The Beginning Of My Journey To Independence

[chelseajmunoz]

Growing up in San Antonio Texas as someone with multiple disabilities wasn't easy for me. I started out going to public school in Pre-K and went to public school until third grade. I actually went to a few different public schools in San Antonio because each public school I went to said that they didn't have the available resources to teach a legally blind person Braille. Back then though I had usable eyesight so I was able to get by okay. When I'd read print materials though my eyes would always hurt like hell. My family tried to fight for each public school in San Antonio to teach me Braille. Finally one San Antonio public school had enough of my family's involvement that the teachers started teaching me Braille. However as time went by the teachers told my family that I just couldn't learn Braille because there was no way my fingers had the strength that was required to read Braille. So after I'd made it through a year of first grade it was determined that I repeat first grade. I honestly don't know why I had to repeat first grade though. By the time I made it to third grade the public school I attended told my family that they were going to refer me to the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (TSBVI). So that's exactly what happened. I was sent to TSBVI which was located in Austin Texas. I was a student at TSBVI from fourth grade through 12th grade. I had some great teachers at TSBVI who really taught me a great deal of things that I still use to this day. As with anywhere a person goes in life though, there were also teachers at TSBVI who were unpleasant to deal with. The biggest reason that I can think of as to why the public school in San Antonio Texas sent me to TSBVI in Austin was because at TSBVI I had access to materials in Braille. While I was a student at TSBVI I was also fortunate to attend public school part-time once i'd gotten to middle school and high school. In 8th grade I attended a drama class at a local public school in Austin. Being able to spend half a day at TSBVI and half a day at a local public school was hugely beneficial to me because while TSBVI was a great place it was also not like the real world. What I mean is that in the real world, people who are blind don't have easy access to materials in Braille. Sometimes when I'd go to public school the book we were reading for English class was not available in Braille or the copy of the book that was available in Braille was not the same copy that my classmates were reading. Being able to go to public school part-time though showed me that I could still keep up with my sighted peers even though I had to work harder to do so at times. In 2006 TSBVI's Superintendent selected me to go to a convention that was held by the National Federation of the Blind (NFB). When I attended this NFB conference I had a chance to see that there were blind people who were lawyers, doctors, Orientation and Mobility (O&M) instructors, you name it. It was there at my first-ever NFB conference that I started to think there was hope for me to live successfully as a legally blind person. So after I'd graduated high school in 2007 I knew there was a lot more that i needed to learn about living independently as a blind person. Since I was still in contact with the people I'd met at my first-ever NFB conference I asked them about the NFB-based training centers that exist. I was told that the Louisiana Center for the Blind (LCB) was the best training center in the nation. So I did my research. Fortunately I was able to convince my Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor (VRC) to send me to LCB for 9 months. I was a student at LCB from September 2007 until June 26th, 2008. I was in the Adjustment to Blindness program for adults where I learned how to cook, how to clean, how to correctly travel with my cane and how to build my confidence through being in a wood shop class. One of the best things about LCB is that while there are set assignments that LCB students have to complete, the programs at LCB can still be modified to fit people's needs. So for example since I have CP in addition to blindness one of the things that I completed differently than people usually did them was O&M. There were many O&M lessons I had that the instructor spaced out for me so that I could take rest breaks when necessary. So it wasn't that I did less work than other LCB students worked. I simply worked differently than many LCB students did. Another example of how the LCB curriculum was modified for me was that I was not an extravagant cook. When I say I learned how to cook what I mean is that I learned how to follow recipes and make foods out of the box. To this day I'm not much of a cooker. However I definitely want to become a more frequent cooker at some point. An impactful class that I had at LCB was Braille where the Braille instructor noticed that I read Braille incorrectly. I used to read Braille with one or two fingers on my left hand which caused me to read Braille incredibly slowly. Before LCB's Braille instructor told me that my method of reading Braille was incorrect though I had no idea that I was even doing anything wrong. However LCB's Braille instructor worked me hard and showed me the correct way to read Braille. Once I'd increased my Braille reading speed more than I ever thought possible, my love of reading Braille increased exponentially too. To this day I read at least 200 words a minute in Braille which is on par with how fast most sighted people read print. Needless to say attending LCB for the 9 months that I was a student there was where some of my most fond memories were created. The Braille instructor in particular was someone who I felt very close to. There was many a class time where he and I talked about life, the importance of Braille and anything else we could think of. He recently passed away and if I have any regrets in life, those regrets would be that I haven't been the best about keeping in touch with people I care about who are not in my immediate surroundings. I never told Mr. Whittle how I felt about him. So thank you Mr. Whittle for being a bright spot in my life when I was young and impressionable. Thank you for showing me that blindness could be funny, it could be hard at times and it could be one of our most valuable teachers in life if we allowed it to do so. Thank you for all the laughter, all the smiles and support that you gave me. I always looked up to you like my Grandpa. I love you. One of the LCB cooking instructors recently passed away as well. I never told him how I felt about him either. He was another person who made me smile a lot. He and I'd often joke around with one another because he knew I was from Texas and he claimed Texas as his home. I didn't get to know him real well since I wasn't a student of his but he was still special to me. One of my fondest memories of him was that every day he and his wife would have lunch with one another. If one of them wasn't in the lobby area at lunchtime the other one would go find him or her. Their bond was awesome to see. There was another LCB instructor who recently passed away. She was one of the O&M instructors. I didn't get to know her well because I wasn't a student of hers. However she was definitely someone that you couldn't miss. She was pretty firm with her students but when people did the work she'd asked them to do she showed how proud she was of him or her. These three people all passed away in 2017 and while each one of their deaths is still fresh to me I know that each one of them would want those who love them to continue doing what we can to change people's perceptions of how blind people live the lives we want to live. That is definitely something I want to continue doing this year, for myself but also to show the world how those before me taught me life lessons that I strongly believe I would not have learned otherwise. Thank you Mr. Whittle, Jeff and Arleen for each making the world a brighter place while you were here on Earth. I love each of you dearly.