Opinion : Feedback on The Iowa Braille Sight Saving School

The Murder (Failure? Death? Demise? Decline? Deterioration? Destruction?) of Iowa Braille: From Acclaim to Ruin in Less than Five Decades How did this once great institution for the blind become what it is today, a mere shadow of its former self? In the 1960s, The Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School was nationally recognized as the best institution of its kind, a true shining city on the hill in the area of work with blind children. Its population was typically 150 to 200 children in any particular year, educating students from Kindergarten through 12th grade. Most of its graduates went on to lead lives of independence, supporting themselves and their families, using the skills and self-confidence gained while living at the school.

It was the model program, highly respected in its field. So, what went wrong? In those days, the population of the school was comprised mostly of children whose only physical disability was blindness. Many were of average, or even above average, intelligence. Their primary problem was blindness, and the staff at the school was well-equipped to teach the students to cope with, and minimize the limitations that blindness posed, allowing them to go on to lead productive and independent lives. However, in the early 1970s, students began leaving the institutional life, preferring to live with their families in their own communities. The Library for the Blind in Des Moines was able to provide educational materials to support them in the public schools, and those students, using the mobility and Braille reading skills acquired at the Vinton facility, were able to function successfully, if not entirely equitably, in the public school environment. As news of this migration to the public school system spread, parents increasingly wanted to avoid the painful prospect of sending their small children away to a state institution. So, young blind children started enrolling in public schools, mostly without the advantage of the basic training in blindness and blindness-related skills that the initial wave of migrating students had enjoyed, based on their early experiences at the Vinton school. This second wave of students did not fare as well in the public school environment. The parents of these students, most of whom had no realistic expectations of what a blind child should be able to achieve, did not recognize that their children were falling behind, and, sadly, the school at Vinton failed to effectively promote itself and the benefits it brought to the party. So The Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School saw a decline in population and in interest on the part of the parents of blind children around the state. In response to this decline, the school administration during the mid to late seventies, rather than engaging in an aggressive campaign to make clear the training benefits it could provide, chose instead to open their doors to a wider population of blind students. This led to marked changes in the makeup of the student body, with a dramatic increase in the number of those who were multiply-handicapped. Yes, the new breed of student was blind but was also, very often, more severely intellectually challenged and beset with more serious physical, medical, and/or behavioral problems. The only core requirement was that there be a visual disability. This redefinition of admittance criteria was a strategic mistake that transformed the school from a true school for the blind to a school for the multiply handicapped. The new student was not one for whom blindness was the primary issue.

For many, blindness was the least of their problems, and they would have been better served in an institution designed to meet the needs of those with mental and/or physical handicaps, rather than in an institution for the blind. This demographic shift led to an even steeper decline in enrollment of the ordinary blind student. Consider the question: If you were the parent of a normally intelligent child who just happened to be blind, would you enroll your child in a state institution where they would be lost in a sea of severely mentally challenged children? What kind of peer influence and role models would your child encounter there? What sorts of experiences would they have? Naturally, the blind fled this institution in droves. And why would they not? It was no longer a school for the blind. Iowa has already lost its school for the blind. It lost it years ago, and that beautiful old, historic campus is no longer the province of the blind. What should have happened then, and what must happen now, if there is ever to be a rebirth of that fine institution, is to focus on building a proactive, positive program which aggressively and creatively targets the true problems of blindness. and does it with a laser beam. It needs to be a program designed to teach basic living skills, mobility, Braille literacy, self-discipline, and justifiable self-confidence. It needs to be an institution designed to instill a sense of excellence and expectation in its students, and it needs to be run by people who know how to appropriately challenge the blind student, to guide and inspire their growth, to produce competitive and capable alumni, who will be revenue-positive, productive, tax-paying citizens fully able to support themselves, rather than simply living on the dole. These things are possible. It can still be done, but only if the bureaucrats who control such things have the good sense to realize that the conditions we find ourselves in now are the result of a series of failed policy decisions, and not the natural result of social evolution. Blind children in public schools are not being served well by the current system, nor can they be. Effectively addressing the underlying issues that prevent many blind people from achieving full self-support and independence is not something that can be done by a mere two or three hour visit a couple times a month from an itinerant teacher, nor by a set of parents to whom blindness is a new experience, nor by teachers in the public schools who, no matter how well-intended, do not have a realistic sense of how to challenge the blind student. They just don't have the specialized skill set required. Moreover, it is a lot more complicated than a simple matter of teaching skills. The journey from the dependence and isolation of early blindness, to full-fledged self-realization is a psychological journey, and a spiritual journey as well, that requires careful guidance, moment by moment, day by day. None of that can be achieved by the over-worked itinerant teacher. Who loses? The blind student who, although they get to stay at home with their family, misses out on the opportunities that would have been available in a progressive, well-run, forward-thinking, true program for the blind. Lastly, there is one thing that was found at the school for the blind in the old days that no public school environment, where you are the only blind student, can possibly provide. Peer influence. Many blind students from the old days found themselves attempting, and happily accomplishing, things they didn't know they could do, not because some instructor pressed them to do so, but quite simply because Johnny down the hall was doing it. If he could do it, why not you? The Vinton campus is a tremendous resource, because it is a place where the blind can stretch out and engage themselves, not just in computer skills or simplistic cane travel, but also in a wide variety of physical activities designed to teach confidence, mechanical aptitudes, athletic skills, and a whole wide range of skills and experiences not possible in the heart of a major city. The Vinton community itself is a terrific and reasonably safe starting point, where students can learn the basics of navigating the community, and learn them well, before expanding out into more metropolitan environments. Unemployment among today's adult blind is at a staggering ninety percent. NINETY PERCENT! And that figure was compiled prior to the economic down-turn. At a time when discrimination is less of a problem than at any time in history, with information accessibility being better than it has ever been, how can that possibly be the case? The answer? Education. Blind education is simply not producing the necessary results for success in our world today. It's time to halt the decline.

It's time to try a fresh new approach. A TRUE School for the Blind, a concept definitely long overdue! Jim Snowbarger, Student of the Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School, 1958-1969