Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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Teaching geography to a student with Visual impairment. I need advice. (self.Blind)
submitted by chicken_ear
I have been teaching for 10 years and next year I will be getting an 8th grade student who is blind. I teach world geography. So, part of the curriculum involves the use of maps. Obviously its very visual. Her current social studies teacher has a raised map of the USA that she uses, but I want to make the use of maps more authentic to her. I dont really have my students memorizing names of places on maps. The way I teach mapping has more to do with navigational skills and using maps for a reference. I'd like to think of it as being more grounded in how one would use a map in everyday life. So, I am wondering what people with visual impairments use to understand maps, the physical and political space around them, and how to navigate it. Any help in located resources or information is greatly appreciated.
fastfinge 3 points 7y ago
I'm not a teacher and don't really have any resources to recommend, but I'll share my thoughts, on the off-chance it helps.
Personally, I just use GPS. Braille maps are too large, too expensive, and too slow to be practical in my every day navigation. I haven't felt a raised map of anything in the last 20 years or so, and if you gave me one right this second, I doubt I could do anything useful with it.
The one thing that did help me as a student was focusing on what we were passing during travel. My family always had a car when I was growing up, and as someone who is totally blind, the car might as well have been some kind of magical transporter. Get in at home, sit in the car for four hours, and get out at my Grandparents. Unless someone made a point to talk about the streets and highways we're taking, and the cities we're passing through, they just wouldn't register with me at all. So it took a long time before I was familiar with the main streets of my own city, or what cities and towns were nearby.
As for world geography, I have a vague idea where most countries are, but I mostly know them by things like statistics (size, population, climate, etc). But if you asked me to name all of the countries that share a border with France, I'd be at a loss. France is in Europe, across the channel from England, and has the sort of climate that grows grapes. That's really all I've ever needed to know.
Personally, I just use GPS. Braille maps are too large, too expensive, and too slow to be practical in my every day navigation. I haven't felt a raised map of anything in the last 20 years or so, and if you gave me one right this second, I doubt I could do anything useful with it.
The one thing that did help me as a student was focusing on what we were passing during travel. My family always had a car when I was growing up, and as someone who is totally blind, the car might as well have been some kind of magical transporter. Get in at home, sit in the car for four hours, and get out at my Grandparents. Unless someone made a point to talk about the streets and highways we're taking, and the cities we're passing through, they just wouldn't register with me at all. So it took a long time before I was familiar with the main streets of my own city, or what cities and towns were nearby.
As for world geography, I have a vague idea where most countries are, but I mostly know them by things like statistics (size, population, climate, etc). But if you asked me to name all of the countries that share a border with France, I'd be at a loss. France is in Europe, across the channel from England, and has the sort of climate that grows grapes. That's really all I've ever needed to know.
chicken_ear [OP] 2 points 7y ago
Thank you. As a teacher, I'd like to believe that I am teaching life skills, and I want to give her the knowledge and tools that she will need to understand our world and the relationships between the places. Your input and insight insight ibto real world application is what I need. Mapping is only a small component, but one that I am stressing over. Themes like History, Government, Economics, and Cultures should be easily accessible enough, and what I mainly focus on anyway. I just want to do right by my students.
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