On
October 20, 2016, I presented with Jay Wyant and Jennie Delisi from the
State of Minnesota’s Office of Accessibility, and my mom. The following is what
my mom and I shared with the audience for our presentation, Accessibility
and Printed Materials that Prepare Tomorrow’s Workforce.
I
am honored to talk to you about my experiences, with accessibility. It has not
been easy for me because of some barriers that I experienced myself in school.
I am going to talk about some of these barriers and then share how I can be
most independent when accessible classroom materials are set up well for me.
My
mom, Kris Schulze, has helped me ever since the beginning. She often would do
what she could to make my work as accessible as possible and help me prepare to
be more independent so that I can go to college and become an author.
Barriers
Along
with cerebral palsy, or CP, I also have auditory neuropathy and hearing loss.
Even with hearing aids, my hearing can still be like a static-y radio. Let me
tell you what happens when closed captioning is not turned on for classroom
videos or movies – I cannot hear and sometimes cannot process what is being
said. I would have to watch the video or film over again at home with
captioning turned on. This means more time spent doing homework that others did
not have to do. Captioning can help many students, not just those of us with
hearing difficulties. In college and in future jobs, I will also need closed
captioning or CART
(communication access real-time translation).
Another
barrier for me was the move to Google Docs in my school. When I type, I use one
finger on an adaptive keyboard and a joystick mouse. I have found that Google
requires more mouse movements to do the same thing that I do in Microsoft Word.
I can highlight two sentences in Microsoft Word in 20 seconds because I can
turn the highlighter mode on in just one click. It is easier to highlight the
important parts of whatever topic I’m learning about. Guess how long it takes
in Google Docs? Almost twice as long - 38 seconds with five to six extra mouse
clicks to highlight the same two sentences. Imagine how that extra time can add
up when reading long documents when I get to college.
Another
difficulty I faced often, especially in high school, was that I would receive
the handouts during class. My paraprofessionals would write answers and I could
not read their handwriting. Later when it was scanned, it was inaccessible. I
could not use text-to-speech to read the answers back out loud or go in and
type in answers of my own very easily. This is the type of work that could be
set up for me to do by myself with very little help. Yet, this kind of thing
happened so very often to me. This brings me to my next barrier – delivery.
I,
if at all possible, need classroom materials ahead of time. It takes me four to
five times longer to do the same amount of work as a lot of other students.
This means an assignment that takes another student an hour to do may take me
four to five hours. If I did not get assignments ahead of time I fell behind
the rest of the class. No one wants to be behind.
Over
time, this is getting easier because of school learning systems like Schoology.
Also, I would have teachers who e-mailed me assignments ahead of time. I had my
share of teachers who were not technology brave or organized. It takes me a lot
of energy to go through a school day. Three hours of homework after school was
difficult. I needed weekends to keep up.
My
mom will tell you more about planning and how important it was for me to be
able to participate in class in ways that mattered.
Mom’s part of the presentation
Planning
ahead and allowing for extra time was crucial for getting a head start on
assignments and preparing to participate fully in class. A lot of Justin’s
teachers did their best to make this happen and tried to get Justin assignments
ahead of time and extended due dates. Most were on board
with reducing the volume of what we’d think of as “busy work.” There
were others where we struggled to make it work. By making sure Justin had
work ahead of time and knew what was coming, he was better able to balance
homework loads from multiple classes. Unfortunately, that didn’t always
happen and he would find out about big assignments at the same time as other
students.
As
Justin mentioned, it takes probably 4-5 times longer for him to complete
assignments than the average time it takes most students to complete
assignments. That means if a student or teacher expects students to spend about
10 hours on a research paper,that same assignment, could easily take Justin
40-50 hours to complete. His brother now is going through some of the same
classes as Justin had as a sophomore and doesn’t spend nearly as much time on
homework. I remember Justin spending at least an hour or two a day keeping up
with homework for some of those same classes.
For
Justin to more actively participate in class, answer questions, or express
his ideas – he needs to have quick responses programmed into his
device – because otherwise by the time he types out a response, the rest
of the class will be 3-4 questions past the one he wanted to respond
to. He needs a heads up a day or two before so he can take the time
to program some quick responses or ideas he wants to share into his
communication device. For class presentations, we go through a process where
Justin does the research and work of preparing the PowerPoint, and then spends
additional time telling me what to program into his communication device.
That takes time. But, what an impact his voice and his words have, as
evidenced through his speech to a 3000 person audience at his high school
graduation ceremony last summer.
I
think some of the things that educators and his support team may not always be
aware of, is what life looks like for the hours beyond the school
day. A typical day for Justin starts with 1½ hours getting dressed and eating
breakfast. In high school, he took 4 academic courses, an adaptive phy ed
course so that he could get out of his chair and stretch mid-day, and a
resource hour to work on homework. He would come home from school, get out of
his chair for around 30 minutes, and then start in on homework for 2-3 hours.
That would take us up to dinnertime. It takes about an hour to feed Justin
dinner. He then would have about 30 minutes to do whatever he wanted before it
would be time to start getting ready for bed – that takes about another hour.
He needs a good 10 hours + hours of sleep a night. On weekends, he would often
spend 6-10 more hours doing homework, more if working on longer writing
assignments. We often felt pretty out of balance in our
household. Planning was critical in helping make it a bit less
chaotic and frantic.
What
did a typical homework assignment often look like for Justin, check it out in
this quick video: Inaccessibility
Back to Justin
So,
this happened over and over and over again. My mom or dad would get home from
work, or my personal care attendant would need to help me with homework that
was not accessible. Text-to-speech would not work. Sometimes, it was easier to
have someone just retype worksheets so that I could use them. I would dictate
my answers because of how long it takes me to type.
When
course materials are not accessible for me that means, that I am more dependent
on others to do things that I could have been able to do on my own. I want to
be as independent as possible. I know it may seem difficult to make materials
accessible, but Jennie Delisi will tell you ways in which to do this, because
accessibility matters!
Jennie
Delisi and Jay Wyant, from the State of Minnesota’s Office
of Accessibility, presented ways in which to prepare accessible documents
as well as why accessibility is needed. Please check their website for finding
helpful resources.
Accessibility matters
I
want to show you what happens when things work well for me. Thanks to Bookshare, I am able to read
independently. Let me tell you, I read non-stop! Not just for school, but I
read all kinds of literature. Also, teachers who use tests and worksheets that
include a mix of multiple choice, short and long answers works well for me.
Because
I have a difficult time with hearing, I find additional online resources help
me better understand what we’re learning in class. I just got to see John Green
at NerdCon: Stories in October. John
and Hank Green create Crash
Course, an entertaining way to learn about history and other topics. Khan Academy and Crash Course helped me
make it through my high school career. You can check my earlier blog post for
more resources that were helpful for me and you can check out my speech that I
gave at high school graduation. To wrap up, let’s check out what I can do when
materials are accessible for me: Accessibility.
