Interview assignment essay structure and format

¶ … Sarah but that's not her real name. Sarah has been blind since birth. Actually she sees some colors, she can stand in front of a tree and know that is a tree because it is tall and dark. But most of the world she sees is lights and darks. She can tell if there is sunlight or cloudiness. Besides her blindness, she is an otherwise perfectly healthy person who is 5-feet 4-inches tall, with big brown eyes, brunette hair, and a petite figure and tiny hands. Sarah is very attractive and charming and well liked. She finished high school with only two "B" grades notwithstanding the fact that she took all advanced classes, and she took classes for very bright students that were not necessarily along the lines of her greatest interest; but she took them because she always wanted to know more.

Sarah's Occupational History

Sarah is a very talented person. She never felt sorry for herself or isolated herself from activities. She has been in plays in high school and in the community, and has become known as a person with extraordinary talent to hit the high notes and to user her vibrato to her best possible advantage. When people in the community are asked about Sarah, they don't say, "Oh Sarah, the blind girl," but rather they know the quality of her voice. During the interview we talked about how much fun it was for her to be in plays, to be in the choirs she has been in and to be in talent shows. In fact there are studies that show that musical talent and vision impairment "are closely linked," so it's no surprise that Sarah has become such a talented singer and musician. (Tobin, 2012).

Her most regular musical involvement is on Sunday mornings when she sings in the choir at the local Roman Catholic Church. She says she looks forward to Thursday night choir practice as much as she does the Sunday mass during which she is the soloist for the choir. All the music is of course printed in Braille for Sarah, and she offered to pay the extra cost of having the sheet music printed in Braille but the Father at the Catholic Church would have none of that.

"I knew when I was a little girl that I had a good voice for singing. My voice was a little weak for talking -- sometimes I have to speak up to be heard in a group -- but for singing, I knew I had a strong voice, and once I had joined my first choir at church, the musical director told me I could do opera if I wanted. So I have sung mostly classical music and music from Broadway shows. I have made some CDs that I am proud of."

One of those CDs has three songs on it, and it shows the talent this 19-year-old woman has. She sings "Vittoria Mio Core" -- which means "victorious my heart" -- by Gian Giacomo Carissimi; she also sings "The Daisies" by Samuel Barber; and the third song on the CD is "If I Were a Bell" by Frank Loesser.

Using the Occupational History Profile for Sarah is not very helpful or germane to her situation because she is not seeking any services from any agency or person. Her life experiences are many, including the fact that her mother was killed in a car crash when Sarah was just six years old. "I came home from first grade and my dad was crying very loudly and mom was not there. I asked what happened, and dad was drunk and incoherent but my brother was there and he hugged me and told me mom had died. This experience is in my mind and heart even today, and it has taught me how fragile life can be.

"Not only is my own life fragile and my mortality is just as temporary as anyone else's mortality, but I know how quickly and unfairly someone you love can be taken from you. These are lessons I have learned but because I'm blind I process them in a different way perhaps than other people do."

In the Occupational Profile it asks what areas are causing problems, or causing risks. Sarah has never had a problem getting around, communicating with people, or being part of the community in which she lives. She was asked in her high school junior year if she was offered a chance to have a healthy set of eyes given to her, would she go through an operation like that? She replied that she would not want eyes. Her world has been developed and crafted in her mind for all these years without eyes. "Why would I want eyes now?" She asked. "For people who are sighted, it would be a huge shock to suddenly not be able to see. And those people can't believe that I wouldn't want eyes if I could get them. But I don't need eyes any more than Stevie Wonder needs eyes. Look at the great music he has produced seeing as he does with his other senses."

Theoretical Perspective -- Kawa -- and Sarah

Looking at Sarah's life so far using the Kawa Japanese theory is very enlightening. Right now she has been accepted at a state university following her senior year of high school which she took in Spain (she took 3 years of Spanish in the U.S. But she wanted to learn Spanish by living in Spain). The water flowing in her life gives her a sense of clarity; in other words, her life flow has been in the direction of becoming a journalist, of learning new styles of music, of getting involved with a university community.

The river's side walls (Kawa Zoko) -- Sarah's environment -- is what has made her decide to leave her community and go away to a university. Her family members and close friends miss her but everyone understands why she must leave. The river walls include her father's alcoholism, which she had to put up with throughout her young life. "I would be doing my homework in my room and my dad would be drunk from morning to night. He would stumble into my room and ask me if I was doing my homework, and I would politely say, 'yes, I'm doing my physics assignment.' He would criticize me for being 'elite' and I would just smile because I knew I was making a life for myself that would get me out of the house and away from him." So Sarah has now broken away from the Kawa Zoko because there were obstructions like rocks and driftwood in her river flow.

The Iwa (rocks) include her father's drunkenness. She needed rides to and from school and to and from choir practices and she always feared that when her dad drove drunk he would have an accident and she would have the same fate as her mother. "I know my dad tried hard to take good care of me, and he did drive me to so many places, and was kind to me overall, but I really could not communicate with him on a rational, intelligent level when he started drinking vodka and soda before mid-morning."

On page 1131 of the Kawa model (Iwama, 2009) the writers say that "…a barrier-free environment can decrease one's disability," and in Sarah's case the barrier has been removed, and that barrier was living at home in a small town with a father (and step mother) who drink alcohol often and in great quantities. As to the driftwood (Ryuboku) in her life, Sarah is very generous, very sweet, and very religious, and considering that she is blind, she has many wonderful assets that drift along her river of energy and talent. She doesn't need any interventions, and her newest occupation is being a freshman at a big university.