Success Stories

My Story

At the age of six, I went to regular public school. I was blind from birth and had a very difficult time with the teachers because they had never worked with blind children. They were very impatient, rude and sarcastic. All through my twelve years of school, I was not able to see the blackboard, read regular print, or write math problems or participate in activities such as baseball, track, and various other activities and events because of my sight problems. Due to my visual problems, all the teachers at school felt that I was stupid and ignorant. As you know in public schools, colleges or universities, if you do not understand what is said or if you are not able to see what is written on the blackboard or not able to read maps or anything that requires vision you were in big trouble. Because of the difficulties with the teachers and of their not knowing how to teach a blind person made life for me in school a headache. The students in school was very uneducated when it came to associating with blind students. The students teased and poked fun and did many other unpleasant things to me only because I was blind. In certain classes, if I would ask a question or ask the teacher to explain something for me, the students would laugh and make fun or make jokes and you could sense that the teacher did not want to take out time to explain to me the answer for me all because I was blind and couldn't see the blackboard. While I was in school, I became very frustrated and very discouraged and wanted to give up my education. The majority of the students were not friendly and would not let me participate in playing any games with them, because they had the excuse that if I fell down, the teacher would hold them responsible for it and also they made excuses, since I was not able to see, I could not play hide and seek with them or any other game that required vision. I had many problems with getting help in the lunch room. I would stumble over chairs and tables. Since math was always my weakest subject, I had a math teacher, his name was Mr. Gibbs, and he was very mean to me, because I was not able to see the black board and he felt that I couldn't understand or comprehend anything where math was concerned. When I was in the seventh grade in Junior High School, I had some dark bold line paper, but after awhile, it was very blurry and I was not able to see it and some of the teachers thought that I was telling lies that I was not able to see the lines on the paper and wanted to fail me in the history and math courses. Even though the statements from the doctor was in the file in the office, that still didn't do any good. I had to bring my parents to school and have a conference with the teachers and the principal. When I went to High School, I hoped that the students would have matured and had a little more common sense, but the problems or the situations did not change; they remained the same. I had to take a course in business math in order to receive the correct amount of credits in order to graduate from high school, so now as a blind person, I had to contend with the usage of a tax forms. The teacher or the students did not want to help me because they thought it would take too much of their time.

After graduating high school, I went to work as a telephone operator, belt assembler, and then a food handler. I worked for sixteen years, but within the sixteen years, I had many problems on the job. First of all, the workers didn't want to help me with the bread bags because you had to put labels on them and also my eyes was always hurting all the time. The lights were berry bright and I had headaches all the time and the supervisor said I had to work faster and also I had hypertension. About two years ago while working on the job, I develop degenerative knees, so I had to resign from my job. I wanted to continue my job, but in another field. I always wanted to learn the computer, and review my grammar, and math since math was always my weakest subjects in school. It has been thirty three years since I have been out of school. In February of this year, I came to the Lighthouse of Houston to attend Adult Basic Education. The teacher was very understanding and concerned of my needs. I talked to her about my weak points and strong points. The Subject of math, especially, was taught and I was able to understand and comprehend everything that was discussed. Adult Basic Education has tremendously helped me.