Category: Let's talk
Have you ever had anyone try to use your blindness to lessen your credibility or act as if your word is not valid because you can't see? You know, the old, "what do you know anyhow, you're blind!" bit. Frankly I don't see how eyesight and the ability to know anything and everything are linked, and I feel it's an atempt to try and compare an apple to a chainsaw.
I agree. I'm not sure how one equates any disability with knowledge, unless there is clearly something like mental retardation or traumatic brain injury involved. Then there's the old theory about inteligence not being generalizable, but applicable to different skills and abilities. On another board concerning schools for the blind, this issue was hinted at in a way. I never understood how the degree of sight was considwered directly proportional to one's level of inteligence.
Lou
I think the problem might be our ability to acquire knowledge.
Obviously having sight does not impart the ability to acquire and use knowledge. But, a sighted person has an array of tools available to him/her that we will never have. A picture can impart a great deal of of knowledge at a glance, and a graph can show a trend or a likelihood quite easily.
As a programmer, I was always presented with problems that could be shown to my colleagues by way of flow charts and data flow charts. I could grasp the concepts involved as well as the next person, but the methods used to portray those concepts were different.
I remember in the fifth grade when our teacher was trying to explain a glass prism's ability to split light into it's constituent colors. She showed how it was done in twenty seconds to the sighted students by forming a rainbow on the wall. She then took the rest of the hour trying to explain how it was done to those of us who were blind.
Bob
When I was doing maths in college I had a tacktile diagrahm. But it is hard to imagen what things look like.
Isn't a lot of that though also dependent on learning stile? I Know even some sighted people don't learn well visually, and learn better by reading or listening to lecture. Yes the sighted have another conveyance for information, but even then not all sighted find those all that useful.
My dad's done this a few times. He'll say, oh this thing is huge. and then I say well how huge is huge? and then I walk over to said object and then start exploring it with my hands i mean obviously my eyes don't work so what else can I do? LOL and then my dad says what, you don't believe me? I told you it was big and you don't believe me. My mom gets it but explaining this concept to my dad is kind of like trying to teach a monkey to do a difficult mathematical problem.
DJ Tunehead, I think Singerofsongs hit the nail on the head, in the different people have different or preferred learning styles. The other part of that i thast many people can't immagine learning in any style but their own. This has ben a very interesting topic so far.
Lou
Quite a few people say I have a really good memory. I don't know if that's because I'm blind or if they are just saying it because theyfeel like it.