by Phil Hatlen
(Editor's Note: This article is based on Dr. Hatlen's presentation at the 2002 ACB national convention in Houston, Texas. Hatlen has served as superintendent of the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired for a dozen years. Under his leadership, the school has emerged as perhaps the best known and certainly one of the most respected schools for blind and visually impaired children in the world. Here are Dr. Hatlen's ideas for meaningful reform in the systems which educate blind and visually impaired children. We at "The Braille Forum" are honored to share these provocative ideas with educators, parents, and concerned blind people everywhere.)
It pleases me more than I can express to have this opportunity to talk with you about the education of blind and visually impaired children. This profession has been my joy, my frustration, my passion and my pleasure for almost 50 years. So, you see, any changes you may want to discuss are changes that I have most likely already lived through.
Now, let's get to the topic. The title for my presentation comes from a Dilbert poster that I have prominently displayed in my office. It needs no further explanation. I have debated about whether I should focus only on the evolution of schools for the blind, or the overall situation with regard to the education of blind and visually impaired students. I'm going to begin with the former, and perhaps say a few things about the general state of education later.
Many people who are blind attended schools for the blind during a different era. Times have changed, as most of you well know. Change appropriately directed is growth.
Today schools for the blind are continuing to evolve. From 1970 until the 1990s, I found schools for the blind floundering, searching for a role in a profession that was rapidly changing the location of service delivery. Then, beginning in the 1990s, it became apparent that these schools were assertively moving toward determining their own destiny. I maintain that the new destiny for schools for the blind is to be multi-service centers. They should serve, in some capacity, all students in their state or region. They should offer their expertise to any school requesting help. They should acknowledge the capability of local school districts to meet the academic needs of visually impaired students. Today children can receive a quality education in their local schools, and most never attend a school for the blind. Schools for the blind, however, can and do play a vital role in providing educational services to blind students who may receive a series of non-traditional services and interventions from specialized schools that were primarily residential facilities for only a relatively small number of blind children several decades ago.
And so the Wisconsin school changed to be a center, followed closely by the Nebraska school. Outreach programs housed at schools for the blind multiplied quickly, and teams of expert teachers were made available to students, parents, teachers, and administrators throughout their state or region. My own school, TSBVI, became the model for outreach services, and our responsibility grew from the 150 on-campus students to over 6,000 state-wide students.
The concept of the school for the blind being the "hub" of services began to become a reality. Schools were identifying their strengths and shaping their own destiny. What an exciting time!! These are some of the roles that TSBVI now offers:
- First and foremost, we continue to be a residential school for blind and visually impaired students who need the intensity of instruction and the expertise of staff.
- Summer programs for students from local schools
- Short-term classes during the school year for students from local schools
- Outreach services for all students in Texas
- A post-secondary program, co-sponsored by the Texas Commission for the Blind
- Facilitation of personnel preparation in Texas
- Statewide staff development
- Instructional materials center
- Assessment of quality of educational programs in local districts
- Curriculum development
- A world-famous web site: www.tsbvi.edu
The respect and acknowledgement that local schools give to this sharing of resources indicates to me a lessening of the competition and suspicion that permeated many attitudes between schools for the blind and local school districts. Now it is time to move the concept of shared resources even further. Now is the time to take the last tilt out of an almost level playing field. Now is the time to find effective ways in which to meet all the needs of blind and visually impaired students. Let me share with you some experiences I have had that are shaping a new concept for me.
Several years ago a parent of a visually impaired child called me, and this is basically what she said. "I have chosen the local school for my child. I want him at home, and I want him educated with his peers from the neighborhood. However, I know that my local school district cannot meet all the educational needs of my child. So I want your school to enter into a partnership with my local district. I want you to mutually decide which system will better meet specific educational needs of my child, and I want you to provide the opportunity for my child to move back and forth, as needed, between the school for the blind and the local district."
This parent stopped me in my tracks, and I have thought often about that conversation over the years. However, I did nothing about it. Then recently a friend of mine at another school for the blind called me. He said that he had read the lead article in a recent Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness related to instruction in the expanded core curriculum. He suggested to me that the solution to delivering the expanded core curriculum to all students might be for local districts and schools for the blind to enter into contracts to serve the same children. The more I thought about this, and my years-old conversation with the parent, the more excited I have become about the potential for a new model.
Why not, instead of either/or, as represented by the local schools and the residential schools, adopt the concept of "both"? Why not really look hard at what is good about each placement, and make both available to all children, as their needs indicate? With the recognition of the expanded core curriculum as being a necessary addition to the academic curriculum for blind and visually impaired children, we have placed too much of a load on our teachers for the visually impaired. Many of these teachers go to their workplace every day with a heavy decision to make: what to teach today. Do I support my student in academic subjects so that she can be as successful as possible in her inclusive setting? Do I consult with his daily service providers so that they understand his needs? Or do I let everything go, and teach my daily living skills curriculum, regardless of what may be going on in her regular classroom? Even more critical, if my time with each student is limited, and my caseload too large, how can I do anything else but be a consultant and an academic tutor?
And that, my friends, means trouble in River City. Perhaps we are asking teachers in local school programs to do more than they can. Perhaps the addition of the expanded core curriculum to the load of teacher responsibility is simply too much. To be sure, many of us have recommended solutions for teacher overload:
- Don't be an academic tutor -- use your time to teach the expanded core curriculum.
- Change your work day so that you have time after school to teach.
- Provide summer courses that address the expanded core curriculum.
- Add an additional year to the education of blind and visually impaired students.
These and others are good ideas, and to some extent all have been tried. But, maybe we're overlooking the most obvious solution -- use our schools for the blind in new and creative ways.
I come to you today proposing that the solution to having time to meet all of the educational needs of blind and visually impaired students is to form partnerships between schools for the blind and local school districts. In order to do this effectively, we will have to develop a level of trust and honesty with one another that I fear doesn't exist today.
Local schools would have to admit that they need help in the education of blind and visually impaired children. Schools for the blind would have to admit that there are many things that local schools can do better than them, and that a true partnership, based on the strengths of each program, needs to be developed. Of course, the key to this is to comprehensively and honestly assess every blind and visually impaired student, determine needs, and provide a placement to meet the needs. This, my friends, is standard IDEA rhetoric. Let's take it a step further.
Comprehensive assessment means that every area of adaptive learning and every area of the expanded core curriculum is assessed. Too often, I look in the folders of children and find assessment documents that include only a low vision assessment, a learning media assessment, and a standardized achievement test. Sorry, but that doesn't tell me anything about the student's abilities and needs in independent living, in social interaction, in career education, in use of assistive technology, etc. So let's begin this partnership by assuring that every student receives a truly comprehensive assessment.
Next, let's talk about determining needs based on assessment. The outcome of a comprehensive assessment is likely, in most cases, to illustrate a wide range of needs for most blind and visually impaired students. But when and how should these needs be met? Are some needs immediate while others can be delayed? Perhaps most important, what will be the frequency and duration of instruction from the teacher of the visually impaired?
Now we move into the area of placement. For local school districts and schools for the blind, this is where the rubber meets the road. For a beginning braille reader, will the TVI provide reading and writing instruction for up to two hours a day? If not, should the school for the blind be considered for a six-year-old? Should this depend on how often the child can return home? If instruction in assistive technology is a need, then what will be its frequency and duration? And on it goes, through the entire expanded core curriculum.
My friends, I fear we have been settling for mediocrity in some cases. I have often told parents that, when they opt for local school placement, knowing that the itinerant teacher for the visually impaired will be at their child's school only an hour every week, they have made a trade-off. They have decided that having their child at home full-time, that having her go to her local school, is a higher priority than having their child learn to read. What I want is for the local district to tell the parents this, too. All too often, the local district will suggest that their child will learn to read and write Braille with one hour a week of instruction. This is being intellectually dishonest with parents, and I ask that local school districts stop doing this and admit their shortcomings in meeting some of the intensive needs of blind and visually impaired students.
This need for honesty includes both local districts and schools for the blind. Schools for the blind cannot offer education with sighted peers. Schools for the blind constantly run the risk of accepting behavior that would not be condoned in general society. Schools for the blind also run the risk of not maintaining high standards for students. So, you see, those of us in schools for the blind must clean up our act before we approach local school districts with the concept of sharing.
Local schools must admit to what they cannot do. Local schools must stop using teacher assistants in place of teachers. Local schools must either accept responsibility for, and necessity of, teaching the expanded core curriculum or consider the use of schools for the blind for this. Local schools must work harder to develop strong self-esteem in blind and visually impaired students.
And, perhaps most damaging is the prevailing opinion among many parents and educators that a school for the blind is the placement of last resort.
I envision a day when teachers and administrators from local school districts, together with parents, will sit at the table with representatives of schools for the blind. I envision a time when such a meeting will not generate any defensiveness, suspicion, hostility, or territoriality. I envision a time when neither local schools nor residential schools will "own" a child. Instead, the family will "own" the child, and the two educational systems will work together, as equal partners, to provide the very best educational program for every individual child. Should we settle for any less?
I am ready and committed to working to achieve this vision. Will you join me?