Journal Entry – February 2, 2005 - Guadalajara Schools for the Blind

Author: Scott and Pam

One of the primary goals when conceptualizing the Blind Circumnavigation was to visit schools and agencies for the blind throughout the world whenever possible. This would give us an opportunity to share ideas and learn from other blindness professionals around the world. Often these schools and agencies are not located in port cities and so inland excursions are often necessary, this is the case of the two schools for the blind in Guadalajara Mexico. We were berthed in Puerto Vallarta Mexico and so we took a road trip with two sighted friends (Abe and Amy) with the plan to visit both schools.

Prior to leaving Puerto Vallarta we called each school with the assistance of Abe acting as our translator. Instituto De Capacitacion Para El Nino Ciega y Sordo, A.C. is located in a middle class mostly residential neighborhood. As we waited for Abe to park the car we saw a number of children and parents enter the school, some of the students were clearly visually impaired and all walked with sighted guide assistance, we knew we were in the right place. We were quickly met by the Director of the blind school. We agreed it would be best to sit down, meet, answer questions, and then take a tour. It was clear they did not know quite what to make of our little group. We were led to a multi-purpose room with walls covered in Braille volumes, a piano sat in the corner and in the center of the room where tables pushed together to make a larger conference table. This room reminded me of so many rooms I have personally seen in agencies for the blind back in the states. The only thing that stood out to me was the palette of boxed milk sitting off to the side of the room. In Mexico milk is often sold in vacuum sealed boxes so it can be stored without refrigeration, this has turned out to be very handy way to keep milk when provisioning our sailboat. Another administrator joined us and with Abe providing the translation we introduced ourselves and explained the Blind Circumnavigation and our personal experience working in the vision loss field. Upon hearing these details and then becoming comfortable with work history we could feel the apprehension evaporate in the room.

During our meeting we learned many things about the school: has been teaching children for sixty-five years. The school accommodates 150 students made up of sixty-five deaf children, forty blind children, and forty-five non-academic multiply disabled children. Although the school was originally a completely residential facility, they now house only fifteen resident students from areas where daily transportation to the school is not feasible, these students do travel home for weekends. The students range in age from five to fifteen, but some exceptions are made for special circumstances. The school provides academic instruction from kindergarten through sixth grade and multiply disabled students are served up to fifteen years of age. The school is privately funded through donations, and very little of the revenue is generated from parents as most families with students attending the school are financially impoverished. The school receives no funding from the Mexican government. We learned the school generally only serves families with financial difficulties because most wealthy Mexican families privately tutor blind children. Once students graduate from the school they are often integrated into private secondary schools, however many students do not advance further because in Mexico only elementary education is provided by the government and secondary and prep schools are all private schools. Sometimes even convincing parents to allow their children to attend the blind school is a challenge because families can raise more money be sending their children into the streets to beg. We were told a story about a bright young girl who was often absent from school for this reason and how school administrators have to work with her mother on an on-going basis to keep her in school.

We learned the one dog guide school that operated in Mexico was closed for two main reasons. First, many families who lived at or below the poverty lever were faced with the choice of feeding their family members or caring for the dog guides, the other obstacle was a misunderstanding of the dog’s role and many businesses were unwilling to allow entrance to service animals. There is currently no legislation in Mexico protecting the rights of dog guide users.

Another shocking revelation was more than a few of the children attending the blind school had correctable vision problems, but their families could not afford the medical treatment necessary to improve their vision. These students would most likely live out their lives as visually impaired people with financial resources being the only factor preventing them from improving their visual disability.

Next our discussion turned to employment, and we learned unemployment of disabled people was just as big a problem in Mexico as it is in the United States. However, we learned there is more of a push towards teaching skills that can lead to self-employment in Mexico. The philosophy for this employment direction comes from the belief it is far more difficult to change the views and open the minds of the non disabled employers than it is to train disabled people to be independent of relying on others to employ them. While this attitude frustrates me as a disabled person, there is a harsh pragmatic reality to this practice.

Before we knew it we had spent two hours just talking and we decided we should start the tour and see the school. The overall facility is very well maintained. Administrative offices occupied most of the front building facing the street, this building also houses the girl’s dormitory and the technology center, our first stop. Recently Hewlett Packard donated computers and funds for assistive technology. We entered a classroom with approximately ten computers, each loaded with Dolphin Supernova speech output and large print software and Freedom Scientific’s OpenBook scanning software. One workstation was equipped with a PowerBraille 40 electronic Braille display, also manufactured by Freedom Scientific. Overall, the technology classroom was better equipped than many I have seen in the United States. Apparently, prior to the donation of the new computers, the school had almost no technology resources. We did notice the school neither taught skills in nor had access to notetaking technology. We were introduced to a deaf-blind student who was in her last year at the school prior to going on to prep school. We used the Braille display to translate a conversation. We learned she wanted to study computers and become a computer technician. She also said she was a musician even though she could not hear the music, and that she played music through what little residual hearing she had and the vibrations from the piano. She asked if we would like a demonstration and of course we were delighted. We headed back to our initial meeting room. We listened to two well played songs (see our video clip) on the piano and thanked her for sharing her talent.

We were headed to the classrooms, but on our way down the hallway we were greeted by the Directora General Guadalupe Sobario de Inglesias. Senora Sobario de Inglesias is the daughter of the school’s founder and was responsible for bringing the deaf component to the school. She explained her mother’s passion was for the blind students and hers was for the deaf. She believes in the oral method of teaching deaf students and did not advocate the use of sign language for primary communication. She also wanted us to know she had made large strides in educating deaf-blind students both academically and through enhancing verbal communication. This she demonstrated to us by having a deaf-blind student feel her vocal cords and then replying back verbally. The Directora then excused herself to make a phone call, but said she would see us after the tour.

We were off again to visit the classrooms and meet the students. The classrooms were sparse with little more than the student’s desks, and all the rooms had class work decorating the walls. Our first stop was at the kindergarten class and the students were busy eating their morning snack. There were about six students in kindergarten. We were introduced to the class and we asked students for questions. We repeated this for each of the other grades, although we missed fifth grade because they were in the middle of a lesson, unfortunately this was also the class with the only blind teacher on staff. Overall we were impressed with the high quality of curriculum and the extremely polite student body. We found the students to be confident and inquisitive. All of the students had exceptional posture; none of the students demonstrated any stereotypical behaviors such as rocking their bodies. We found out Braille instruction started in the first grade and every student had a slate and styles on their desk regardless of their level of vision loss. There were very few Braille writers because of the cost and the difficulty of maintaining them. The sixth grade class was by far the most curious about us, and the students asked many questions including; what are schools for the blind like in the United States, and weren’t we scared out on the ocean sailing?

As we toured the classrooms we noticed a line of students traveling in a train holding onto each others shoulders for sighted guide. This prompted me to ask if students were taught to use a white cane or were taught orientation and mobility skills. We were told students were taught mobility skills and to use a white cane, but use of the cane in school was not encouraged, white canes were for use at home and outside of school. This was not our experience as we saw students arriving at school without the use of a white cane. We were also told sighted guide from the shoulder was preferred to the technique of guiding above the elbow taught in the states, because the elbow technique was seen as feminine and dependent, and more like being pulled around rather than guided. In short, sighted guide from the elbow conflicted with the male machismo.

We were then taken to visit the fifth grade deaf classroom. The teacher instructs the students using a wireless FM system and each student has a receiver. We witnessed no sign language being used. We were introduced and the students each introduced themselves and asked a question. The teacher then continued the geography lesson, and we were amazed at the high level of material being covered. Once outside, I asked our guides if they could answer the questions posed to the students, and we all confessed we had forgotten or did not know the answers. They explained the curriculum was accelerated since not all students could progress past sixth grade, and the school wanted to squeeze as much education in as possible.

Next we were taken to the playground which consisted of asphalt slab surrounded by a chain link fence, it reminded me of playgrounds in San Francisco where space is greatly limited. Students most often played Mexican football (soccer) despite their level of vision loss. In the center of the play area was a little girl running around at full speed. She would run without hesitation for about thirty feet, stop, and run back the other direction. Our guides called to her and she ran over to meet us. This student was only five years old and had lost her vision and eyes from glaucoma when she was three, her mobility and confidence in her environment were excellent. She was given a ball and she was off again. We were then introduced to the physical education teacher. We asked a number of questions and then the topic turned to goal ball. Goal ball is a game played throughout the world by visually impaired people and it is a competitive sport played at the international Paralympics. Well, apparently the school was given a grant to participate in goal ball at the world Paralympic games. So, the school traveled to the games and spent one night in an emergency training session learning how to play goal ball, they had not even heard of the game before. In the end the school came away with a gold medal and goal ball has been part of the schools physical education program ever since.

We stuck out heads into the boy’s dormitory long enough to see the room was decorated in Spiderman and the boys kept things neat as a pin. Our next stop was the cafeteria and kitchen. We met the cook who is also the mother of the deaf-blind girl we saw play the piano earlier in the day (her deaf-blind brother also attends the school). We were told the children ate lunch at 2:00 PM and the children helped set the tables and cleaned their own dishes after the meal. We asked what their favorite food was and after a few minutes of thought and a smile from the cook we were told that chocolate cake was the students’ favorite.

We headed back to the main administration building and on our way we poked our heads into the girl’s dormitory and it was decorated in Winnie the Pooh and kept just as neatly as the boy’s dormitory. As we waited to gather for our final meeting back in the multi-purpose room we heard music coming from the front atrium. There were four students working with the physical education teacher on a small stage. We were told they were practicing for the school’s exhibition, an annual event where schools get together and the senior class of each makes a presentation. This year’s presentation was going to be a dance routine. The very mismatched sixth grade students were quite a sight as they awkwardly attempted dancing with the opposite sex for the first time (see video clip).

We all gathered in the multipurpose room and it was our turn to share with the school administrators. We had brought many of the technology devices we use on the boat and in our daily lives. We demonstrated the VoiceNote notetaker with GPS used for navigation, the PocketViewer video magnifier we use for reading charts, our laptop computer with speech and large print, a Parrot digital recorder. We also had an array of magnifiers, telescopes and white canes. Many of the devices we demonstrated had never been seen before and there was a definite sense of mixed emotion in the room. On one hand the staff found the technology very exciting and on the other there was the frustration of futility because of the cost of the technology. As we made our demonstration we were joined again by the Directora General and when we were done our discussion turned back to funding. The Directora expressed her frustration with her constant battle for funding explaining the school had so much potential and yet they had such extreme financial limitations. I asked what the school’s annual budget was and was very surprised to learn they ran the entire operation for 150 students on less than a quarter of a million American dollars annually (excluding facility maintenance and building improvements). We expressed our complements on the fine job the school was doing even with their financial constraints and the school’s value for the money donated was extremely high. In all of my travels throughout the United States I do not believe I have seen so much high quality service provided at such a low cost, it just shows what can be accomplished when your resources are strictly finite and there are few prospects for additional funding. We said our goodbyes and exchanged contact information and thanked everyone for the wonderful tour. When we looked at our watches we realized that five hours had flown by and this was a delightful surprise after the awkward start to our meeting. We arrived as an unknown visitor to the school and left as friends and colleagues with much to share and learn from each other. As we were escorted to the front of the school we learned the school was originally started when the founder was seated at an outdoor café and witnessed a blind child digging in the trash, this fueled the inspiration that has led to the education of thousands of children in Mexico over the past sixty-five years, and it was obvious to us this passion is alive and well at the school today.

Our second visit of the day to the Escuela Para Ninas Ciegos de Guadalajara was not nearly as fruitful. Although we had made an appointment in advance with the school’s Director, when we arrived at the front gate we were met by Lupita the Director of the Boarding School. We were told the Directora General had a conflict and could not join us. We were not allowed to enter the school grounds but Lupita was happy to answer any of our questions. It was obvious to us we needed to be checked out before we would be allowed to tour the facility. We stood in front of the school introduced ourselves and asked some of our questions and we learned the school has twenty-one residential students, all girls. The students ranged from seven to seventeen years of age. Lupita who is also blind and a graduate student from the school explained the school is also privately funded and employment is the biggest hurdle the students face after graduation. We shared some stories of living with a vision loss and this seemed to warm Lupita, she then offered to reschedule the appointment for a tour of the school but we were unable to return because of our schedule. We thanked Lupita for her time and left without getting to visit the school beyond the front gates.

As we drove back to our hotel we all felt as though we had spent a very productive and insightful day visiting the two schools. Our goal to visit agencies and school throughout the world will no doubt be the most rewarding aspect of our voyage and we look forward to each new experience. There is so much to learn and share with our colleagues abroad and each new visit fuels the creativity of both the visitor and the host.