There's a whole long, disgusting history of IQ tests. But what they test is
whether one has been exposed to certain kinds of information and has managed to
learn it. All of us who received rehab services, were given some sort of IQ
test at one time or another. I think I tesed 121 or 125. Whatever it was, and
it was when I was about eighteen years old, I was disappointed. I think my
cousin tested 150. Well, he had normal eyesight and attended a fancy college so
of course he tested higher. Much later, I discovered that it was like any other
test and had little to do with innate ability and a lot to do with opportunity
to learn whatever it was that the test was testing. Then I began reading really
distressing books about the eugenics movement, particularly the book about the
case in which they used that normal girl, something Buck, to prove that she,
her baby, and her mother were mentally retarded when, in fact, they were
nothing of the sort, just poor and powerless. I've never attended a rehab
center, however. A few years after I graduated from high school, the Commission
here, began requiring that all blind high school graduates attend a summer
rehab program if they were to be sponsored for college. I don't think I would
have liked being in a rehab center much. I did attend a recreation program for
blind youngsters. Later in life, I went on several trips arranged for blind
travelers. I had real difficulties with the attitudes displayed toward blind
people by the sighted people who were supposed to be assisting them, especially
as an adult who was paying a good deal of money for my traveling experience and
was treated in such a patronizing and superior manner by the sighted people who
were with us. And I really could not conceal all of my resentment of their
attitudes. But today on the blindness list, I resent the superior attitudes of
the tech savvy blind people who act superior to those of us who aren't good at
technology. And I resent the attitude on the BARD Talk list that we are
supposed to grovel and be grateful to the point that we never sound critical of
NLS, or the Jaws list where there is actually a rule that list members may not
say anything critical about Freedom Scientific. I also resent the assumption of
the advocacy organizations that the blind people who count, the only ones they
are really representing, are the young, competent blind people who are
gainfully employed. Huge numbers of blind people have never been able to find
jobs. And the majority of those who do, find them within the blindness system.
If they're not working for agencies for the blind, they're working for
technology companies that specialize in blind products. In other words, blind
people can work, but usually, it's in protected and segregated environments.
The rest have found jobs in government. The rare blind person has been able to
find employment in corporate America. And there's this hierarchy among the
blind with people with top jobs in blindness agencies and government, who run
the advocacy agencies and say that they represent, "The Blind". Well, one
sector of the blind whom they don't represent, is the newly blind elderly, and
another group that gets little attention, except for NFB's concern about
sheltered workshops, are the people who are not only blind, but mentally
disabled. So I guess what I'm saying is that the Blind Community has its own
class system.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
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[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey ;
(Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2017 4:13 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Re:
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[blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democr
Read The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen J. Gould. It does a pretty good job of
debunking IQ tests. The upshot is that they try to measure a wide variety of
human abilities and propensities and try to give all of them one number and
that just does not provide much information. I think that what was actually
being measured in my case was that I am a lifelong fanatic reader and my
personal compulsion to learn everything. That kind of prepares one for test
taking. When I first registered with the rehab agency my eyesight was
decreasing and I might very well have been legally blind, but I was still
driving a car. They had apparently contracted with Goodwill Industries for
testing and they sent me to Goodwill for my first round of testing. I did get
all of those dexterity tests and balance tests and so forth, but also an IQ
test. I knew enough about IQ tests that even though they didn't tell me that it
was an IQ test I knew it anyway. My tester looked at what I produced and
mumbled the word impressive. By the time I got in the rehab center my eyesight
had deteriorated to the point that I couldn't tell one person from another by
looking at them. They declared my earlier test results invalid for two reasons.
One was my further loss of eyesight. The other was that my results were on the
extremes of the bell curve, both extremes and that did not seem likely to them.
They didn't elaborate, but I knew instantly which ones were on which extreme. I
am sure that I flunked everything physical and aced everything that was on
paper, including the IQ test. They decided they had to do it all over again.
This time I couldn't take any tests on paper so I wasn't quite sure when they
sneaked in the IQ test, but at a later time someone told me when it was
probably administered and I think he was probably right. It would have been
when a staff psychologist seemed to be playing trivial pursuit with me. He
asked me various questions for a long time and I answered them. Most were
either just asking me a question for which I had to come up with my own answer
or asking multiple choice questions. I know I did very well except for when he
asked me who wrote Faust. I couldn't remember. Again, lots of reading did a lot
toward my impressing those people so much. The guy I finally asked for my IQ
score said that out of every hundred people I was smarter than at least 99 of
them. I took note of the words at least. My own feel for how well I did makes
me think that it was probably well above that. That does qualify me for Mensa,
but I am not very interested in joining. That would be like seeking out a grand
falloon. If you read Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut you will find out that a
grand falloon is a forced association of people who have nothing in common with
each other. Vonnegut uses the Daughters of the American Revolution as an
example. Mensa would most likely be another place where I would be considered a
nonconformist. Sorry, I don't think that an IQ of 120 qualifies one for Mensa,
but, despite the impression people who want to brag about their IQs want to
give, IQ is highly malleable. Your IQ might very well have changed by now to
qualify you.
On 4/5/2017 11:26 AM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
Roger,
Funny thing is that West Virginia in 1989 sounded very much like
Washington State in 1965. The first several days I was attending the
Center, I was put through a battery of tests, including an IQ test, a
Preference Test, a Dexterity Test, and several exams by the two
on-contract psychiatrists. Most of the tests were designed to see if
I could do repetitious tasks quickly and accurately enough to work at
the Light House for the Blind. The IQ test, I figure, was to see if I
were dumb enough to buy the Bull Shit these pseudo professionals
dished out. The policy was to not tell clients their IQ scores. I'll
spare you the circular thinking that brought them to that conclusion.
but ten years later I got a look at my records and saw that I scored
120. This means that I was above average at passing their biased test
despite the fact that I was blind and the test was a standard IQ test
for all White, Middle Class Men. I keep myself from busting my
buttons with pride by telling myself that if I attempted to join the
Mensa, they would pat me on the head and help me to the door.
In 1965, we were in transition. Programs in Blind Rehabilitation were
based on the Medical Model, and often we were still referred to as,
Patients. And most of our treatment was clearly based on "Doctor
knows best" mentality. Given the mind set of the professionals in
blind rehab back in the days you attended the training, nonconformist
was a high compliment. And of course, if they had your IQ, they
figure they would all be CEO's of some Fortune 500 corporation. The
people who worked on me, providing rehab services, as well as the
people I worked with during my career, were mostly good, kind people
who wanted to do a good job...within the limits set for them by the
System. But their real goal was to rise to become a supervisor or
even a program director. They based much of their accomplishments on
whether they moved closer to their advancement goals, rather than on
how their accomplishments moved the clients toward reaching their
goals.
After being promoted to Assistant Director for Field Services, and
doing the job for 3 years, I sat down with the Director and asked for
my old job back. "But Carl" she said, "I'm retiring in another 5
years, and you would easily advance to my position as Director". I
told her that I had gone to work in the field to work with people, not
to push papers and jockey with peoples bent on advancing at all cost.
I enjoyed my work as a rehab teacher, and took the administrator
position in the OTC on the understanding that I would be in direct
contact with the students. I met with every student several times
during their training, trouble shooting problems, giving my support as
they planned their goals, and constantly directed my staff to always
keep their students dreams as their bottom line. During my time in
the Center, only one staff member promoted up to an assistant
director. That was me. And it was the wrong move. When I was back
in the OTC, having worn down the Director's resistance, it was like
returning home after a long separation. Some of those staff members
just retired, and one is now the OTC administrator. All of these
folks had come to believe that meeting the needs and helping to
support the goals of their students was far better than any promotion.
Even when the VRC's were given bigger pay raises, the Center staff
stayed true to their work. In that sense they were a room full of
nonconformists. They actually made their bottom line serving their
clients, ahead of reaching for the brass ring.
Carl Jarvis
On 4/4/17, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It was the West Virginia Rehabilitation Center in 1989. Another
interesting tidbit, throughout my life I have occasionally heard the
word nonconformist. It has only been occasionally though. While I was
at that rehab center pretty much every day some staff member or
another had to comment on my being a nonconformist. After I left I
went back to only hearing it occasionally and never in reference to
me. I also heard them comment frequently on my high IQ. Finally I
asked one what my IQ was anyway. I figured out when it was being
tested, but no one had ever told me what the results were. The one I
asked didn't either. I asked him right after he had said that with my
IQ I should be rich by now, so he questioned my motivation. Well, I
have certainly never been motivated to be rich, but I have my own set
of motivations. I am sure that he would have called my motivations a
lack of motivation. In answer to my question he said, "let's put it
this way, out of every 100 people you are smarter than at least
ninety-nine of them." I used my own knowledge of statistics to figure
out that was 129 or above. I said, "Well, if so it never has done me
any good." I supposed that was further confirmation to him of his
diagnosis of lack of motivation. If nonconformist means not fitting
in then I suppose that in that rehab center I was a nonconformist. I
certainly did not feel like I fit in there very well. I suspect that
if I used that ninety-ninth percentile IQ score to join Mensa I would
find another milieu where I would be considered a nonconformist.
On 4/4/2017 6:19 PM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
Roger,
What Center did you attend? Sounds like one out of the early 50's.
Actually, the training center in Seattle back in 1965, when I
attended, had some pretty decent students. Except for one staff
person, the "Therapists" who taught us "blindness skills" were quick
to remind us that they were the "Professionals" and we were the
Patients. We had on staff a psychiatric social worker, who worked
overtime to find just how our pathetic condition was affected by our
inept sexual mores. Alice Olson was the only decent member of the
staff. Alice was blind. She also had a blind twin sister. She was
not a Therapist. She was an instructor. She taught Braille, typing
and daily living skills. Alice was a task master, hunting us down
and walking us to class, while the therapists all sat in the staff
break room drinking coffee and complaining about their students.
By the time I became director of the training center, we had long
since cleaned house and installed some cutting edge instructors. If
you will allow me a moments bragging, I would tell you that from
1984 until 1993, I had the finest, most effective program for newly
blinded adults in the nation. Okay, bragging is over. We were
good, and we had many success stories. But of course I can scare up
some very angry former students, too. As good a program as we had,
we knew that one size did not fit all.
I tried to instill in my staff the belief that we were effective
only if we were constantly changing and growing. Sadly, this was
not in the tradition of programs that found the Truth Everlasting,
and set it in concrete.
Today I stay out of direct contact with the programs I used to direct.
I left 24 years ago, and the world is much different.
Carl Jarvis
On 4/4/17, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
At least I'm not alone. I went into rehab with a severe paucity of
adult living skills myself. It was not that I had never learned
adult living skills. It was just that most of them were rather
useless in my new condition. Then I had to face the other blind
people who were contemptuous of me for not being as functional as
they were without regard to the fact that I was brand new to this
blindness stuff. The rehab center taught me some things, but most
of these living skills I had to figure out on my own and I am still
figuring out some even now.
On 4/4/2017 11:33 AM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
Well Miriam, one thing your story points out, whether East, West,
North or South, as a nation we are run by our prejudices. And no,
your story is not something out of Blind History. It is Right Now
History in the Making. While your story is far different from
mine, overall, there are some very distinct similarities. Yours
is a story I encountered over and over while working in the
Orientation and Training Center.
In my situation blindness or vision loss was never discussed.
Despite my difficulties in school, on the play field, and in my
social life(almost Monkish in nature), I was treated as fully
sighted and expected to behave as such. So my dad taught me to
drive. This was as much a testimony to his courage as to my own
success. I learned from our lessons that I would never be safe on
the road. I never did drive, probably out of fear for my own life as
much as for others.
But I did teach my second wife to drive...although I seldom
mention it because she is such a lousy driver.
Anyway, it's very hard for a gangly young teenager to ask a girl
out on a date, knowing that he would also need to tell her that he
would be picking her up on the bus. I did some group dating, but
until my first wife and I began dating seriously, I never took a
girl out alone. But back to my growing up. The positive side of
not discussing my vision was that I was expected to do all the
same chores that anyone else in the family did. I learned to wash
and dry and put away the dishes, prepare the food for meals, and
cook. I learned to do my own laundry by the age of 12, and have
done it...along with Cathy's and the kids, ever since. I mowed
lawns, baby sat, and did odd jobs including picking beans and
strawberries for spending money.
Much of this was prior to becoming blind in my left eye at 17, but
I hadn't used that weak eye much prior to the retina detachment.
It was a very new experience to bring adult students into the OTC
who had been so sheltered that they had no adult daily living
skills and no social skills. I still chuckle at the woman, a
social worker, who asked me, "How can you expect to rehabilitate
people who have never been habilitated?"
During my entire career with the Department, it was the same story.
Parents and families driven by guilt, disappointment, anger toward
their family member. This left the blind person feeling rejected,
inferior and useless. And now the family shoved that pathetic
lump of a human being into my arms saying, "Do something!" I have
more stories than there is space to tell. Most of these people
moved on into the real world and managed to survive...sort of.
Some became alcoholics or drug dependent. Some adapted and put up
a shell of normalcy over their damaged Being. But a very few,
like yourself, had the drive and the inner courage and
determination to make the best life they could. And in so doing
they also have begun to put a new face on what it is to be blind.
What we do is an uphill struggle. Like our political beliefs, we
are few in number. We are like the spawning Salmon trying again
and again to leap the rapids and find a safe haven upstream. We
may never reach it, but it's in our Nature to keep trying.
Have I mentioned before that I really respect you for your
strength in the face of a world that has crushed so many of our
blind brothers and sisters?
Carl Jarvis
On 4/3/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Carl,
Interesting. Well, let me tell you a short story of my path to
social work and what it was like when I got there. My mother was
really worried about what kind of work I could do when I grew up.
After all, I was this handicapped child, legally blind. She had
reason to be worried. I'd been thrown out of the nursery school I
attended after I fell down the cement stairs in the front of the
building. The sun was shining on them in such a way that there
were no shadows and I didn't have depth perception. So she asked
the only person she knew who had an education and might no the
answer, our family doctor who also was a family friend. Dr.
Weinstein looked into the matter and suggested that I might
become a social worker. I was, maybe, twelve or thirteen years
old. He explained that social workers helped people. So it was
decided. I thought that would be a good thing to do.
I
was
absolutely sure that I could not get married, have children, or
run a household. After all, my mother never taught me to do any
household chores except to shell peas. So I latched onto that
goal and never let go.
What
Dr.
Weinstein didn't know was that schools of social work in and
around New York City weren't exactly delighted to welcome legally
blind students. The most prestigeous was at Columbia University.
It was called The New York School of Social Work. Back in 1959,
it was perfectly acceptable to refuse someone on the basis of
blindness and they did. Adelphi School of Social Work said they'd
accept me if I managed to find my own field placements because
they couldn't guarantee me any. Field placements were the heart
and soul of social work education. N Y U said if I proved that I
could find a job and work for one year, they'd consider accepting
me. I think, perhaps the Social Work School at Hunter College
accepted me unconditionally. But then someone, maybe a legally
blind sociology professor of mine, maybe the recreation director
at the Lighthouse, told me that I should apply to a school away
from New York so that I would have to leave home and could learn
to live on my own. That's how I ended up at the University of
Michigan.
Interestingly,
they accepted me on the basis of my interview at Columbia which
had refused me. But what I wanted to do was counseling or
psychotherapy so I wanted a concentration in psychiatric social
work. The person in charge of that program refused me on the
basis of my blindness. By the way, back then, I had a lot of
useable vision. I was not using a cane and I was reading print
with a magnifying glass. Anyway, they insisted that I take the
rehabilitation sequence. That was the only way I'd get a fellowship.
It
was
probably the only way I got in. The rehab agency where they
placed a group of us was dreadfully backward. The workers were
called agents, not counselors. All they cared about was getting
jobs for the least disabled clients so they could get raises
which were based on the number of closures they got. The School
of Social Work placed students there because they thought that
we, and our supervisor, who the school also provided, could be
agents of change. It was truly an insane idea. I begged them for
a psychiatric field placement for the second year, but the head
of the psychiatric sequence said she would only permit me to have
one that wasn't certified. Instead, they offered me a family
service agency which would have been fine if I'd had a good
supervisor and was allowed the kind of cases which permitted me
to learn to do counseling. Those were white, middle class clients
and they were given to experienced staff members. I learned a lot
about race segregation and poverty that year because the agency
gave me the cases that they considered worthless and hopeless. So
actually, I got a real social work education that year, not the
shortcut to becoming a psychotherapist that I might have gotten
if I weren't visually impaired.
When I graduated, I could have gotten supervisory jobs and, in
one case, a director's job, if I'd been willing to work in
northern Michigan or down South. The guy at the Lighthouse wanted
me to take the job as director of a tiny agency for the blind in
some southern state or other. I wanted to live and work in New
York. The family agencies in New York didn't want me, even with a
family agency placement. Of course they didn't. I was blind and
they probably figured out what the agency in Yipsilanti was
really like. I worked for 2 days in a little family agency in
Patterson, NJ and quit because there was no way I could do that
commute, and I didn't want to live in Patterson.
The New York State Commission for the Blind put pressure on the
New York Sstate Dept. of Mental Health to hire me in an
after-care clinic for people just released from mental hospitals.
This wasn't what I had in mind, but the location was OK. Only the
director of that clinic didn't want me there and when it was my
turn to get one of the offices with real walls, a real door, and
a window, they wouldn't let me have it because they said it was
too far for me to walk. I did walk back there to the bathroom
several times a day, however. So I stayed in my office at the
front with dividers rather than walls and no windows. When I
left, where do you suppose I went? I went where they all wanted
me to go, to the Industrial Home for the Blind which was a
miserable place to be. There are other things that happened like
how no one wanted to hire me when I thought I'd return to work
when my older daughter was five, and when a former classmate of
mine, who was the head of social services at an agency for
mentally ill people, refused to hire me because of my disability.
But eventually, I did work on my own, for 30 some odd years in
adoptions. And even then, disability caused difficulties. But
social work? It didn't practice what it preached when it came to
accepting people into its ranks.
Miriam .
-----Original Message-----
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[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl ;
Jarvis
Sent: Monday, April 03, 2017 8:37 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] RE:
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Re:
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meeting:
‘End US embargo of Cuba! Get out of Guantánamo!’
Miriam, (second try)
Back in the 50's and 60's I recall declaring that there were
three types of people who were totally self centered, self
serving, and stuck up.
They
were Marines, Texans and Social Workers.
I knew decent young guys graduating from high school who enlisted
in the Marine Corps and when they finished their four year hitch,
they couldn't keep their shirts buttoned because the buttons
seemed to burst off their chests. I met people from Texas who
were so pleased with themselves that they preferred a full length
looking glass over another human being.
But
the worst, the very, very worst of all were the Social Workers.
I know that they had to have been born just like everyone else
was born. First nasty, disgusting sex, followed by great labor
pains...now it's called contractions, and then there they were,
babies. But Social Workers seem to have simply materialized at
some point, as new adults. 23 years or 25 years old, proudly
presenting their Masters Degree from Stanford, Yale or Princeton.
And in that piece of paper rested all of the wisdom and New World
Thinking. The young social workers of that time even looked down
their noses at the old social workers. Blessed with Absolute
Truth, they went forth to damage the children of the world. And
they weren't any much better with older adults, either. I often
wanted to ask, but was far too polite, if it weren't difficult to
work all day with a corn cob up their butt.
Over the years I have become so much wiser and far more tolerant.
I have met some down right decent Marines. In fact my
Brother-In-Law was such a creature. And so is my eldest
son-in-law. Then I met some really nice young adults, a group of
them traveling together. They were a bit nervous about coming so
far out west, thinking there was great lawlessness out here.
We met at a conference and I fell in love with all of the
young women...I was between wives at the time, and I asked them
from whence they came.
"Texas!" they beamed proudly.
Later I even had a male friend from Texas. I think the
difference is that these people were, "From" Texas.
Finally, after holding firm to my belief that Social Workers were
really Goblins who grew in the corn patch and took on Humanoid
bodies, I finally met a few who did alter my long established
belief. I even hired a Social Worker for my staff. She was, and
still is, a cracker jack of a woman.
I
hired her as one of two Braille Instructors. But her real job
was to pull folks out of their crappy attitudes. She was amazing
at it.
Yup. I've come a long, long way toward open acceptance of
everyone...well, almost everyone. In fact, that list is far too
long to post here.
Carl Jarvis
