TEACHERS TAKE NOTE

Keep Your Ear on the Ball

Genevieve Petrillo

Illustrated by Lea Lyon

Hardcover, $16.95, ISBN 978-0-88448-296-3

9 x 10, 32 pages, color illustrations

Children / Character Education; Grades 3-6

Keep Your Ear on the Ball offers a great opportunity for exploring a variety of ideas surrounding raising awareness of different abilities:

• What are some skills and tools used by blind people?
• What does it mean to be independent vs. interdependent?

Activities

You can ask your students to define each word and discuss why a classmate with a "disability" might want to assert independence. And, why classmates might want to reach out to help. And how these two goals might intermingle.

Imagine what it might be like to be blind. Write a journal entry (or speak into a tape player or video tape) about your imagined experience as a newly blind person, and/or as a person who has been blind your whole life.

What are the many senses we use to understand and function in our daily lives? This is a brainstorming activity. Leaders might want to add prompts by illustrating the senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, movement. For instance, you might use props to help illustrate these senses, such as wind chimes, nature tapes for sound; different textured fabrics for touch; scented oils, air fresheners, perfumes for smell; rocking chairs, exercise, dancing for movement.

How do we communicate with each other? This is also brainstorming, though, in order to help bring the focus around to sight impairment, you might want to mention gesture if your kids do not. For instance, facial expression is helpful to fully understanding a person's meaning, how does this nuance play into communication for a sightless person? The written word and Braille are important to include.

How do we solve problems with sensitivity toward individual needs? This is an invitation for all to put themselves into the shoes of another. You might want to focus on the kids solving the dilemma of Davey playing kickball in a manner that would still give Davey independence.

Since Genevieve Petrillo had David De Notaris ("Davey," in the story) in her classroom as a real-life student many years ago, technology has improved for blind and seeing-impaired students."If Davey was in a classroom today, he would use a kid-size long white cane and, most likely, would not have run over the first baseman," says Lorraine Rovig, the Program Operations Specialist for the National Federation of the Blind. White canes offer true freedom of movement, says Rovig. What other ways has technology improved? Brainstorm for a while, then you might do an internet search to find out.

Activity: I'm Listening

Here is an activity Genevieve Petrillo uses in her classroom. It will engage the students in the successful use of listening in place of their sense of sight.

• Have one student stand or sit at the front of the classroom with his/her back to the class and eyes closed.
• The rest of the class should quietly hand a beach ball from student to student.
• Whenever he/she is ready, the student at the front of the room says, "I'm listening."
• The child holding the ball at that point should bounce and catch it a few times.
• With eyes closed, the student who is "listening" must turn and point in the direction of the ball and try to name the student who is bouncing it.

Please Note: Author, Carol Castellano (Making it Work: Educating the Blind/Visually Impaired Student in the Regular School, Information Age Publishing, Inc., 2005) urges teachers to resist blindfolding students to simulate blindness. She says: "Wearing a blindfold for a little while might show what it would be like to suddenly lose vision, but it certainly does not show what it is like to be blind. If children are blindfolded but are not taught any of the skills that real blind people use, they are likely to emerge from a simulation experience feeling that blindness is scary, sad, and difficult. Instead of fostering acceptance, understanding, and respect, these exercises engender sadness, fear, and pity. Instead of thinking of their blind classmate as a potential friend, students can end up feeling more distant from their blind classmate and feeling sorry for him or her. A better way to foster understanding and promote friendships is through a presentation that will promote respect for the blind student and the skills and tools she will be using."

Castellano encourages teachers to invite a blind guest to the classroom to share first-hand experience. She also suggests these activities:

• Point out that the number five on a phone pad usually has a tactile marking that blind people use as a reference point when dialing; let students try to find the marking using their sense of touch. Some might then want to locate the other numbers.
• Children often wonder how a blind person can eat without being able to see. Put several plastic forks and spoons in a bag; have the students reach in the bag and retrieve either the spoons or the forks. They will see how easily they were able to discern which was which. Then have them close their eyes and see if they can get a spoon to their mouths. Point out that they probably brush their teeth without looking.
• Set up role play situations in which one child closes her eyes and a partner tries to "show" her an object. Students will soon see that using words and putting the object into the blind child's hands will be effective.
• Brainstorm ways to get a blind child into games (just like Davey's classmates did!).

Additional Books

Through Grandpa's Eyes by Patricia MacLachlan (HarperCollins, 1983)

John's blind grandfather shares with him the special see he moves and sees in the world.

Mom's Best Friend by Sally Hobart Alexander (Simon & Schuster, 1992)

Tells about getting and working with a new guide dog.