judge the effectiveness of technique or strategy largely by its appearance. "The hand is positioned just so for trailing; the arm is held thus for good cane technique; the student should cross the street neatly between the crosswalk lines; the student looks funny when she clicks her tongue for echo cues." I could fill pages with this list. It is easy for sighted instructors to gain schematic information about a student's appearance at a glance and society is conditioned to make relatively rapid judgments based on these quickly acquired schemes. I do not have access to these schemes in such detail or with such immediacy. If I am to gain information about the effectiveness of technique, I must apply other strategies. I can readily apply the strategy of observing how the student functions in given situations. "The student moves safely along the wall; the student's cane facilitates efficient, safe movement; the student crosses streets efficiently and safely; the student navigates quickly and gracefully throughout complex environments." I can certainly gain access to necessary information to determine functional viability as discussed in subsequent sections, but I tend to pay less attention to how it looks and more attention to how it works in the long run. In connection with the tendency to concentrate more on function than form, I tend not to use prescribed or regimented approaches to instruction. This may arise as much from my work primarily with children as it concerns my blindness; I've observed that many of the most highly functional blind children learned their skills without formal instruction or from instructors who used more client centered approaches. I raise this distinction in response to a lengthy checklist of functional abilities provided by one of the V.A. facilities to a low vision O&M intern applicant. The checklist required the monitoring of minute details from distances over a quarter of a block under darkened conditions. The application of such detailed perception would be congruent with a highly prescriptive instructional style which focused on exactitude of form. This style may certainly have its place, but it cannot be presumed to apply broadly to all circumstances anymore than any style can, and it cannot be presumed to yield the best results. Neither this applicant nor I, nor some fully sighted individuals could have held to the standards of this particular checklist. I, for one, simply have to apply different strategies and approaches to ensure student competence other than distant viewing. For a blind instructor, we may see that the instructional approach takes on more of a client centered tenor with strong discovery based components and requirements of flexibility. While such an approach may look very different from prescribed approaches, it should not be judged any less worthy or appropriate. Here, I would argue that the proof of effectiveness lies not in how the student looks when he travels, but how well he travels. Another distinction that I'll raise here in terms of overall professional style concerns the remediation of visual functioning. Sighted people have a very rich access to the visual environment, while the blind may have little or none. This will certainly affect how a blind instructor, myself namely, works with students toward remediating functional vision. Certainly I can use methods of becoming familiar with environments such as scoping them out in advance, but realistically, I often come across situations with which I am not familiar. I simply may not have access to what the student is seeing. Strategies for dealing with this will be discussed in great detail later. Here, I just want to say that my tendency as a blind instructor is to focus on general problem solving strategies with students, with the use of their vision as a tool to this end. For example, if I am address hunting with students, and I have not had a chance to scope out the addresses first as may be common when case loads are high, I may discuss with my student where addresses are likely to be placed. We may go through all the likely and unlikely places together until the student finally gets it. Or, if the student is trying to spot a land mark, I may enter into a discussion with the student about what he is seeing and how to make better sense of what he's seeing. I have usually found this approach to be very effective. It seems to build a firm sense of confidence in students about figuring things out. Knowledge is power. However, there are those cases when it flops, too. For example, when doing a bus lesson, I instructed a student to keep track of the bus numbers until he found the right one. If the buses are moving slowly, he has the vision to do this. However, when the bus came to a stop, he just couldn't find the route number - even though we had discussed where it would be. He just got confused by the other information on the side of the bus, and he couldn't isolate the correct number. The bus had moved before I could help him through the mess. A sighted instructor would have had the option of just pointing and saying, "Look, right there. See, you'll always find it there." I could not. I had to do additional bus lessons with him using buses that were at rest for him to figure out where to find the correct number. I've also encountered some difficulties in teaching students with mild cognitive delays how to use maps and directories. I have no trouble with sharp students, but slower students tend to require more direction than I can easily give. These lessons with such students require a lot more preparation on my part. Again, it is a different style that, like any other, has its merits and demerits. The final distinction that I'll raise here is a delicate one - one that each blind person holds in a uniquely personal way. Yet, the issue among us is a common one. There is a common feeling among the blind, especially blind professionals, of having faced discrimination and prejudice at the hands of sighted people. Stories abound among the blind of debilitating and demoralizing experiences that have confronted them by professionals presumed to be acting in their best interest. I will not belabor this point, nor will these concerns echo throughout this report which intends to be explanatory not commentative. Anyone who knows blind people has encountered this sentiment. I bring it up, because it may have implications for affecting how the blind and sighted interact in this field. Many blind people are regarded as embittered, resentful, unrealistic, and even hostile. Many sighted people are regarded as intractable, ignorant, and demeaning. In this reality, social tensions must be anticipated in educational and vocational settings, and professional forums. For example, the very first day of my training I encountered classmates who were bewildered and skeptical about my presence. As a fully functioning blind person, I took personal exception to many of the views and stances held by our texts and readings (which often paint the blind in negative fashion), but felt constrained in voicing my exceptions. Very well meaning faculty tended to dismiss me as "unusually talented" or "exceptional" with warnings "not to assume other students will be like Dan." The program coordinator took great pains to facilitate a positive and non-obstructed learning environment for me. The faculty even supported me when I insisted on taking my exams in class despite one or two who complained about the noise of my laptop keyboard. Even so, I often felt isolated and estranged. I remember one lengthy discussion held in class about ways to explain to a blind person how an upcoming door is to open. "If we say "the door opens toward you and to the left" couldn't that be confused to mean that the door knob is on the left? Shouldn't we say "the door opens toward you with the door knob on the left?" I recall the ensuing discussion taking at least 15 minutes. I felt demeaned on behalf of blind people everywhere. I asserted forcefully, "It's just a door. It's one of the oldest and simplest mechanisms on the planet," but few seemed responsive. I recall another occasion toward the end of our training during our daily living skills class. My peers generally had a lot of fun with the experience of trying to learn simple domestic tasks under blindfold. The class was videotaped. After muddling through a blindfold dinner made by the class, we watched the tape. What was it that angered and depressed me? What was it that held me aloof from the good natured fun everyone was having? From where did my indignance arise? I don't propose necessarily that anything was wrong with the activity or with the enjoyment derived by my peers. Yet, I took the matter very much to heart. I don't consider myself especially prone to heart feelings. How could I be and set myself up as one of the first and few blind to enter the O&M profession if I were. However, I could not help feeling personally affronted by a room full of my peers chortling over a matter of livelihood and dignity for myself and many others "like me." Since my training, I have been well received, but sometimes regarded with apprehension and incredulity. I recall my first A.E.R. convention. One of the big names came up to me a few days in and asked me if I really had my certification. "People are arguing about whether you could have gotten your certification," she said. I do not recall feeling alarmed, surprised, or affronted, but others in my place might well have been. Is it not possible for a blind professional to walk into a professional forum of his peers without murmurings and whisperings behind his back? In a day and age when V.A. facilities still dismiss blind applicants as inadequate to the task without cause and members of the O&M listserve still make comments like, "I don't have a problem with blind people teaching O&M as long as its not on the streets," issues of tension and conflict will impact the disposition of some blind people entering training and ultimately entering this profession. Although many blind people may see the sense in questioning the means by which the blind might teach movement and navigation, the deep alienation results from the untested assumption that it could not be done. In a field that should be based on philosophies and strategies of adaptation, rigidities and short-sightedness have struck deep chords of dissonance. How can a blind student learn the skills of adaptation and positive thinking from a profession steeped in can'ts and shouldn'ts? I feel it necessary to spell out these issues, because the undercurrents betrayal are not lightly put aside, however well intentioned all may be. The rift that may be described between the sighted and the blind is not a gap, it is a wound, and a wound can only be healed when it is exposed. I hope this report can offer some common grounds and shared perspectives that may form the bases for some of this healing. 4 LAYING THE GROUND WORK One of the greatest aids to my learning how to function effectively has involved a unbiased openness on the part of my training supervisors, master teachers, and employers. While all of us held questions about how a totally blind individual would execute some of the job functions, the key to finding the answers was the willingness to address the right questions. The question asked was not: "Can a blind person do this?" But rather: "How does a blind person do it?" 4.1 Expectations During my training in the university, I was expected to learn and perform all functions as my classmates. While every effort was made to make pertinent information and resources accessible, no additional assistance or supervision was imposed on me beyond that received by my classmates. When first learning to scope out new areas, I often did this with supervisors or master teachers so that I could develop a sense for what environmental aspects might be relevant to various students' functioning and safety. During student teaching, master teachers provided most of the transportation of students for insurance reasons, but I was expected to provide transportation for myself. My student teaching sites were not chosen for their proximity to where I was living. In fact, one of them happened to necessitate one of the furthest commutes of all my classmates. 4.2 Skepticism? One of my master teachers is a long-time member of the field and was a known skeptic about blind mobility instruction. When my supervisor first approached the individual about supervising me as a student teacher, he wanted to see how I had been evaluated by other supervisors. Then, he changed his mind and decided to allow me the same opportunity to learn as his other trainees. When I first began working with him, he was rather tense about student safety. He plied me with respectful questions about how I would handle various scenarios with some of the students, and he scrutinized my work intently. The first day, which was an extra day that I'd put in for observation, he asked me to take over briefly with one of the students. This student possessed severe cognitive impairments with serious impulse control problems. In the space of a 20 minute lesson, the master teacher intervened twice - once to grab the student from leaping into a planter and the other to remove a flower from the student's mouth. Over lunch, the master teacher asked me straight-out if I would be able to maintain the safety of this student and others with similar behaviors. I told him that I didn't know, but that I was here to learn the answer to that question. I explained to him that I'd never worked with such a student before and that I'd taken this extra day to assess the matter and prepare needed strategies. About 2 weeks afterward, the master teacher brought two things to my attention. First, he'd come to feel that my ability to maintain student safety was comparable to that of other trainees with whom he'd worked. The second was that he became aware that different interpretations could be made of my actions depending on one's mind set. For example, he was concerned that I would often allow the distance between myself and some students to increase well upon arm's reach. He expressed that it seemed that I was allowing myself to loose control over the lesson when I let students stray beyond my perceptual awareness. I assured him that I had not; that I was still aware of student position and technique from further distances. He asked me: "Is my visual perception that you loose contact with these students when they move out of reach inaccurate?" My answer was: "Yes." He had come to suppose that a blind person needed to be in physical contact with his environment in order to perceive it concretely, not realizing at first that audition could provide adequate information at much further distances. The key to this master teacher's ability to work with me amiably and hold the same expectations of me as of his other trainees was his ability to maintain an open mind about what I might achieve and how I might achieve it. Toward the end of our term, he confided to me how he had wrestled with his a priori presumptions and concerns about blind mobility instructors. He told me that he challenged his own skepticism by asking the question: "How can we truly encourage our students to become everything they can if we assume limitations without openness to real possibilities?" 4.3 Liability One of the biggest questions about hiring blind movement and navigation specialists concerns the handling of safety and liability issues. Would special insurance be required? Must all students and parents of students be specially informed of this circumstance? Should certain restrictions be imposed on the functioning of the blind specialist? My training program supervisors did not appear to call any special attention to my presence in the program. They did not warn potential master teachers or intern supervisors that a blind trainee was coming, nor did they appear to distinguish me with special apprehensions or honors. When I was hired into my first position, my supervisor called no special attention to my entrance into the district. She told parents and students that there would be a new instructor, but made no special point to mention my blindness. She decided that, if anyone had difficulty with it when they found out, they could go through the same channels that would be required if they had difficulty with any other instructor for any other reason. There were no special agreements, concessions, or qualifications. 5 MONITORING STUDENTS' TECHNIQUE AND SAFETY This section concerns the monitoring of students for two purposes - the observation and remediation of skills and techniques and the preservation of student safety. Both purposes require a reliable and accurate awareness of the student's movements and the dynamic relationship between students and the environment. Before entering this discussion, I would like to make clear my views about the role of the instructor in monitoring safety. I do not feel that it is necessarily in the best interest of the student for the instructor to act as "protector." Indeed, these roles can be mutually exclusive. We are responsible for student safety in two respects. First, as adults, we are, of course, responsible for the welfare of children. Second, we are responsible for facilitating the confidence of our students - not confidence in us to keep them safe, but confidence in themselves. To this end, it may be appropriate to ensure that students do not come to harm. However, I feel it inappropriate for an instructor to shield students constantly from every possible scratch or bruise. I know a former student who is loosing his vision and is receiving blindfold training from an instructor who stops him from ever running into anything. This student complained to me - "How am I gonna learn anything if he keeps getting in the way?" This instructor is an "old timer" in the field; I find it surprising that he hasn't learned to let his students learn. Of course, I take every precaution to ensure student safety as will shortly be discussed, but I also permit my students the freedom to make mistakes. Life is often a better teacher than we can ever be. It took some time for me to develop approaches to ensure safe learning. My lifetime's experience as a blind person seemed to allow me to grasp and apply concepts, knowledge, and perspectives relatively easily and quickly. I spent little time studying for exams and spent much time helping my classmates study. However, the time I saved by not having to study much for most of my exams was made up by trying to figure out how to manage proper and effective monitoring. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of hours and as many dollars, and my share of mistakes and headaches, went into this. Again, it didn't seem to me that my nonvisual means of instruction were inherently so much harder to execute or more problematic than those used by my sighted peers. The bulk of difficulty seemed to arise from the fact that none of us had much of a clue about the effective implementation of nonvisual strategies. I expect that in time, the rigors of blind instruction will subside with the accumulation of knowledge and understanding about nonvisual instructional strategies and techniques. Then, blind instructors may reap the same benefits of historical precedent and support that their sighted counterparts have enjoyed for years. While both of my master teachers initially needed demonstration of my ability to ensure student safety, which I feel is perfectly reasonable, they both quickly came to the conclusion that my ability was as reliable as that of any student teacher. Toward the end of my student teaching terms, my master teachers backed off and allowed me as much reign with my students as was given to other student teachers. Even during the most complex lessons involving bus connections, crossing major thorough-fares, major business centers, and negotiating uneven terrain, neither of my master teachers ever intervened for reasons of impending danger. 5.1 Key Components of Monitoring Five elements have become major components in my successfully monitoring students' safety and technique - attention, perceptual integration, perceptual contact with students, poise and preparation, and recognition of the need for extensive practice and refinement of instructional skills. 5.1.1 Attention During my course of training, I observed that most of us trainees had to take special care to learn to intensify and sustain our attention to the significance and implications of students' movements and the interaction between students and the environment. My sighted classmates learned to intensify their attention to students by beholding their student and scanning their environment visually in a more deliberate and intent manner. The same was true for me, except for the part about the vision. As with other tasks, I learned to turn my remaining senses to heightening and deepening my attention to my students and their surrounding environment. Here, however, my degree of attention available for my students is intimately coupled with my own degree of travel competence. It is also related, though more distantly, to my degree of familiarity with the travel environment in so far as my travel confidence is often somewhat improved by familiarity. Normally, when I travel, I concentrate my attention partly on my travel skills and techniques and partly on the dynamic relationship between myself and my environment. The more skillful and more aware I become, the less stringent is this process of concentration and generally, the more competently can I travel under highly demanding conditions such as strong wind, loud noise, or congestion. Also, the more familiar I am with the environment, the more attention I can spare for non-travel related tasks such as monitoring students. When working with students, familiarity with an environment definitely helps me to free up my attention for student monitoring. However, I have learned that scoping out areas prior to lessons is often unfeasible. When working with students, especially new students in novel environments as is common for a student teacher, I find myself unable to devote much conscious attention to my own movement and navigation. The faster or more unpredictable the student and more complex the environment, the more my travel skills must be automatic and instinctive. They were close to this point before, but with many students, the execution of my own skills has become, not second nature, but first nature to me. It seems to me that sighted people don't really need to devote appreciable attention to their travel under most conditions; they seem easily able to maintain the focus of their mental resources upon monitoring and instructing students. This had to become likewise for me - that my conscious attention must remain on my students' functioning and safety, not my own. My own must, therefore, be assured by automatic and instinctive self-management. When I travel, I am conscious of maintaining a sphere of perceptual awareness that extends from me at its center. All of my senses extend themselves to seek, acquire, and process relevant information. When working with students, however, particularly very fragile, unpredictable, or sometimes highly functioning students, I find it necessary to de-center my awareness - to transfer the center of that perceptual sphere from myself to my student. At first the feeling was uncanny - almost mystical, as well as fatiguing. It was surprisingly difficult. I was never accustomed to processing information relevant to another person before, only myself. With practice, however, and intense effort, the process has become very manageable. I found that maneuvering a shopping cart in a store setting was an excellent way to foster the development of this de-centered perception. To do this, one definitely must extend ones perceptions well beyond typical boundaries in order to negotiate the environment without mishap. Pushing a wheel barrel through a congested environment can prove similarly useful. 5.1.2 Perceptual Integration Traditionally as a lone traveler, I've depended primarily on my auditory sense for movement and navigation - most notably echolocation. In a fairly quiet environment, I can detect a sign post or person at about 6 feet, a curb at about 10 feet, a parked car or a tree at 15 or 20, and a building at hundreds of feet depending on the strength of the echo signal. I could walk into an unfamiliar parking lot and scout out the entrance to a novel building in minutes. Overhangs have rarely been a problem for me. I could even ride a bicycle unaccompanied through unfamiliar territory at moderate speeds. However, as I worked with students, I found it necessary to heighten and broaden my connection with the environment in order to refine my awareness of all of its features and elements and to become aware of them at greater distances. On top of this, I had to learn to process information very quickly so that I could make rapid judgments about how to react or respond to sudden situations. This need seems to be true for all O&M Specialist trainees. What does a beginning trainee do when a car suddenly barrels down on one of their students out of nowhere? I suspect that most handle such a situation okay. I know that some freeze; others are slow to react. Still others grab the student haphazardly and yank or thrust them out of harm's way. And there are those that don't see the danger until the master teacher jumps in. Student teachers must learn to hone their perceptions of the environment and their students' relation to it and quicken their judgments and reactions. My sighted classmates seemed to accomplish this by learning to scan more thoroughly and to process information in a different way - not just information that may be relevant to them, but also information that may impinge upon the safety of their student. As a blind instructor in training, I learned the same art of vigilance, but in a different way - by bringing all of my senses to bear more intently on the environment and processing multi-sensory information more thoroughly. I found myself intensifying, deepening, and broadening my awareness of the environment in a way I had never needed before. I began using a longer cane (see appendix C-3), which increased my own safety as a traveler and allowed me to take in more information where seemed relevant. For a brief period I even took to sporadic use of a Mowatt sensor - a device about the size of a flashlight that vibrates as one approaches something. This was something that I'd hitherto never applied beyond my initial training in its use. The increased integration of information assisted me in three ways. The first was to increase my available attention to my student by strengthening my own orientation. By processing and using information more efficiently than I'd ever done before, I found that my own orientation to and negotiation of my environment required less conscious thought. This is a real issue - especially working with unpredictable students or students who exhibit very different movement patterns than I do. For example, I often found students who moved very slowly to pose a challenge to my own orientation. Being a rather fast traveler, I found that I was accustomed to and relied on information coming to and passing by me at a fairly high speed. At first when scoping out environments for lessons, I traveled over them at my accustomed speed. Then, when students traveled much more slowly, I found that I had difficulty maintaining my own orientation, having been accustomed to negotiating the travel conditions at my own speed. Thus, I found it useful, though not always practical, to scope out environments at a speed more closely matching my students'. Also, I initially found it difficult at times to perform simple travel tasks with my students because my students often performed them at slower speeds. Linear travel could be especially challenging across open spaces, such as streets, wide walkways, parking areas, or outdoor plazas because I'd been accustomed to traveling these more quickly. I remember trying to teach a student how to follow a curving curb by using echolocation. This student walked so slowly that the changes in distance were too gradual to notice; I even had trouble with the exercise at those speeds. All of these problems are compounded by a slow student who is prone to veering. I found it difficult at first to sense veering at slow speeds. I became more conscious than ever of drawing upon more complex sensory information such as tactual and kinesthetic - the subtle sense of gradually turning, transverse cracks in the sidewalk, street gradients, sun positioning, air currents, etc. It was no longer useful to process just the same information that I had before, but to pull in more complex information to allow me to handle patterns of movement unusual to me. This was particularly the case while guiding students with unique or unusual gait patterns. For instance, rounding the block is considered one of the most basic of orientation tasks, which I don't recall ever having trouble with. However, as I worked with this student, who possessed moderate cognitive, attentional, and spatial deficits, he veered constantly, exhibited no anticipation of obstacles and little facility to negotiate them, and seemed to possess little understanding of how his relationship to his environment could affect his safety. Monitoring his safety and remediating his technique in a light business area was a real challenge at first. In so doing, I lost track of where I was along the block. My student was veering so much, it made me a little dizzy. I laughed at myself when I checked my compass headings. I had almost failed to notice that we had turned a corner. In another instance, I student-taught in a special education building that was circular and all tiled. The result was a lot of constant noise while working in the building, and only one, circular hallway. This hallway had classrooms and offices on either side and was joined at four points about a quarter arc from each one by hallways that lead to exits or recessed offices. There were no obvious landmarks, no braille numbers, and no unique shape or pattern to any given route. At first, I had no idea where I was in this place. Because I typically use echolocation to establish and maintain my alignment with parallel surfaces, I couldn't tell at first that the hall was circular. I could have walked forever and felt like I was going perfectly straight. Further, I could achieve no sense of where I was because the environment seemed featureless and distorted by the constant rush of reverberant noise. After awhile, though, I relaxed my echo senses of parallel surfaces and allowed my body to feel the gradual turn. Also, I became more acutely aware of subtle differences in the reverberant patterns of each of the four intersecting halls in order to gain a sense of where I was. The second result was to allow me to anticipate, at greater distances, those environmental features that might affect my student. Minute details of the environment that might be inconsequential to me, which I could ignore with impunity traveling alone became significant when monitoring students both with regard to safety and lesson planning. Cracks in the sidewalk or high sidewalks, sprinkler heads to the sides of sidewalks, curbs or driveways, dogs, etc. required my minute attention. I found myself pulling in and processing staggering amounts of information at an alarming rate. For example, if I passed a fire hydrant, without noticing it while traveling alone, I had no reason to care. With students, I had to become aware of fire hydrants and such, and I had to note my student's trajectory and whether his or her cane technique was sufficient to detect it. Typically, I would stand with my hand on the bolt nearest the student to soften impact should it occur. Also, overhangs that might not effect me might be a drag for someone taller. I also had to become aware of lighting conditions and how they might distract or suddenly impair the visual functioning of some students - something that I'd certainly never given a thought to in my own travels. I had to heighten my awareness of sun position, shading or shadows, visual clutter, faded crosswalk lines, etc. For information about optical phenomena, I found that a light probe often proved useful (see appendix C-2). The third was to expedite my ability to become familiar with and to function in new environments. This was and is critical. In 30 weeks of student teaching and 6 years on the job, I've had to instruct students at dozens of school campus and work sites; dozens of light business and residential environments including travel without sidewalks, outdoor plazas and malls, parking lots, and hiking trails; and many complex indoor environments including stores, malls, and transit stations. Since I travel throughout the world, I've had to become familiar with the basic layouts of dozens of urban, suburban, and rural areas. One simply never knows in an itinerant position where one will end up or under what conditions one will be teaching. 5.1.3 Perceptual Contact with Students When monitoring students, three criteria seem to apply in an instructor's selection and utilization of monitoring distances - facilitation of the student's natural and autonomous functioning, maintenance of student safety, and the perceptual/motor abilities of the instructor. For example, under most circumstances, a fully sighted instructor from remote distances may be able to monitor the majority of pertinent student/environment interactions, anticipate outcomes well in advance of urgency and intervene expediently if something looks like it might go wrong. As a totally blind instructor I may not possess the perceptual/motor capacity to monitor with this acuity at remote distances under many circumstances. In order to balance the three criteria, I must choose my monitoring positions and distances carefully, and I can implement specific strategies to maximize my options. There seem to be two primary principals that allow me to achieve and maintain perceptual contact with a student without remaining too much in their space - careful choice of position and distance, and making the student more perceivable. 5.1.3.1 Remote Contact Unless the student is traveling in a very familiar area or one that is known to be free of hazards, or if the student possesses highly functional perceptual/motor skills, I usually strive to maintain perceptual contact with my students. I've found tactual contact to be almost entirely unnecessary for purposes of monitoring safety for most students - although young children and students with balance problems or developmental delays typically require close attention. Mostly, what I call "perceptual contact" takes the form of auditory rather than tactual. First, in monitoring safety, I typically choose intermediate distances of about 5 to 10 feet. I must be beyond arm's reach if I'm to stay out of a student's way, but further than 13 feet can pose troublesome consequences with unpredictable students in noisy or congested environments. I reduce the distance when environmental constraints such as noise reduce my perception of the student or when I feel the need to increase my potential speed of interaction with a student. For example, if walking 10 to 15 feet ahead of a student along a sidewalk, I will allow the distance to decrease when approaching a driveway or street, or a particularly nasty obstacle, such as a fire hydrant or guywire. I typically select frontal or side positions for functionally blind, rear for students with low vision. (Frontal positions have historically been believed to interfere with the development of student self-reliance. I have not found this to be the case, and I discuss the matter thoroughly in section 5.3.) Frontal positions allow me to enter and scope the environment ahead of my student. In this way, I can anticipate what my student will encounter and act to intervene or mediate where necessary. Sometimes I will move quickly ahead of my student 30 feet or so to scope out the way, then move back closer to the student so that I can keep a closer eye on his progress. In this way I can monitor the area through which they're traveling and prepare for areas much further ahead. Side positions are okay if student/environment interactions are easily manageable. For functionally blind students, I often choose this position during light business travel where there's no park way between sidewalk and street, while crossing driveways or streets, or while passing by or through parking areas. This allows me to interact more immediately with my student if need be and also enables fair ability to scope the environment ahead. I have also used my cane to extend my reach to a student in emergencies. It is often necessary to remain behind low vision students because they tend to spend too much of their attention on me if I am visible to them. The second principal concerning the monitoring of student safety involves making the student more perceptually apparent to the blind instructor. If all students were transparent, sighted instructors would have to take steps to be sure that they could see their students under troublesome conditions, such as poor lighting, glare, or congestion. For me, the situation is similar. My student is not inaudible or undetectable. Generally, my awareness of a student is sufficient just by listening to their movements or cane, but it helps a lot if the student stands out more. One of the most effective means that I've found to increase perceptibility is to attach a discrete noise maker to the student. A simple set of keys works extremely well (see appendix C-1.1). With young students I will sometimes add a Japanese bell to the keys for a clearer signal. (Japanese bells have the most distinctive rings.) This allows me virtually continuous auditory contact with my student and the ability to perceive their position to within a few inches at intermediate distances or much further when the environment is quiet. I suppose an instructor with residual vision could attach something highly visible to a student such as a bright reflector or safety light. For very young students, I may place bells on their shoes or pant legs. Bells imported from Japan are the best (see appendix C-1.3.1). For their generally small size, these bells seem to stand out most under noisy conditions. Some young students or students with cognitive impairments may self-stim on the keys or just refuse to wear them. I had one autistic student refuse to wear anything, although he would let me attach a bell and remote beeper to his backpack. This beeper could be sounded remotely without upsetting the student. I've made adjustments according to necessity. One must maintain pretty close distances, or one could use a Mowatt or Poleron to help keep track of such students. For example, I once worked with a young girl who processed severe cognitive impairments. The lesson involved helping her learn to trail without manual prompting or guidance. The trouble was that this student would execute sudden, spontaneous movements such as hopping or twirling in any direction. Because of her small size and highly irregular cane technique, she was relatively difficult to track auditorily. She also did not respond well to placing noise makers such as bells on her, because she would become fully distracted by them. When instructing her I maintained a position in front of her while walking backward, and I aimed the Mowatt beam past her opposite the wall. This placed her between the beam and the wall, which assisted me in knowing instantly when she strayed from the wall. When working with her in open space, I simply kept the Mowatt trained on her. Looking back, I think I could have trained her to accept a bell or something, and I could have used my cane instead to keep her near the wall. I haven't used a Mowatt in at least 5 years, no matter how tricky the student. When traveling in congested environments or in solo lessons, I may give the student a mechanical clicker. These clickers carry over great distances through noisy environments. If we should become separated by accident or by design, the student or I can signal each other using these clickers. I experimented with the use of modified FM walkie-talkies which allowed the transmission of a continuous stream of music to the student. I could keep the sound just below environmental noise so that it was never distracting to the student, and I could adjust the volume remotely as environmental noise fluctuated. Because I was familiar with the music, it stood out even at fairly low volume. Generally, the students loved the idea. They thought the music was "cool." However, this strategy proved to be too awkward to maintain. Although these particular radios had a rated distance of up to a quarter of a mile, the practical range was only about 9 feet before interference became too troublesome. Also, the low audio fidelity of walkie-talkies required that the music be kept at a fairly low volume; otherwise distortion became annoying. I have found two-way family radios to be very useful for maintaining communication with students. This makes it fairly easy to keep track of students should we ever become separated such as might happen during bus or solo lessons. These walkie-talkies have a range of a mile or 2. They also sometimes possess a pager feature which causes the receiving unit to beep - allowing for easy auditory tracking under stringent conditions. If we ever become seriously separated, my students have my cellular phone number and are instructed in how to use it. For two of my most unpredictable students, I created a retractable tether by which I could connect myself physically to them (see appendix C-5.4). One was the student who hopped and gyrated spontaneously, and the other was a low vision student who liked to leap into intersections without good judgment. It turned out that I never had to use this precaution for either student. I have also used the Mowatt sensor when monitoring students from behind. From this position, it can be difficult to assess some of what lies ahead, so I use the sensors to scan the anterior environment over the student's shoulder or around the student. This is particularly useful with low vision students, with whom I generally maintain a position behind. However, again, I haven't found this device to be necessary for years. Another blind O&M Specialist in training found some success with the use of talking sign technology. Essentially, this involves a transmitter that the student wears, and a receiver held or worn by the blind instructor. The transmitter can be set to transmit anything, a tone or message, to the receiver. Both units are unidirectional, which means that the signal is received most strongly when the receiver is pointed directly at the transmitter and is clearer with proximity. An instructor could theoretically use such technology to "home in" on a student's location. Another important approach is to increase familiarity with students' movement styles and mannerisms. I'm not talking about trusting to probability. This is a matter of becoming profoundly attuned to a student's manner of walking, body movements, breathing patterns, oral mannerisms, and the type of clothes they are wearing - shoes, jackets, jewelry, etc. After a time, I can literally pick some students out of a crowd of people from yards away. I remember when first starting my student teaching, I became very worried that my students all used a feather-touch cane technique that was virtually inaudible, and they all seemed to walk with hardly a sound. One in particular seemed almost not present unless I stayed almost on top of him. But after a while, I noticed that each exhibited specific ways of planting his feet with characteristic scrapes or shuffles, or whatever, and one of them had a way of quietly snuffling to himself. Familiarity with this alone proved enough for me to double monitoring distances. I have found visual assistance to be entirely unnecessary for the purposes of monitoring safety. The one mild exception to this concerned a student with relatively little vision loss who felt no need to be particularly wary around traffic because "drivers have to stop for you." I took him to an uncontrolled, high volume intersection, and asked him how he would cross the street. He explained that he would time his crossing to give drivers a chance to stop. On two occasions he indicated in error that it would be safe to cross. He just didn't have the spatial sense to time a crossing between cars or to estimate how long it would take a car to stop (assuming it did stop.) I wanted to let him cross and show him that he'd just get stuck in the middle of the street or narrowly avoid some critical accident, but I chickened out. The crossing was potentially lethal, and I did not trust my ability to maintain his safety. Instead, I sought to make arrangements for a traffic engineer to come out and show him personally how dangerous such a crossing could be. However, my desire for this assistance had nothing to do with the eyesight of the engineer, but rather the fact that he held specialized experience with traffic and should know best how to handle a hazardous situation of this sort. I would not have trusted any other sighted individual to assist me with this problem. 5.1.3.2 Discrete Tactual Contact Tactual contact can also be viable. I know of one blind colleague who maintains light contact with her students much of the time and is able to gain much information about the nature of their travel without apparently disturbing their travel space. Her master teachers have raved about her. I may have a heavier hand than she, because I've found that tactual contact can be disruptive and distracting, especially to particular students. Young kids often just want to grab on when they feel a near presence, while others may recoil from nearness. The occasional need for blind instructors to touch their students for information has been critiqued. It seems a common practice for instructors to touch blind student's hands, arms, shoulders, or back when communicating spatial information. Drawing an imaginary map on a student's hand or back seems to have been an accepted practice for as long as I can remember. It has also been common, though arguably less accepted, to handle student's arms or shoulders to indicate direction, or to orient student's hands or body to a phenomenon to be explored tactually. Although I can monitor most aspects of student functioning auditorily given the appropriate range of strategies, there are occasions when I must touch my students in order to remain informed about some aspects of student functioning. Generally, these occasions arise under four circumstances - determining specific information about students' body position, remaining informed about specific aspects of cane and other techniques, assuring student safety under conditions of extreme noise or congestion, and when working with students who are highly unpredictable. When I find tactual contact with my students necessary, I bear in mind the need to respect and preserve student space and comfort and to relate to students naturally and unobtrusively. To this end, I apply three techniques - prior explanation, discrete touching, and indirect physical contact. 5.1.3.2.1 Explanation I always explain to my students in advance about all of my strategies and techniques for monitoring and instructing them, including the occasional need for touch. When working with children, I may also explain to other relevant parties, such as teachers and parents how and why I touch students. 5.1.3.2.2 Discrete Touching I keep touching brief and intermittent. I also keep my touch light. Whenever possible, I use the back of my hand or arm, and I almost never touch the front of the student's body. When determining a student's facing or alignment, I may lightly touch each of the student's feet with my feet or cane to ascertain their foot position. If done well, this process need only take a second. 5.1.3.2.3 Indirect Physical Contact I've found indirect physical contact to be a viable means of gaining important information. A light touch on a student's backpack, for example, can convey much about a student's gait and posture. Touching a student's cane or sleeve with care can clarify aspects of cane technique. I have also found that much may be learned about a student's gait patterns and posture while they are touching me, for instance, when I'm guiding them. 5.1.4 Poise and Preparation There are several aspects that contribute to what I call "poise and preparation" - maintaining instructional poise, preparing all needed adaptations, preparing the training environment, and familiarization to training areas and situations. 5.1.4.1 Maintaining Instructional Poise For me the term "poise" refers to a combination of continuous vigilance, ability to make rapid judgments, and readiness to take immediate action. As a blind instructor, I may have a reduced degree of warning before a potentially dangerous situation arises. I must, therefore, maintain my vigilance to all tell-tale clues, and I must maintain optimal monitoring positions to intervene as expediently as possible when the need arises. When monitoring students, I have learned and continue to learn to maintain constant readiness and to keep myself poised to react immediately to any possibility. There are two reasons for this. The first is that, as I've mentioned, I may not observe a potential danger approaching from a comfortable distance; I must be ready to react immediately upon the first sign or even the first extrapolations of a sign. I may not hear a car speeding toward us from a block away ready to run the red light, but as soon as that car reaches the intersection, I'll know, and I must respond immediately and with assurance. I can remember one occasion when I was traveling with a young blind friend on an outing before I entered the Orientation and Mobility training program. As we crossed a street, a car came at us through the intersection. I couldn't tell if it had merely turned left out of sequence or ran the light, but I knew it was coming. Instead of grabbing my charge and running frantically to get away, I determined that I had the time to ascertain exactly where the car was headed. I gripped my young friend's shoulder firmly, paused, and turned to face the oncoming car for the best perspective of where it was headed. When I determined this, I moved us expeditiously to safety. The second reason is that, I have learned that students can be completely unpredictable. The lowest functioning student can make just the right move when one has every reason to suppose otherwise, and the finest students can really blow it against all apparent odds. As a student teacher, I had a student, who had always used accurate if overly cautious judgment when crossing streets, step right in front of a turning truck. I was ready for it, but it took me by surprise. Maintaining the constant assumption that anything can happen minimizes any potential surprises. I do not rely very much on educated guessing or predictions of student behavior. An instructor may come to know a student well enough with time to warrant reliance on that student's style of behavior and skill implementation. Indeed, to a great extent, instructors must come to rely on their trust and knowledge of a student's ability to function in various conditions if monitoring distances are to be increased for the sake of facilitating student independence. No instructor can monitor every inch of a student's progress from remote distances; they must trust in certain levels of student competence and patterns of behavior. However, my experience suggests that there are significant student populations whose actions and behaviors cannot be predicted - namely children, and many students with multiple disabilities. As the monitoring distances increase or poise is relaxed, the number of possible unknowns also increases. I try always to assume that any student could make the most basic mistake or unlikely move. Before I proceed, I will emphasize both of these points by expanding my example about the student who stepped in front of a truck. The incident occurred during my first month of student teaching. The student waited for the right time to cross a four-way, lighted intersection with the parallel street to our left. A small truck (a pick-up or van) waited to turn right. I spotted the truck, but felt sure that this student, given his record of extreme caution, would let the truck go before attempting to cross. In retrospect, I recall maintaining my watch on the truck, but relaxing my stance and posture - feeling somehow that my student wouldn't move. Well, he moved. He stepped forward at the traffic surge, and the truck showed no sign of yielding. Now, I had about a second to decide from among three choices - abort the crossing, instruct my student to pause, or allow my student to continue while taking appropriate measures and precautions to ensure his safety. Of course, the most conservative response would have been to abort or halt the crossing. In retrospect, halting the crossing was probably the most desirable decision under this circumstance. However, I believe in facilitating close and realistic interactions with traffic for the sake of maximizing the development of traffic wisdom, and quick, accurate, reflexive judgment. Despite this perspective, I had to fight the urge to grab my student and drag him ignominiously out of harm's way, and I forced myself to let him continue. Now came the next question - How to facilitate the safe completion of this crossing. Though my student's decision to go had surprised me somewhat, I had been ready for the truck, and I quickly took-up a defensive position between it and my student. Although the truck had intended to accelerate rapidly, it had in fact gathered little speed and might still be coaxed to stop. I stepped ahead of my student - my left hand waving my cane with broad intent in the truck's windshield, and my right poised to stop my student in case the truck failed to yield. The truck cut it's acceleration and came to an abrupt stop within arm's reach. My student, a little startled, continued the crossing unshaken and without difficulty. This example really illustrates both points. Though I could not anticipate what this driver would do, I was ready for him to do anything. My master teacher, for example, had the perceptual input to recognize ahead of time that the driver was "going to try to beat us to the punch," and would have used this information accordingly in his instruction. Though I did not have access to this information, I was nonetheless ready for him to do what he did. Such continual readiness has come from the amount of traveling that I've done around traffic. However, I still had a lot to learn about keeping tabs on students. I continually try to position myself and maintain continual preparation and vigilance accordingly. This does not necessarily mean close distances; I can monitor at distant and remote locations with the application of specific strategies under proper circumstances. Although I often monitor totally blind students from in front, side monitoring is not uncommon - especially where there's no parkway between the student and the street, or where there may exist some other potential risk if the student should veer. When monitoring from the side, or from behind with low vision students, I typically use my cane in the hand opposite the student so that I can grab the student immediately if need be (although I rarely find the need to "grab" my students). When I was using the Mowatt, I had it attached to a retractable chain (see appendix C-5.4), so that if I needed that hand immediately, I could drop the Mowatt without loosing it or having it interfere with instruction. 5.1.4.2 Preparing All Needed Adaptations I take pains to make sure that my adaptations are ready and reliable. If I'm using a remote beeper to help me keep track of a student, that beeper better beep when I call for it to do so. The same goes for the Walkie-talkies or cellular phone, the tape recorder, the Mowatt, or whatever. It wouldn't do for me to need a piece of equipment and have it not function. Suppose my cane broke. I'd still need to be able to function, so I carry a spare in the form of the retractable NFB cane (see appendix C-3). I also carry spare batteries of all types, and I make sure that all batteries and equipment are in working order before I begin a lesson. I also try to keep spare equipment around - remote locaters, Walkie-talkies, etc. 5.1.4.3 Preparing the Training Environment With some students, it has paid off to take some measures to prepare the environment within reason to decrease its potential risk to the student or to the quality of instruction. I'm not too much into architectural modification for the accommodation of blindness when blindness is the only disability. I think it's unreasonable to expect that the public will ever be able or willing to meet all the needs of the blind as it does for the sighted. besides needs vary enormously from one blind person to another. I'm much more a proponent of the adequate application of skill to manage the environment. However, when a student is first starting out or has other problems, I've found it useful to make certain modifications ahead of time to increase safety. I recall one of my cognitively impaired students who would try to eat anything at hand. At first I had a hard time monitoring such activity continually. But, I knew of blind parents who were able to do so with their young children, so I knew it could be done. One answer was to remove potential temptations before her lessons. For example, her favorite eating place was a particular planter from which she would feast on dead flowers, if allowed. I would visit that planter before her lessons and remove all the dead flowers from her reach. In time, I also became familiar enough with her movements to be able to anticipate when and what she would grab. She never swallowed anything while under my instruction. Since this student, I have become much more sensitive to the movements of young ones that suggest intervention is in order. 5.1.4.4 Prior Familiarization with Training Areas and Situations My classmates and I were taught the value of familiarizing ourselves to training environments and situations prior to executing lessons. This process can generally serve as an integral factor in the preparation and execution of effective lessons according to specific student needs and characteristics. I find that familiarization to training areas can constitute a significant facet of lesson preparation. Although I am able to function well in unfamiliar environments on my own, increased familiarity with training areas better enables me to focus my attention on my students' needs and safety. This is especially true regarding high volume traffic situations such as complex intersections and freeway access ramps, as well as non-controlled traffic areas such as parking lots and outdoor transit centers. This also goes for areas that are unusual or nonstandardized such as railroad crossings and rural environments. I recall an occasion when I was scoping out an intersection that was to be part of a student's route. I hadn't originally intended to do this, but I just happened to be in the area. It just so happened that this intersection used a sequence of traffic control that I'd never encountered. The left turn arrow came on, not before, but after the corresponding green light. Such a situation would certainly have caused me a little confused hesitation had I attempted to interpret this "on the fly" with one of my students. It would have been manageable, but a little awkward nonetheless. It is often possible to become familiar with environments prior to lesson execution since many environments are common such as students' neighborhoods, schools, and favorite haunts. Also, when wanting to do lessons with students in areas novel to them, I often bring them into areas that are familiar to me such as my neighborhood and college campuses or places of business that I frequent. In scoping out training areas for totally blind or very low vision students, I try to go over an area once. Using echolocation, a 62 inch cane, and careful observation, I can generally ascertain those elements of an environment that may hang-up a given student. In addition, I sometimes used a Mowatt or Poleron to assist with the detection of fire hydrants and other low profile objects. (Both devices were made available to me by the training program for testing and trial.) I have generally found a sighted assistant to be unnecessary in scoping out environments for totally blind or very low vision students. But, if one is available, I have them point out the location of critical hazards such as manholes and fire hydrants. These are the two most difficult items for me to catch in my own scoping. When it comes to scoping out environments for students with higher visual functioning, a sighted assistant can become more necessary depending on the needs of the student and the nature of instruction. In situations that require students to analyze their environment in detail, such as in functional vision assessments, I have found it impossible to perceive, extrapolate, or intuit all necessary environmental cues that may be relevant to the functioning of a visual student. While the sleep shade approach may have utility for some students under some circumstances, I do not feel it's appropriate for all visual students under all circumstances. I cover these issues in depth in the section on perceptual assessment and instruction (section 7.3). Suffice it to say here that obtaining detailed visual references in a training area can impact the lesson in three major respects. It facilitates my awareness of what a student is looking at, it increases my ability to maintain control over the course of a lesson, and it facilitates the development and maintenance of the low vision student's respect for and trust in the blind instructor. Having extolled the virtues of prior familiarization, I must now point out the practical difficulties involved in this process. I found that becoming intimately familiar with the training environment is often not feasible, especially when student teaching. Very often there just isn't enough time for a blind trainee to become intimately familiar with all the training areas of a case load in just 7 to 10 weeks before moving on to the next assignment. Also, a student may bring a need to an instructor's attention that must be addressed immediately. Therefore, I learned to implement some strategies that help me to gain quick and functional familiarity, and which enable student safety despite not being entirely familiar with the environment. First, under most conditions of unfamiliarity, many of the monitoring strategies, positions, and distances discussed in this report permit me to ensure student safety and to provide adequate instruction. Under such circumstances, I find myself most reliant on my skill levels, as well as my range of travel experiences. I am much more inclined to maintain a forward position in areas with which I'm not familiar, and I generally keep my distances down to within 10 ft. When analyzing novel intersections with a student, I'm reliant on my ability to analyze an intersection very quickly. Also, if the intersection seems especially strange or hairy, I may actually cross ahead of my student and return. Before doing this, I will give a specific question or two to the student to consider in my absence, then discuss my student's answers on my return. Usually, I do not require more than a cycle or two to cross an intersection. Second, I try to learn as much as possible from opportunities for casual observation of training areas. For example, sometimes, agency supervisors or personnel will provide courtesy tours and orientations to the work place for new employees. I'm careful to pay very close attention, and I ask key questions during such occasions. Also, I've taken opportunities to observe other instructors teach in areas that I know or suspect I will work in. For example, at one point during my internship, we needed to facilitate some reorientation for all the students in the agency after some massive reconstruction had been completed. I was already somewhat familiar with the new layout having been part of a general tour that had been given some time before. When the day came to reorient the students, I observed one of the instructors teaching one of the students. I was then able to join the ranks in teaching the rest of the students. Third, I make every effort to pick everyone's available brain, including my students', about the area in question. I've found that asking students to show me what they know can often provide a valuable framework that allows the acceleration of my understanding of areas with which they have some familiarity, as well as providing useful information about student functioning. Not incidentally, this approach also provides an effective bust for student confidence and competence. Young and newly blinded students in particular seem to love being "in charge." Also, the best way to learn something is often to teach it. The mail carriers, hired drivers, and bus drivers and information operators can sometimes serve as excellent resources. When orienting to indoor facilities such as malls, personnel at the information booth, marketing office, or security office can prove critical. Fourth, when working with low vision students, I've learned to question them thoroughly about what they see. This serves both to provide me with a sense of how they use their vision, as well as a preview of an area or situation. With this, I may be able to direct the course of a lesson. This approach is often very effective, but it can backfiring. If a visual traveler has poor spatial processing or reading skills, or has difficulty making sense of visual clutter, I've found it difficult to assist them without some advanced familiarization to the visual nature of the situation. Fifth, I will try to obtain maps of training areas and have them described or raised if feasible. I have found, for example, that 5 minutes of an office secretary's time with a map can do wonders for my understanding of a school's layout. For street layouts, I will generally have maps described by a reader or member of the Chamber of Commerce. If one has the funds, a GPS map is an excellent resource. Also, use of Braille-to-graphics systems or tactile enhancement machines can provide a quick and dirty method of making simple maps accessible. Such technology can be used to render maps from Atlas Speaks into tactile formats. The labeling tends to get really messed up, but the layouts thus rendered can still be very useful. Finally, if I am very familiar with a student, familiarity with the environment may be less necessary or may even get in the way of the lesson. I am a strong proponent of personal discovery. A student's ability to travel on her own through personal, self-directed, strategic discovery with little reliance on others is paramount. I believe that many of my students often benefit from just going out and looking for something, without the security of a sighted guardian angel hovering nearby to bail them out at a moment's need. On one occasion, I conducted a lesson with a student to locate a favorite restaurant. I hadn't had the opportunity to go over the area first, but I asked around and gathered a pretty good idea about where it was and what some of the situational factors might be. I also knew that the student was very capable and had a vague idea about where he was going. I let him find the place with minimal guidance, starting from the point of doing his own investigation about where he was going. I remained with him for company and for some occasional strategic questioning, but he did it on his own. He was both reluctant and intrigued by the prospect of striking out without a sighted on-looker to point the way. He was successful, even in the face of some unexpected construction. Later, I heard from one of his teachers that he was very impressed that two blind guys could just up and strike out into the unknown by themselves. Even given these strategies and perspectives and the application of reliable skills, I find that instructing under some circumstances with certain students can prove unproductive and even hazardous if done without proper familiarization. Orienting students with dog guides or students with orientation problems to new areas absolutely requires me to go over that area thoroughly in advance. Conducting orientations "on the fly" can work beautifully with higher functioning students without dog guides and often provides them with a very rich instructional experience. However, this process just seems to confuse and frustrate students who have difficulty grasping self-orientation skills, and dog guides don't handle that process well. Also, working with low vision students sometimes requires me to scout out the area ahead of time using some form of sighted assistance occasionally. This is especially true when orienting a low vision student to a new area because the cues often most pertinent to them are visual. When orienting to a school or shopping center, I should know where all the major signs, visual landmarks, and other visual features are so that I can facilitate my students' attention to these points. Prior familiarization to new areas is also very helpful in preparation for assessments - especially when assessing low vision students. If, in the prior interview, a student appears to be particularly competent, one may be able to use a combination of structured discovery and seeing aloud methods to gain enormously useful information on the fly, but the risks for something going wrong are high. Even on those occasions when I have found the need to conduct assessments on the fly in this fashion, I have not been completely satisfied with the results, and I usually have to return to the student under more structured circumstances to fill in some informational gaps. (Assessment strategies are covered in detail in section 6.3.) Finally, I endeavor to give top priority to familiarization to high volume and non-controlled traffic situations such as freeway access ramps, parking lots, transit centers, and environments that are unusual or nonstandard such as railroad crossings. I generally put off lessons involving such situations until I've had the chance to explore them. Or, if a need is immediate, I will typically insist that a student waits until I've examined the area before going through it with the student. 5.1.5 Practice Very simply, practice improves performance. I have found it indispensable to practice often and continuously - to practice movement and navigation skills, as well as practicing and refining strategies for student monitoring. Practicing movement and navigation has helped me to heighten my skills virtually to the point of automation and instinct, so more of my attention can be focused on my students. Here, my long time refusal to use a human guide in favor of the application of my own travel skills has really paid off. In so doing, I came into the program already with some experience in keeping track of a companion while managing my own mobility. Also, my budget and off-beat travel needs have historically forced me to depend more on public transit than private drivers or taxi services. This has provided me the opportunity to hone my urban travel skills - especially concerning the negotiation of unfamiliar urban environments. Finally, I've always enjoyed walking, and I've relished every opportunity to travel in and explore residential and rural communities. I've found such experiences critical to movement and navigation development - especially in learning new areas quickly and in being able to function well in unfamiliar areas. When going through training, I also practiced the specific processes of monitoring as much as possible. I solicited volunteers from among my classmates to work with me. A few of them relished the opportunity to have some extra instruction under the blindfold and particularly to receive it from the perspective of a long-time, blind traveler. Also, I intentionally spent extra time in student teaching. When we were first starting out, I noticed that monitoring all aspects of student functioning was difficult for many of us. Evaluating and remediating in-step, arc width and height, hand position, line of travel, and anticipating potential hazards seemed to be quite a handful. On the whole, I think my classmates got the hang of monitoring much more quickly than I. I think that most of the delay for me arose from having to figure out how to monitor - devising strategies and developing techniques as I proceeded. However, I also expended considerable effort in expanding my perceptions, speeding my reactions, and honing my judgments. I first noticed that simple guiding was a little troublesome. While several of us had some trouble with it, I think I took the longest to catch on. I just wasn't at all accustomed to ensuring clearance for another individual. Also, when people are being guided, they like to talk. It drove me nuts to maintain clearance for myself and my student while trying to carry on intelligent and productive conversation. I never ran a student into or off of anything, but I certainly experienced much difficulty maintaining my own clearance. Encounters between me and objects, stumbling along borders, and brushing against shorelines were common at first, but are rare now. Initially, I practiced guiding by ensuring clearance for a large piece of luggage - pretending it was a student. In truth, I don't use guiding much with students, because I believe guiding impairs learning and fosters dependence. I also experienced some struggle integrating my students' presence into my own sphere of perception. It was really hard at first to concentrate on my student and my surroundings. I remember the first time I had to teach a blindfolded classmate how to cross left turn arrows. On the first crossing, I misjudged the arrow. When traveling alone, I've rarely made such errors and never since with a student. However, at that initial attempt my perceptions just seemed warped or over-extended by the presence of and responsibility for my student. I had similar difficulty keeping track of which corner we were on while boxing a four-way intersection with students. Somehow, the simple process of counting to four seemed to elude me when working with students. It was they who often first realized that we'd finished the circuit, while I pretended to pretend ignorance. At times, I actually had to go through the trouble of land marking the initial corner or using my compass to verify our location. Probably the biggest hassle was learning how to stay out of the student's way. When monitoring students while using a cane myself, it was very difficult at first to keep my cane from touching their cane or from getting entangled in their legs. Also, it was difficult for me at first to maintain close enough distances to monitor subtleties in student technique without jostling or bumping them, crowding them, or getting in the way of their cane. This last was probably the biggest drag. I remember my first attempt to monitor a classmate. I was a total oaf - tripping over the cane, bumping shoulders; it was worse than when I first learned to dance. However, with a little time and practice, I became quite a good dancer. The same is true about monitoring discretely. Changing positions around students while staying clear of their cane was just really hard at first, but it quickly got easier. Though I am generally able to avoid obstructive contact with my students, I look at such incidence as learning experiences for my students. The public itself does not always seem much concerned about staying out of the way of a student's cane, so if I should get in its way from time to time, I don't sweat it. It's just another learning experience for students. In retrospect, I wish I had used a shorter, lighter cane during the first few months of learning to monitor my students. I am 5 feet 7 inches tall. I used a 62 inch Autofold cable cane in the beginning, because it gave me better coverage and was intensely sturdy. However, it's length and weight made learning the finer points of discrete monitoring awfully cumbersome. A 58 inch cane of a polymer type (fiberglass, carbon fiber, or graphite), would have been more appropriate for starting out. Indeed, the durability and lightness of a graphite cane seems to serve best under most circumstances. Nowadays, I use a 58 inch rigid, Ultralight graphite cane from California Canes because of its lightness and maneuverability. With as much traveling as I do, the lightness really pays off over time. Another area that required considerable practice was the use of my cane in the left hand. As I've mentioned, I prefer to use my cane in the hand opposite my student. This requires off-handed cane use about 50% of the time. Fortunately, I'd begun practicing this art before entering the program. The initial, negative impact of off-handed cane use on my overall mobility astonished me. It was almost like learning cane technique all over again, though much faster. I was amazed at how difficult I found applying simple processes of orientation while struggling to manage the cane in the left hand. I became accustomed to it quickly enough, but to this day I must switch back to the right hand under situations that require my full concentration. For example, I once became momentarily separated from a low vision student by an array of street furniture. I was traveling nearest the curb with the street on our left, so my cane was in my left hand. Between the noise of the traffic and the cane in my off-hand, I found that I couldn't call up an acoustic mental picture of the array of obstacles and negotiate it back to my student. Instinctively I switched my cane back to the right hand momentarily, and the whole layout of the situation suddenly became clear and easy to manage. When student teaching, I found the need to practice maintaining my orientation while walking at very slow speeds and while veering in odd directions. As I noted earlier, I found it troublesome to maintain my own orientation while traveling with students whose movement styles were much slower or otherwise different from mine. An exercise that helped me was to learn new areas while walking slowly through them. Also, I would practice traveling in various environments while carrying bulky or heavy items or under conditions of strong wind. Such circumstances tend to affect my kinesthetic senses in a way that roughly simulates travel according to incompatible movement styles. Practice is a continuous process, even today. Just as a sighted instructor must practice under the blindfold periodically to maintain adequate instructional competence, so I must practice my awareness exercises - like carrying luggage or managing a shopping cart, to keep my instructional competence sharp. When addressing the matter of blind instructors monitoring students' safety and technique, the question arises: How can a blind instructor adequately judge and respond expediently to interactions between the student and the environment, while minimizing perceptual contact with the student? The issue is thus two-fold - ensuring student safety, and reducing perceptual contact between student and instructor. When monitoring the travel safety of students who are blind or have very low vision, I often maintain a position forward of the student and at distances from about 6 to 15 feet or more. In this way, I am aware of the nature of the environment before my student, and I can react accordingly. While walking in front of a student, I can maintain an awareness of my student's course and whether or not his cane will cover him upon reaching an obstacle or sudden change in terrain. Familiarity with a student's gait patterns, cane technique, and environment, as well as my use of a 58 inch cane (see appendix C-3) makes monitoring a student easier, but I do not require these factors in order to monitor effectively. When I sense an obstacle, I may pause briefly at that point, turn, and observe my student carefully. If I am convinced that the student either won't contact the obstacle or that contact won't prove hazardous due to proper cane coverage, lack of speed, or a non-stringent obstacle, I'll continue on ahead. If it looks risky, I exercise a number of options. I may warn the student in an appropriate manner (e.g., "widen arc," "be sure you're listening carefully," etc.), or I may stop at the obstacle and wait for the student to draw nearer. If its something like a pole, tree, or fire hydrant, I may position myself on the opposite side of the obstacle from the student and ensure that the collision won't be too painful by placing my hand on the object at an appropriate level so that the student's face or knee won't suffer injury. 5.2 A Little About Terrain Irregularities A few special notes concerning drop-offs: The question has been raised whether a blind instructor could fail to perceive sudden terrain changes or irregularities such as an odd rent in the path, or an open manhole cover. The answer is yes, it is possible, even by the conditions under which I typically monitor my students. If the anomaly is small, it is theoretically possible for my foot and cane to miss it, leaving my student vulnerable. However, I believe that the chances of a student coming to harm by such an event under my supervision are very remote. There are four levels of safety that protect the student here. First, by the time students are advanced enough in their training to work in unfamiliar environments, I would expect that their cane technique and coordination are good enough to protect them from such occurrences. After all, our goal is to foster independent travel, not reliance on supervision by others. Perhaps I would be more cautious than others in ascertaining that students' travel skills were adequate to keep them safe, and I am also quite adamant about student capacity for independent travel. In addition, I do often take the time to become familiar with the training environment and its potential hazards. I've said that, as a student teacher, it was common for me not to be familiar with travel areas. Once I began my own practice, however, training environments became much more regular. Next, since I often maintain a line of travel directly in front of my student and unknown terrain, I would have to walk right over such an irregularity - missing it with both my feet and my cane - in order for a student to approach harm. The student would then have to miss the phenomenon with his cane and step right into it before possibly coming to harm. I do not use a conventional two-point touch cane technique when I travel. My technique more resembles a light constant contact called feather touch. I walk in-step and in rhythm, but the tip quietly and very lightly glides across the ground without leaving it. I find that this technique is more efficient than two-point touch under most conditions, and it affords much better feedback. I can even use it while hiking over broken terrain. Therefore, I consider the chances of missing an open manhole cover to be remote. Others do not. Someone told me that they thought my chances of actually detecting a manhole, for example, were about 10%. Not long after this, I casually located about six manholes in the span of two blocks on my way to a student. While I concede the possibility that I may have missed one or two (and I wasn't really looking very hard), I can't fathom that there could have been 10 times that number. I've walked across a great many closed manholes in my time, and I don't think that there are appreciably more manholes in the world than those I've detected in my travels. Finally, I must say that in all my travels, perhaps tens of thousands of miles of walking, I have encountered three open manholes. One I sensed from the sound of rushing water and a draft welling up from its reverberating depths. There was a workman at another. The last, in fact, I walked right over without noticing as a student teacher during a lesson with one of my high school students. It was a small, shallow one, located along some broken and uneven sidewalk. I had reverted to two-point touch for that instant to accommodate the broken terrain. Now, I would not have to make this adjustment. My cane missed it, and I stepped right over it. Then, my student's cane missed it, and he stepped right over it. My master teacher noticed, but my supervisor missed it, as she had glanced down at her clipboard to make a note. 5.3 Instructor Position and Facilitating Self-Reliance As I've discussed, I often take forward positions and intermediate distances when monitoring students. Such a style of monitoring as I've described raises concerns about three principal issues - functional reliance on the instructor, emotional reliance on the instructor, and natural interactions with the public. 5.3.1 Facilitating Functional Self-reliance The most common position for most instructors seems to be behind the student. The traditional view seems to have been that a rear position reduces cues to the student that may artificially govern or prompt student functioning. I would also argue that this position affords the best vantage point for sighted instructors to observe the student and monitor technique, as visual perception is geared ideally for forward viewing. Though it may have been supposed that rear positions optimize student independence, it is surely not coincidental that rear positions also address the need for sighted instructors to have forward perspective. In contrast, the nature of auditory perception is not frontal, but spherical. Auditory acuity is almost as functional from behind as in front. Therefore, a blind instructor may find it about as easy to monitor a student's course and trajectory effectively from a forward position as from behind the student. The proverbial "eyes in the back of the head" pretty well holds truth for a blind instructor. So, if I maintain positions beside or in front of a student, will the student just develop a habit of cuing off my movements and not hone his own perceptions and skills? If so, what would a student learn about independent travel by doing this? Since auditory perception readily encompasses a full 360 degree field, a blind student may have nearly as much awareness of instructor movements behind as in front. It matters little to the blind whether auditory stimuli occur from behind or in front. For example, I remember when I was assessing one of my thesis participants as he walked a line along a black top path. The intent was to compare how straight his line was with vs. without parallel echo cues. In this case, there were no echo cues, but to the left there was an expanse of grass. While conducting the test, his instructor walked a long on the grass as silently as possible and about 10 feet behind him. His line was perfectly straight. I asked the instructor to remain still for the next few trials, explaining that I thought she was cuing him to a straight line by walking a long behind him. She expressed skepticism that he could cue off such a "quiet" and remote stimulus, but she consented. He veered into the grass over the next two trials. In another example, one of my master teachers expressed concern that one of my students might be cuing off my movements in front of him. During a later lesson between my master teacher and that student, my master teacher monitored the student from behind the left, then the right shoulder. He observed that the student tended to veer to the left or right accordingly. In any event after all is said and done, there may be times with some students when providing forward cues may be instructive. Depending on the lesson objectives and the needs of a student, providing a beacon for some students to follow may teach them a great deal about perceiving and responding to lines of reference. Nonetheless, when it comes time for a student to hone internal skills of self-reliance, I apply several strategies for discouraging functional reliance on me. I often move in ways that keep students from relying on my position. For example, I may deliberately take whatever line of travel they're taking or deliberately take an erratic course of travel. Students quickly learn not to play "follow the leader", which is something they should be learning anyway. But for specific circumstances, they should base their travel decisions on their own internal frames of reference and judgments, not on other people's. If the student persists in attaching his functioning to mine, he finds himself following me off a curb, up a driveway, or into a tree if he's not careful. Also, when it comes to drop-offs, I may stop, but I can throw some students off by continuing my foot steps and cane movements while standing in place. Students eventually become wise to this trick, as it should be, but again, it engenders that sense of watching oneself. 5.3.2 Facilitating Emotional Self-reliance The next concern revolves around reducing students' emotional reliance on the instructor, so that they may learn to become self-reliant. Since it seems that a blind instructor generally requires closer distances between them and their students for monitoring safety, it has been supposed that a blind instructor might not be able to reduce perceptual contact sufficiently to provide the student with a feeling of increasing self-reliance. Here, I think two points are worth making. First, I think that it may be imprudent to suppose that an instructor can really "hide" from their students so easily just by increasing the distance. Is it as easy to hide from perceptive blind clients as may often be supposed? I propose that it may often be the job of the instructor to facilitate perceptual processing to the point where hiding from a client for long periods is challenging. I have to say that, while I was going through instruction, I rarely lost track of my instructors for more than brief periods. I had a student recently who almost always knew where my master teacher was no matter what position or distance he took or how quietly he moved. While fully realizing that many of my students can track my movements if they really want to, I do take steps to discourage their active interest in my position. Often, I maintain a frontal distance of between 6 and 15 feet depending on my familiarity with the student and the environment. However, I've felt comfortable observing from as far ahead as 30 feet with some students under quiet, non-congested conditions. With advanced students, or in environments that are relatively self-contained or free of hazards, such as stores and malls, I may let students go off by themselves entirely, only checking in with them from time to time at check points or via four-way radio. As a student teacher I rarely became familiar enough with my students to feel comfortable monitoring and potentially intervening from remote distances. Also, I use several methods for reducing my perceptual apparency to students depending on lesson objectives. I sometimes put duck tape on the tip of my cane, &/or use a feather touch with tip just off the ground. When walking, I may synchronize my steps with my students'. And, in general, I know how to walk to minimize sound - walking on tip toe or planting my feet squarely heel to toe, being careful not to scrape, shuffle, or slide my feet. A single grain of dirt or a dry leaf or twig caught between the shoe and pavement sends out a sonic beacon for anyone listening. I guess I'm not above walking barefoot when I feel the need. I never walk on the parkway if silence is the objective. The belief that walking on the grass softens foot steps is incorrect. Grass rustles, whereas pavement conveys little impression. It is extremely difficult to achieve silent movement over grass or foliage. The choice of environment can also reduce perceptual apparency. I may deliberately choose noisy or congested environments, while taking steps (previously described) to ensure that I can track a student's position and monitor as needed. Under complex environments, I may get away with keeping fairly close distances without a student's constant awareness of my position. Second, while promoting the development of self-reliance is vital, perhaps it is worth keeping in mind that this whole business of reducing perceptual apparency to promote independence is largely just a game of make-believe, and many students seem to know this. I certainly did even as young as 12. Students may well be aware that the instructor is generally looking on, poised to intervene should anything go wrong. On those occasions when instructors may choose truly to let a client go forth independently, sighted and blind instructor alike then must rely on their assessment of student competence. As instructional distance increases, the ability for any instructor to monitor continuously and to intervene readily decreases. However, given all that, I've found tremendous success in traveling with students into unfamiliar areas and letting them know that I wasn't familiar. I make them take responsibility for the travel plans and execution, and they know there's no sighted person to "bail them out" if things should go awry. They seem to get the best of both worlds - an experienced blind person to ensure immediate safety and facilitate problem solving where necessary, and a blind person who's functioning is subject to the same problem solving logistics as their own. Thus, the message to the student isn't, "I'm around to use my vision to help you out if you really need me," but rather, "I can do this blind, and so can you, and you need to in order to complete the lesson." I conducted one lesson with a student in which we decided to find a store. He knew approximately where it was, as did I from calling and getting directions and looking it up on a map. However, I'd never actually been there before. I role played with my student that I was a blind college student new in town, and I really needed someone to show me around. I had him problem solve the whole thing and explain every step to me. I occasionally presented some possible courses of action, and I let him choose from among them and take responsibility for those decisions. During this lesson, I walked mostly beside and a little ahead. The beauty of it was that it wasn't contrived but very real. Since we conducted this lesson together, my student was in reality totally safe, but was truly responsible in a realistic way for executing the necessary processes to find his destination. He had a blast. Of course, such an approach can also back-fire. I recall a lesson with that very same student where the objective was to plan and execute a trip to Baskin Robins. When we reached the bus stop, the bus driver misdirected my student. My familiarity with that particular area was poor, so I became as lost as my student when he tried to put wrong directions into effect. Because this was intended to be a "fun" lesson since it was our last, I took over from there - problem solving the way to our destination and explaining carefully every course of action that I took. although the original lesson objectives were somewhat mislaid, the lesson may still be considered successful in that it posed very realistic problems, and it required the application of realistic solutions. My final word on facilitating self-reliance concerns the ability to teach by example. My students almost unanimously express appreciation for being able to avail the experiential knowledge of a blind individual successful in his craft. They frequently ask me, "How do you do this?" They seem greatly assured that they know a blind professional who can demonstrate by example that what they are striving to learn can be learned. There are no excuses about "I can't do this" around me, at least, none that hold up very well. Students learn in every lesson with me that they need not depend on the eyes of others for their well-being, and this realization carries life-altering impact. This is true for both totally blind and partially sighted. In fact, it is sometimes the partially sighted students who are the most impressed. The lesson here seems to be that if someone can be self-reliant without any vision, then they, with some vision, should be able to manage. (I talk more extensively about working with low vision students in sections 7.1 and 11.) 5.3.3 Facilitating Natural Interactions Between Student and Public The final concern deals with the effect of a nearby blind instructor on the nature of interactions between the student and the public. Let's face it - One blind person walking down the street causes quite a stir; two may cause a commotion. When we first started blindfold training, we had no idea how this was going to work. It was evident that I, posing as the blind instructor, would not be able to just "blend in." They had me monitor my partner in a solo lesson while trying not to affect public interaction. It became immediately apparent that the public generally reacted in one of two ways to my presence. Typically, members of the public either treated my partner as though I wasn't there, or they treated us as one entity. My presence certainly did not detour the public from offering assistance to my students as was sometimes the case with my sighted classmates posing as instructors. For example, my partner walked into a store and requested directions to a destination. The woman started to explain how to get there, but then decided to leave her store and take my partner across the street to the destination. She asked my partner once if I needed assistance, and my partner assured her that I was fine. Fully 95% of this woman's attention seemed focused on my partner and away from me. On other occasions, someone might come up and ask, "You guys need help?"; but on these occasions my partner handled the situations, diverting the exchange exclusively to her. What we saw in blindfold training has held true in my practice since. In fact, even when I am present with the student in providing direct instruction, the public often approaches us with goodly intentions, never imagining me to be in an instructor role. Again, these are situations in which my students are encouraged to handle the public - either accepting assistance if appropriate or explaining patiently, and sometimes insistently, that I am their instructor. Occasionally, if my students are shy or otherwise slow to respond, the public's attention turns from them to me - requiring me to respond. However, the vast majority of interactions between my students and the public do not seem to be deflected, diverted, or otherwise negatively affected by my presence. There are a few strategies that I use to facilitate natural public interaction. First, I instruct my students to handle all interactions with the public themselves. When public interaction is needed or impending, I drop back physically behind or away from the student, and I project disinterest and detachment by turning and showing interest in something else. I've observed that sighted people often have a hard time engaging someone with whom no eye contact can be made. This leaves only my student to deal with. I may also increase distances if the environment and student skill permit. I was familiar enough with my blindfold partner's movements and with the environment that I monitored her waiting to cross a street from a position seated behind her on a retaining wall. I kept my head down and cane concealed, and I fiddled with something - checked my watch, combed my hair, tied my shoes, or whatever. The nice thing was that I could monitor my student and traffic tolerably well from that distance auditorily, while affecting complete detachment. When the light was about to change, I would arise and stand poised for anything to happen. When she started to cross, I followed her across at a closer distance. Since then, I've learned to carry two canes - the California Cane (see appendix C-3) for standard use and an NFB retractable cane (see appendix C-3). The latter cane collapses instantly to a small, easily concealed cylinder, and it extends instantly for immediate use. When wanting to appear inconspicuous, I may resort to using this cane. I can collapse and conceal it in scant seconds if I want to seem like just another person for a time, then expand it immediately when the need arises. This strategy is particularly useful during bus travel or waiting at street crossings. 5.4 Monitoring Student and Environmental Variables This section discusses how a blind instructor can monitor all aspects of student safety. However, before embarking on this discussion, I feel it necessary to summarize my views on "prescripted" vs. "free" movement. My views on this subject have a lot to do with my strategies for teaching. Movement according to prescribed patterns is not natural to higher order life forms. Humans in particular learn their body awareness, self to object relationships, and environmental interaction experientially through facilitated discovery and self-correction. Parents of most mammals teach their young how to survive, but mammals learn movement primarily through play. Humans oversee this process mainly to ensure safety, but movement would be learned just as well, maybe better, without adult monitoring. The blind often suffer from a tremendous excess of monitoring and browbeating about "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts." What should be a simple process of going from here to there has been formulated into prescripted patterns called "skills." In my mind, this process resembles the society's run by "It" in "A Wrinkle in Time." For the blind, movement has become a series of "dos" and "don'ts," about how to hold a person's elbow, how to find a doorway and open a door, how to sit in a chair, how to pour a liquid, how to position one's arms when one is walking, and how to hold a cane and where it's tip should be at any given moment. I even knew one instructor who told the parents how the children should be dressed "for safety." Of course there are certain conventions and skills that blind people can and should make use of, but the over prescription of conventions and rules of movement have come to impede rather than facilitate the development (or, in the case of adults, restoration) of free movement. Too much prescription leads to apprehensions in the student about "doing it the right way." There movements become slow, mechanical, and often restricted. One parent complained to me about one day in church, the young man refused to approach the pulpit for communion without someone along because he "didn't know the route." When people learn to drive, they are taught the rules of the road, but no one gets on them about how to open the car door, where to put their keys, how to hold the stirring wheel, how to fill the tank, and how to sit in the driver's seat. Those details are left up to each individual to decide. It should be thus with the blind, and I bring this philosophy into my teaching and my work with families. 5.4.1 Observing Students and Traffic besides familiarizing myself with the streets ahead of time whenever possible, the execution of this skill for me is almost wholly related to my ability to analyze and cross intersections. My own ability must be effective before I can hope to extend my bubble of surveillance to include another. Also, I must have such a degree of awareness as to be able deliberately to allow a student to veer, without letting them veer too far or into impending danger. I will let advanced students veer quite far before intervening, but I must keep close attention on how much is too much and under what circumstances. I must then be able to re-establish proper alignment. Keeping track of student position is not an issue; I apply t