therealljidol Exhibit A-Week 8 Snake
There is an Indian parable which describes 3 blind men who touch various parts of an elephant. Each describes the part they touched as something completely different from the whole.
Sight is the sense that humans rely on for immediate processing of information. The other four senses are not as dominant as that of one's vision. When vision is not present a huge part of the world becomes foreign to the individual who is blind.
A child's natural instinct is to explore its environment, grasping at brightly colored toys, learning to recognize faces, identifying the ever growing world that surrounds him/her. A baby who is blind will not crawl toward a favored stuffed toy. Often it takes longer for a child to walk.
The "normal" developmental pattern is disrupted because of the lack of visual stimulation.
The average sighted person gathers information and can remember what they see. A blind person actually needs to touch the object in order to identify it. It's not automatically apparent that an apple is an apple unless the apple is touched. An apple is round, an apple is smooth. But isn't a tomato? Each object, when touched, becomes a whole new experience. If a parent, caregiver or teacher doesn't consciously introduce things to a blind child so that he/she can become familiar with their surroundings, a large chunk of the world doesn't become part of that child's knowledge base.
When I was working in the school system, I worked extensively with a blind girl. Her family life was not the best. We often had to show her how to tell if her clothes were on right side out and whether they were on backwards. Her family didn't take the time to describe things to her or show her what was around. It was very sad.
The teacher of the visually impaired, with whom I worked, received a notice that there was an art competition for students with disabilities.
We asked our student if she would like to participate. She was very excited. I thought that making a clay sculpture would be the easiest for her. When asked what she wanted to make she decided on making a dog. I handed her the lump of clay and told her to make what she thought was a dog.
Both her TVI and I looked at what she had made and promptly named the sculpture "Squidly" because as you can see it looked more like a squid than a dog.
After several attempts we came up with something that remotely resembled a dog but we had to help in every part of the process from the head to the paws right down to the tail.
During the summer I help with a program for the blind and visually impaired children in the area. We try to expose them to as many different experiences as we can. Last summer a woman who ran a reptile rescue brought many of her charges so that the kids could feel and hold them. I think I was more excited than they were. What a fun thing to be able to hold a skink, a large lizard, feel a tortoise as it lumbered around the floor. There was even a small alligator for everyone to touch (its mouth was banded shut thankfully!)
The culmination of the event was the albino python. I've always been fascinated with snakes and when I was at summer camp I got to hold a boa constrictor. I've never forgotten the experience and hoped that the kids would have as much fun as I did.
At first the snake was brought around for everyone to touch. Some of the kids were afraid, some were tentative and others couldn't wait to feel the scaly skin of the massive snake. After that we lined up and everyone put their arms out and the snake was stretched out for all to help to hold. Everyone was surprised to find out how heavy the beast actually was!
I love to assist in broadening the horizons of the blind students I mentor. It's one of the highlights of my year to spend time with them and to feel their excitement at their new discoveries.
***
This is being posted later than I would have liked but I had to wait for my friend to dig up pics of poor ol' Squidly! I hope you enjoyed this entry! It was fun to remember!
Sight is the sense that humans rely on for immediate processing of information. The other four senses are not as dominant as that of one's vision. When vision is not present a huge part of the world becomes foreign to the individual who is blind.
A child's natural instinct is to explore its environment, grasping at brightly colored toys, learning to recognize faces, identifying the ever growing world that surrounds him/her. A baby who is blind will not crawl toward a favored stuffed toy. Often it takes longer for a child to walk.
The "normal" developmental pattern is disrupted because of the lack of visual stimulation.
The average sighted person gathers information and can remember what they see. A blind person actually needs to touch the object in order to identify it. It's not automatically apparent that an apple is an apple unless the apple is touched. An apple is round, an apple is smooth. But isn't a tomato? Each object, when touched, becomes a whole new experience. If a parent, caregiver or teacher doesn't consciously introduce things to a blind child so that he/she can become familiar with their surroundings, a large chunk of the world doesn't become part of that child's knowledge base.
When I was working in the school system, I worked extensively with a blind girl. Her family life was not the best. We often had to show her how to tell if her clothes were on right side out and whether they were on backwards. Her family didn't take the time to describe things to her or show her what was around. It was very sad.
The teacher of the visually impaired, with whom I worked, received a notice that there was an art competition for students with disabilities.
We asked our student if she would like to participate. She was very excited. I thought that making a clay sculpture would be the easiest for her. When asked what she wanted to make she decided on making a dog. I handed her the lump of clay and told her to make what she thought was a dog.
Both her TVI and I looked at what she had made and promptly named the sculpture "Squidly" because as you can see it looked more like a squid than a dog.
After several attempts we came up with something that remotely resembled a dog but we had to help in every part of the process from the head to the paws right down to the tail.
During the summer I help with a program for the blind and visually impaired children in the area. We try to expose them to as many different experiences as we can. Last summer a woman who ran a reptile rescue brought many of her charges so that the kids could feel and hold them. I think I was more excited than they were. What a fun thing to be able to hold a skink, a large lizard, feel a tortoise as it lumbered around the floor. There was even a small alligator for everyone to touch (its mouth was banded shut thankfully!)
The culmination of the event was the albino python. I've always been fascinated with snakes and when I was at summer camp I got to hold a boa constrictor. I've never forgotten the experience and hoped that the kids would have as much fun as I did.
At first the snake was brought around for everyone to touch. Some of the kids were afraid, some were tentative and others couldn't wait to feel the scaly skin of the massive snake. After that we lined up and everyone put their arms out and the snake was stretched out for all to help to hold. Everyone was surprised to find out how heavy the beast actually was!
I love to assist in broadening the horizons of the blind students I mentor. It's one of the highlights of my year to spend time with them and to feel their excitement at their new discoveries.
***
This is being posted later than I would have liked but I had to wait for my friend to dig up pics of poor ol' Squidly! I hope you enjoyed this entry! It was fun to remember!