A Personal Perspective by John G. Conrad
Special Education Teacher, O & M Specialist, Anchorage School District
I was born in 1967, way before many of the modern technologies were even dreamed of and before the medical profession understood many of the issues they know about today. What my parents did not know was that I had been born with a visual impairment. Understandably, it was not recognized until I was 7 years old and was starting second grade, the teacher called my parents and said, “Johnny is a great little reader, but he reads very close to the books and has difficulty seeing the chalk board”. That phone call was the beginning of many visits to doctors, tests, and trips to upstate New York for extensive testing at Rochester and Elmira Hospitals. All of which came to the same conclusion that my first ophthalmologist in Fairbanks had diagnosed, that I had a condition called Leber’s Optic Atrophy.
I continued to do well in school until I reached high school. At which time I started having more difficulties reading the bigger, thicker textbooks that had finer 
print. With a little help from a special education teacher assistant, I managed to pass successfully. My vision impairment was never really viewed as a “loss of vision” to me, it was more of a minor inconvenience. I played ice hockey throughout my elementary, junior high and high school years. I was named MVP three times in high school and loved the fast moving sport. It was during my senior year when I started to experience another sensory difficulty. It was very subtle at first, but I eventually realized I was having some difficulty understanding what was being said to me, it really had nothing to do with a hearing loss as opposed to a discrimination loss. The big awakening to this was in the summer of 1987, the year after I graduated from high school, I had attempted to join the army and I failed the hearing test. I continued with my college studies and it seemed that life just became more and more difficult for me. Finally, in the summer of 1988 I received my first set of optical aids, which allowed me to read more easily. These were acquired through the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation and they had actually sent me to see a low-vision specialist in Seattle who recommended several different pairs of optical aids for me both for distance and near use. Since that time I have gone on to graduate with a teaching degree in 1995 and then obtained a M.A, degree in 2002.
Being visually impaired was initially a set back for me when I was in high school, my friends all getting driver’s licenses and going places. I had dreamed of becoming an Alaska State Trooper all through high school, but it just could not happen. I then looked at other ways I could be in law enforcement, but that is when my hearing difficulty became an issue. In October of 1991, when I was 22 I obtained my first set of hearing aids. I was consequently forced to acknowledge that I had a significant discrimination loss and needed the help of hearing aids to get clarification of the different sounds and phonetic blends in the English language.
Today, I find more humor in being dual sensory impaired than I do frustration. Often I get teased by friends and colleagues about my hearing, as I often hear what is being said but sometimes it takes me a while before I figure out what was actually said. An old friend used to always say, “if you tell John something, give him an hour and he’ll get it.” I often use various examples to illustrate how difficult it is to experience difficulty with discrimination of sound. When I was fourteen, I was in New York with my relatives and having lots of vision testing done. One weekend I went shopping with my aunt Mary in Hornell, NY. I had been in New York for maybe two weeks and the weather had been cloudy everyday. Well, we had been in the store shopping and when we finally came outside the sky was clear and the sun was shining brightly. I looked up at my aunt and declared, “look the sky is clear!” Right at that very moment an elderly man was walking down the sidewalk coming towards us and my aunt looked at me and said, “how do you know that guy is queer?” I burst into laughter. Another time, not too long ago I was eating dinner with my wife’s aunt in a noisy cafeteria. Her aunt was regularly teasing me about my hearing. I noticed her husband was not there and I asked her, “Is Joe on nights again?” She was in the middle of taking a bite of her food and she looked at me with a silly expression and said, “No John! this is not Mexican.” The phonetic sounds, sky’s clear/guys queer and nights again/Mexican, to me they sound the same and when I catch other people making these mistakes, it is funny and I remember them as examples of how difficult it can be for me. Of course my wife’s aunt does not tease me anymore either!!☺
Some people say to me, if you have hearing difficulty why don’t you learn to read lips. That would be a luxury for other people to have, but not me, I am also visually impaired making it impossible for me to learn that skill. I have however, taken ASL I, II, & III. This has become a valuable communication tool for me. Of course I can only read ASL if it is signed within five feet or closer to me. Again this leads me to an old joke. When I was in graduate school in Michigan, I met a lady who already had her degree in O&M and was working on a rehabilitation degree and we took some classes together. We always sat far apart it seemed. After my first couple of classes, I had asked some classmates for the name of the pretty, young, blond in our class who sat way across from me. I told them I would like to meet her and talk about some travel techniques. None of my classmates knew whom I was talking about. They said there was a blond lady but she was not young. The next time in class I pointed her out and my classmates told me that was Suzanne, age fifty something and yes blond, with lots of wrinkles. I laughed and eventually we met and Suzanne and I have become great friends and pen pals over the years. Suzanne always says, “if you want a compliment from John on your looks have him give it from 20 feet away”….☺
I have been teaching special education for thirteen years and everyday is a new challenge for me. Currently, I work with students who experience severe disabilities. I love the challenge they provide me and the success I see is so rewarding. Being visually and hearing impaired is never easy, I often go home at the end of every day quite tired from having to concentrate so hard each day on every student, adult and parent I come into contact with. A former colleague of mine asked me once to share what I find the most frustrating in my life. My response was this, “my life is not difficult, it is quite easy and I am generally a very happy person content with successes I have had and continue to have. What I find difficult or frustrating, are the people who are unwilling to understand my impairments. The people who are impatient and sometimes outright rude, those are the difficulties I often experience, but they are not my difficulties.” I have the following saying tacked on my wall at school, “A Positive Anything is Better than a Negative Nothing.”
An individual with a disability, like anyone else, has many wonderful characteristics, those who know that person will see those traits, others may see only the disability. But the individual with a disability knows far better what they feel, see, hear, touch and taste. I strive for more, reach farther than I should at times and use my handicaps to my advantage most of the time. Now that I have grown older, I look back at what I have experienced and accomplished and use my knowledge and skills to advocate for others, to teach them that their handicap does not mean an end, but a new road to a new beginning everyday.
the pool at no charge. She completed her first 12-week session and already has 10 kids signed up for her second session beginning in January 2009. A parent of a child who was involved in a water accident and was terrified of the water said, “I never thought my son would ever put his toe in a swimming pool let alone get in and learn to float. She has brought the joy of swimming back to my son.”
comments