What? Why?

In reading those damned tests with moria923, there were a few issues with diagrams, but that seemed to me to have more to do with the size of the diagrams than anything to do with math or science.

Did they think you couldn't count on your fingers? Memorize tables (multiplication, logarithms, periodic)?

I mean some prejudices against the blind, I understand how they started. There is an idea that all blind people need dogs, for instance, that I think stems from several books aimed at kids in the late sixties and early seventies. In all of these books, they'd have the lead character learn how to navigate with a cane or whatever, but the culmination was always getting the dog. The dog usually saved them at some point, too.

I must have read three or four stories with blind protagonists when I was about ten, and only one blind girl didn't have a dog. Worse, it was shown she didn't want the dog because she was getting back at her family somehow. I kind of liked that girl; she refused to wear what other people put out for her. She was a sculptor. I wish I could remember the name of the book.

If anything, I'd think it would go the other way -- an underlying assumption on the part of the sighted that you'd be better at math and science because you wouldn't be distracted (e.g.you'd analyze the data rather than look at the pretty fractal). No less a prejudice, but at least one you could manipulate in your favor.

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My feeling is that people have gotten so used to being taught math through visual teaching methods, such as blackboard demonstrations or pretty textbook illustrations, that they assume this is the only way to learn math. Additionally, so many people have such a poor grasp of math themselves that they can't think of any other way to teach it. Also, teaching math through a visual medium which allows students to just reproduce what they have seenw ithout really understanding it is an easy way to teach. I had one math professor--the head of a math dept.--tell me I couldn't be in his class because he used a visual pedagogy, in which he showed pictures to the students and they interpreted the visuals. One thing some professors who have taught blind students mention is that they, the teachers, have to work harder because they have to explain what they are doing. Many of them feel this makes them better teachers. On the other hand, I think it takes an exceptional teacher to admit that challenging the teacher is a good thing.

What really disturbs me about this is that opting out of making math classes accessible because it iis too hard or too much work for the teacher and the disability student services staff means that blind students are being left out of math courses, but also computer science courses, physics courses, and any other technical course of study which requires a solid math background.

Re the religion of the guide dog: I think there is an aspect where people like to think of the guide dog as the magic bullet that solves all the problems of having to deal with a blind person. What, erect safety measures around construction sites? Hey, if ou had a guide dog it would keep those pesky blind people out of trouble. What? Have to come up with accessible routes that are clear of obstructions? Hey, if ou had a guide dog ou wouldn't be making more work for groundskeepers and other staff. Right now I have an ongoing grudge against the landscapers for the MBTA, because on one hand they feel it is cool for them to park their van in the middle of the access road to the t, and on the other hand, they are not maintaining the sidewalk on the far side of Melville, so there is this humungous viney jungle which keep slapping me in the face every time I walk by. Blind woman runs amok with hedge clippers, news at 11. Don't be surprised if ou see that story.

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