Statewide Vision Resource Centre

Wednesday April 5th – Today we went to the Statewide Vision Resource Centre to attend their professional development day. SVRC is the support center for teachers who have visually impaired children in their classrooms. They provide education, support and materials to classroom teachers, aides, and itinerant teachers. They also run additional educational experiences for the visually impaired kids. They even have a program where they fundraise enough to bring a group of kids to the US and attend the Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama.

Today about 80 teachers learned about visual impairments, how to manage a VI student in the classroom, how to modify materials for different visual impairments, and how to provide sighted guide assistance. There were lectures and workshops about the various topics. Two of the children’s mobility instructors from GDV ran the workshop teaching sighted guide skills. This is where we came in, Sue, Laura, Simone, & I got to practice our teaching skills on the teachers. We had about 6 different groups of 2-3 teachers for 20 minutes periods and had to teach them how to offer sighted guide assistance. We had them wear simulators during the exercise, often simulating the actual type of vision loss their student has. It was good practice for us and was very well received by the teachers. Having a person wear the simulators makes an enormous impression and changes the way the view a person with visual impairment.

Once the workshops were over we attended the rest of the lectures which included; Strategies to Support the Student with Low Vision, presented by one of the visiting teachers, and The Vision Impaired Student in your Classroom –Individual, Social, and Family Perspectives, presented by educational psychologist, Geoff Bowen. The lectures were really interesting with lots of practical tips about reducing glare in the classroom, teaching appropriate social skills, and dealing with parents. The day ended with a student perspective from three different kids. They each explained about their visual impairment, what aids they use and their general educational experience. There was a 1st grader, a 6th grader and a recent high school graduate (who has been recently accepted at Yale University). The kids were great; the 6th grader had even put together a power point presentation entitled “Hello and welcome to the power point all about me and my vision impairment”.

We topped the day off with another good session at the gym, then replenished all the calories we burned at a tasty Italian restaurant!