Despite having a licensed special needs teacher and a near-full-time aide, there were simply too many students needing attention and instruction for the two severely visually impaired students in the classroom to receive the level of individualized attention and instruction that was truly necessary. There was an assortment of materials, including a wide array of books in Braille and one Braille writing machine for each of the two students (the books were very well used; the machines were new and, I subsequently learned, had been purchased by the parents and in fact belonged to the students privately -- this was deemed for efficient and cost effective for all concerned). Group instruction, however, often found these two students only half paying attention.
The teacher and aide both made an obvious effort to include the two students as much as possible, but there were certain activities that were so visually based that it was simply impossible to expect true engagement on the part of the severely visually impaired. One group activity the class engaged in was identifying shapes from large flashcards, and inclusion of the students with visual impairments was attempted by counting the number of sides, in order...
Students were prone to shout out answers when they knew them, however, and the visually impaired students were quite obviously left out of such spontaneity. Arithmetic, too, provided no small amount of difficulty, as having a visual reference for the numbers one was working with was a primary part of the learning process for the other students in the class. The visually impaired students were given solid objects (small blocks) to assist them in a similar process, but it was quite clear that the teacher lacked confidence in this substitute as a sufficient means of imparting the same lesson.
The issue of how to more effectively handle manage the education of the visually impaired is not a simple one. More resources are certainly needed, but it can usually be shown that a greater number of students will benefit by using those resources elsewhere. Including more comprehensive training methods for educating individuals with severe visual impairments in special needs instructor education could help to mitigate many of the problems, as the number of instructors specially trained in this area has diminished recently.
