Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!bunker!wtm
From: mcgrew@Eng.Sun.COM (Darin McGrew)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: BLINDNESS AND THE BLINDFOLD
Message-ID: <14919@bunker.UUCP>
Date: 12 Oct 90 01:49:24 GMT
References: <14868@bunker.UUCP>
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Reply-To: mcgrew@Eng.Sun.COM (Darin McGrew)
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Fidonet: Blink Talk Conference

Index Number: 11062

In article <14868@bunker.UUCP> Bill.Koppelmann@f114.n104.z1.fidonet.org writes:
>Terran, the National Federation of the blind happens to believ (and so do I) 
>that when sighted people put on a blindfold for a short time, they don't 
>really knoow what blindness is, only that they get to see the fear and 
>helplessness of what being temporarily blind can be.  I'd be interested in 
>knowing what you, as a sighted student, might feel or think about this?
>bk.

I'm sighted, and my wife (who is blind) took me on a blindfolded
tour of the Stanford campus one afternoon before we were
married.  I agree that just putting on a blindfold doesn't help a
sighted person learn what blindness is like.  However, leaving
the blindfold on long enough to learn how to do something does
give a sighted person a better idea of what blindness is like.
At the beginning of my blindfolded tour, I was pretty clueless.
But towards the end of the tour, I could recognize buildings and
such by sound, and felt fairly comfortable knowing where we were.

Guide Dogs for the Blind sends its apprentice trainers through a
couple weeks of a regular class blindfolded.  After a couple
weeks I'd imagine that one would have acquired many of the
necessary living skills, as well as a pretty good understanding
of the limitations and non-limitations of blindness.

Darin McGrew			mcgrew@Eng.Sun.COM
Affiliation stated for identification purposes only.