From: Mike.Freeman@f126.n105.z1.fidonet.org (Mike Freeman)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Acb/Nfb Feud
Date: 12 Aug 92 21:19:02 GMT
Reply-To: Mike.Freeman@f126.n105.z1.fidonet.org
Organization: FidoNet node 1:105/126 - Lawson & Reay, Vancouver WA
X-Fidonet: Blink Talk Conference

Index Number: 23847

[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

In a message to Isaac Obie <16 Jul 92 23:49> Chris Bazzie wrote:

 CB> A friend of mine was telling me a
 CB> short story of how he was once treated
 CB> for accidently knocking over a large
 CB> textured map.  I can't even begin
 CB> to think of how school workers could
 CB> get away with these sorts of
 CB> things.  Doesn't anyone pay any
 CB> attention to what goes on?  In the
 CB> average public school, such behavior
 CB> by the staff would result in large
 CB> lawsuits, parental censure, and
 CB> investigations by state authorities, but
 CB> it seems (seemed?) to have been
 CB> accepted behavior for staff at schools
 CB> for the Blind and/or Deaf from what I
 CB> have been told.  Unbelievable!

Hi, Chris.

You're dead right; it's nearly unbelievable.  Yet I dare say that if you
were to get a hundred blind adults into a room (blind adults who had
attended a residential school for the blind), ninety-eight of them would
have at least one horror story to tell about their experiences at those
schools.  Until fairly recently (and, in some cases, still) many, if not
most, of the residential schools for the blind had the atmosphere
reminiscent of that of an old-fashioned English public school with all
that that analogy implies in terms of hazings, cruelty to students by
staff and other students and, yes, let us say it, forced sexual contact,
both heterosexual and homosexual, on the part of *some* students by
other students and staff.  At least one principal of a school for the
blind with which I am acquainted had to be let go because of illicit
sexual contact (in this case, homosexual) with students.  IMHO things
are worse at combined schools for the blind and deaf but I cannot prove
this.

What's worse is that, as recently as 1980, there were kids at the
Washington State School for the Blind whose family living conditions
would have resulted in their being protected by the state and the
families' being prosecuted for child abuse and/or neglect, were the kids
not blind.  School personnel almost expected that the school would be
the last haven for these kids.

Yes, you're absolutely correct; society (until recently, at least)
didn't care about the kids because they were blind -- an institution
designated for the purpose would "take care of them" so that the normals
would not have to look upon them.

In fairness, I think things have improved tremendously in the last
fifteen years (though there are still abuses).  I know the Washington
State School, though it has some faults, is now a happy place and most
of the kids there really like it (as much as any children like school).
The kids go home on the weekends so there's a built-in check to
outrageous, cruel or illegal behavior on the part of school personnel or
other students.

Mike Freeman
... ** The blind are no longer willing to be second-class citizens. **
___ CRR QWK 1.40

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