Rethinking Blindness Skills

The phrase “blindness skills” is one the blind community knows well. From the moment you experience vision loss, whether because you are born blind or lose vision in later life, emphasis is placed on teaching you necessary blindness skills to navigate your environment. These include orientation and mobility training, cooking, matching your clothes and doing the laundry to name but a few. It’s fair to say that skills training plays an important part in enabling a blind person to make decisions regarding how they want to live their life. If they have the ability to approach a situation several ways, they can choose the way that feels most comfortable for them.

The flip side of this is that the blind community has a concerning habit of expecting every blind person to function at the same level. Whilst it’s true there is a basic level of behaviour expected of most adults, when a person is not disabled we allow for differences in skills. Most people when asked can tell you which of their parents is the better cook. Or which of their friends is more confident behind the wheel of their car. These differences are viewed as a fact of life, part of what makes us so unique as human beings. Step into the blind community and small differences can start a war.

If you’re not a perfect cook, confident traveller and proficient user of technology you are a failure as a blind person. Or so it can feel at times. Asking a “how can I do…” question can often result in judgement, rather than supportive advice. Instead of answers that begin “there’s a few ways of doing it, but maybe you could try…” or “I’ve found success doing it this way, so maybe you will too.”, responses often follow the format of “it’s ridiculous that you can’t do this” or “you’re letting blind people down by looking helpless”. Reaching out for help can feel like a leap of faith, one which may have a very hard landing.

I’ve been on the other side. I’ve been the judge, the person who has undoubtedly made someone looking for simple advice feel very uncomfortable. It’s not something I’m proud to acknowledge but I also know that it’s the truth. I firmly believe that blind people are capable of all kinds of things, both ordinary and extraordinary. However, I’ve come to realise that just because blind people can do these things doesn’t mean we’re all going to be equally good at them, and in the end that’s ok.

This is why I believe we need to change how we look at blindness skills. These skills aren’t just for blind people. They are things that every adult is going to find themselves doing, with varying levels of success. Instead of viewing blindness skills training as something needed to become a “good” blind person, how about we view them as an adapted way of learning.

If a sighted person wants to learn to be a better cook they are likely to pull out their phone or computer and watch videos on YouTube. My mother, who doesn’t use technology, will watch cooking shows on tv, jotting down recipes and techniques that she finds particularly interesting. I find many of the shows move too fast for me or they aren’t described in enough detail for me to follow. Therefor I might need to work with someone who understands blindness in order to access that information.

I’m fundamentally doing what any sighted person might do, the only difference is the method through which I access that information. It’s an accepted fact that I can’t read print and so I’m going to access literature either through braille or electronically, using assistive technology. Why can’t we also shift our thinking so that so-called “blindness skills” training is viewed as an accessible way of learning to manage areas of our lives that anyone, blind or sighted will want to know about.

Instead of viewing our proficiency in these areas as a measure of how good a blind person we are, why can’t we encourage each other to step out of our comfort zone and point one another towards resources that may help us do that. Ultimately, if a blind person wants to know how to cook a basic meal or is seeking advice on travelling solo for the first time we should be celebrating the courage that is often required to do these things. Not courage because blindness is a terrible fate, but the courage to try, knowing that you might fail. Knowing that you don’t have the same access to information that others do. But also knowing that it’s what you want and you’re going to take every step needed to get there.