Praising the Forgotten Teachers

Spring 2020, the date when our normal immediately changed when the world was rocked by a global pandemic. Things that were taken for granted were reflected upon, and with that, a miracle happened. When our classrooms were moved to your living room, society came together to finally recognize the importance of teachers. Our culture realized just how much these wonderful educators do: from empowering young minds with knowledge, to navigating complicated youth friendships, to restocking necessary supplies on their own dime, to grading papers, to putting together lesson plans, and so much more, all while managing massive amounts of district paperwork. It may be cliché, but not all superheroes wear capes.

These accolades were way overdue, and I am relieved they were finally here. Yet it seems, as we enter yet another month of the pandemic, we are forgetting just how amazing educators are. There is also a portion of teachers that is still shining in the shadows. Those teachers, the forgotten Special Education teachers, deserves distinction within the spotlight. I am not taking any acclaim away from general education teachers, but the beautiful souls of Sp-Ed educators have to deal with much more than their counterparts. 

This is the moment where I make my expertise known. I am not a teacher, I am an Alternative Media Specialist. An AMS a fancy, and at times complicated, name for a braille transcriber for Students with a Visual Impairment (VI) within the Low Incidents department of Special Education. This means I work directly with the Teachers for the Visually Impaired (TVIs) in converting classroom materials into braille and other consumable forms for our vision students. My office encounters all grade level work, so we experience a wide range of learning techniques. Sometimes this includes arduous subjects like Calculus or Chemistry, and broadly comprises of shape recognition, map manipulation, or even literature books. I have a foot in both worlds, general and special education, and it is important to me that I bring awareness to this extremely specialized section of education.

While there are obvious differences between general and special education, the biggest one I have dealt with during the pandemic is the transition between in-person to virtual learning. (I have many thoughts about how education is advancing to a more virtual majority, but I will stay within my wheel-house for this critique.) VI Education is more complicated than general learning because it is a tactile profession. Knowledge and connection is shared through physical touch and cannot be replicated virtually. How do you provide exceptional education to VI students when you remove their physical learning tool? The answer, in short, is through creativity by exceptional teachers.

These incredible teachers are having to pivot their expertise with precision. To express the disheveled transition during the beginning of the pandemic is grossly understated. During the time that teachers of the world were uploading and formatting their virtual classrooms, the VI department was struggling to understand their place in this computerized world. We had to maneuver through the expanded world of tech education by finding a way to convert the now cyber world into its tactile equivalent. Lessons that used to consist of hand under hand instruction are now conducted over a screen, with the hope that the new “aide” can comprehend the specifics of a unique sector of communication that utilized raised dots.

There may be some Devil’s Advocates out there that would like to point out that with the advancement of society’s use of technology, this should already be sprinkled within all education. To that, I say you are correct. The access to a wide-range of telecommunication equipment has expanded in the last several years. However, the technology available to SpEd students does’t always integrate effectively with what school districts choose to employ. The equipment designed to catapult primary education into the future is leaving behind an extensive population of students.

Education for the Visually Impaired does not just revolve around classroom materials. Partnering with the TVIs are the Certified Orientation and Mobility Specialists (COMS). As their title illustrates, the COMS instructors assist VI students as they maneuver through their unseen world. This includes their school and neighborhood environments, as well as allowing for the exploration of future independence in a society rooted in ableism. This is not an easy profession to manipulate virtually, as you can imagine. Nevertheless, these teachers succeeded. They found a way to capture their expanse of the world into a lesson that could be conducted through distance learning.

In my realm of the Low Incidents department, we had a dynamic supervisor. A powerhouse who found ways for us to flourish and who fought for our essential access to a variety of things like office entry and material transportation. That act of essential classification was a game changer. 

In the beginning, when our society was in limbo about our path forward through the remainder of the school year, many teachers in my area were able to Supermarket Sweep their way through their offices for necessary supplies and materials. My district is lucky, our braillist elders passed down techniques for handmade production which helped in our first wave of pandemic production. While we didn’t have access to our boisterous, bulky, and complicated braille embossers, we were still able to get minimal materials sent to students by employing these hand-manipulating approaches. Once we were allowed back into the fully equipped braille office, even at a reduced time allotment, we were back up and running with expert quality and quantity.

Being back in the office didn’t ease all of our troubles, however,  it presented a few new challenges. It was wonderful to have full access to the braille resource library and the plethora of materials we use on a daily basis, but with the TVIs working remote, our mode of transportation for materials disappeared. The fear of the unknown had clouded itself around the city, and isolation practices were put into place for everyone’s safety. While this was a necessity, it also prevented us from delivering materials directly. This is where our department came together and found a solution, we utilized the postal service and their braille exempt procedures. After several weeks of furor, the VI department was back to quality work in the quantity we are accustomed to produce.

I have witnessed many amazing things from our department, and none has or will be matched by what we were able to scrape together during the spring 2020 school semester. The trifecta of this education powerhouse, the TVIs-COMS-AMS along with a strong leader above us, we found a way through ingenious collaboration and adaptation to bring virtual education to our students. On a perfect school day we are misrepresented, and the panic through the pandemic added extra layers of hardship for the SpEd sector. You can’t expect the masses to understand the particular world of Special Education, let alone an exclusive division like VI, but that doesn’t mean it’s an excuse for erasure. We had to find our way back on course after being flung into space, and while it was challenging, we learned that there is nothing we can’t do with extraordinary educators.

As we continue to take sharp lefts in education normalcy, I feel we are better prepared for VI education in Distance Learning going forward. Not necessarily because of extra guidance from the top, but because I know what we are capable of accomplishing. My team is strong, creative, and with our fearless leader, the 2020-2021 school year will be accessible to all. Don’t forget however, that no matter what is happening on the homefront for virtual learning, tireless teachers everywhere are the wizards behind the curtain keeping things together.

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It is true that this written exploration of forgotten teachers only focused on a specific sector of special education, but all educators deserve enormous praise. We would not be where we are if it was not for our past educators, and we must never forget that.

For more information on visually impaired experience, please read Haben: The First Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law by Haben Girma, explore the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired website, or investigate the guidelines for education of the NFB and BANA organizations.

Written by Lisa Marie Mejia
Images by LMM, a snapshot into the world of VI resources