Blind man wins right to teach
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- Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2007 21:54:19 -0400
Adelaide Now, Australia
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Blind man wins right to teach
By XANTHE KLEINIG, EDUCATION REPORTER
September 25, 2007 02:15am
SOUTH Australia has its first blind teacher, after a ruling by the Teachers
Registration Board that the disability was no impediment to the job.
Kenyan-born Siyat Hillow Abdi, totally blind from birth, won a year-long battle
to re-start his career in Australia when he was granted registration as a
teacher.
"It has been a very difficult job for me," he said.
Mr Abdi fronted a tribunal last week to explain how he could meet a legal
requirement to provide a duty of care to students.
A good relationship with students and sharp hearing are his key.
"You know who is rowdy and misbehaving and sometimes the students themselves
can point this out," he said.
The next hurdle is finding a job, possibly teaching world history, which would
build on his 11 years' experience of tutoring religious education and history
and government studies in African schools.
"With modern technology teaching is very easy for me," Mr Abdi said.
"I normally type my work and display it using a projector instead of writing on
the blackboard. I read my materials using braille notes."
Mr Abdi, who arrived in Australia in 2004, is a volunteer teacher of English to
new arrivals and is close to completing a doctorate in disability studies at
Flinders University.
Disability advocate Paul Barbaro helped him win the "unprecedented" case.
"Mr Abdi's case is quite unique in that he is the first to be given
registration to teach in a mainstream school," Mr Barbaro said.
He worked with the Royal Society for the Blind which gave evidence about Mr
Abdi's ability to do the job.
"In SA, teaching registration is subject to being able to show you can
adequately and safely give a duty of care to students, that's the legislation,"
Mr Barbaro said.
"For somebody in his position who is blind from birth, that's obviously hard to
comply with."
He had not been able to find any other case of a blind person being registered
as a teacher, he said.
No one from the Teachers Registration Board was available to comment yesterday.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22476061-910,00.html
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