April Question of the Month

CALL FOR ENTRIES
Describe the first time you became aware of a disability? What factors contributed to your interpretation of the experience? Send me your reply by clicking on the Comments link below. Your email address and name will be kept anonymous even from me, unless you choose to share it. If I like what you have to say, I’ll post your reply. Just imagine: screen- reading software whispering your words straight into the ears of virtual pilgrims. Unless you’re really pissed off about something, in which case we’ll be sure to instruct our readers to turn the volume WAY UP.

Cooking at High Altitudes

Haven't been writing much lately as the demands of graduate school temporarily took over my life. Three weeks ago I presented my thesis exhibition. My portion of the show at least was fully accessible, and I received a good deal of positive feedback about the work. I showed a soft foam sculpture of a rolled- up sidewalk, a series of embossed "tactile" drawings on vellum, a pink foam text piece, this blog, and a long work table that allows me to scroll large drawings through two rollers- more manageable than working on the wall or floor. Now, I'm busy finishing up final papers and preparing to leave for the Denver area at the end of May where I'll be teaching Home Ec and Art classes at the Colorado Center for the Blind. It's a two- month position, verging on Camp Counselor though not quite since some of the students will be taking college prep courses. There will also be groups of middle and high school kids.

One of the reasons I wanted to teach at a center sponsored by the National Federation of the Blind is the fact that it's run by blind people. Most of the instructors are blind, so it removes that custodial element of blindness skills training that so many training centers "for" PWDs engage in, consciously or unconsciously. More important to my career interests, it's the only training center of its kind that has an art instructor. So, while I'm helping kids master cooking and cleaning by way of non- visual techniques, I'll have the opportunity to trade curriculum plans with Ann.

Throughout grad school I've complained about having so little time to clean my apartment and experiment with new recipes, but this summer I'll be paid to do just that! Oh yeah, I'll be trained to do all of it while blindfolded with sleepshades; i.e. I'll be taught to do everything without the use of sight, which is how the students are expected to learn to do things too.