week 3 - Lake Ella

This week my main supervising teacher was out so I got to work with another COMS at the Lighthouse. I am glad I got the opportunity to see another person's 'mobility style'. They are both excelent, caring teachers and I'm happy to be able to observe them.
This week I went to a few locations in Tallahassee to try to piece together a route for a client. One of these places was Lake Ella. Our client wanted to get from the bus stop to a near by cafe. Anyone who has ever been to Lake Ella knows that while it is very beautiful, their sidewalks are a hot mess!!! They come together a weird angles because the main sidewalk around the lake it curved. The bus stop is near the cottages, so to get past the cottages to the main sidewalk was very tricky. I thought I had a good route going until I came across a giant log laying in the middle of my path. Also, to get to the cafe from the main sidewalk was difficult because there were no permanent landmarks that I could see, and no sidewalk leading up to the cafe. I was there for about an hour walking aroung and around, taking notes, and looking for landmarks. By far the most difficult thing about this was that I had never worked with this client before. All I knew was that he was totally blind, and had some issues with focusing. I didn't know how good or bad his cane skills were, if he was okay with walking in wide open spaces with no shoreline, how good his balance was, or his orientation. That's when it really dawned on me that what I was doing was almost imposible. Our lessons should always be based on the unique needs of each individual. If I tried to make a "one size fits all" route based soley on the fact that this client is totally blind, it could be a huge waste of time. This is exactly what happened when we worked with the client the next day, he had his own route in mind and was able to travel it fairly well because it made sense to him. I know the job of a COMS is to make sure the cleint safely and efficently gets to where he needs to go. His route was both safe and efficent, so the COMS did not try to make him walk the route she had planned. Instead she tried to make his route smoother by providing information about landmarks and cues. She mentioned the noise of the cars on Monroee St., this helped the man know when and where to turn to get to the bus stop. This was just another example of stepping back, letting the student figure things out, and being there to enhance learning instead of to force learning.
Overall this week was great. I've started doing the paperwork immediatly after wotking with the client, instead of saving it all for the end of the week. This helps because my memory is still fresh, and I'm not overwhelemed on Friday with a pile of paperwork.