For one of my electives I'm taking a special ed class on exceptional learners, which basically covers all the major disabilities and talks about legislation and implications in the educational setting. We cover a chapter a day and it's really been interesting. One of my favorite things about it is that we watch these movies that came out of the U of U 20+ years ago, and half the kids have BYU shirts on. :)
Today we covered blindness and visual impairments, and the first thing we did in class was pair up and take a field trip across campus with one of us "pretending" to be blind while our partner guided us. I've heard of these kinds of assignments but this was my first hands on experience with it, and I sure struggled! Once we got outside I did a lot better, but going down 3 flights of stairs with no vision in a stairwell I'd never been in was quite a challenge!
We also have an assignment to go out into the community and spend 4 hours with a pretended disability. My friend and I went to the mall, got a wheelchair, and spent the afternoon trying not to have feeling in our legs (not as easy as it might seem). It definitely opened my eyes to a lot of the little obstacles that someone in a wheelchair faces, however "wheelchair accessible" places may claim to be. (The aisles of Payless Shoe Store--pretty much impossible!)
Because we both had to have the experience, we did 2 hours and then switched places. I'm not sure how many people in the mall noticed that... And then when we returned the wheelchair to guest services (I was sitting/riding in it at this point) and both of us walked out of the office and across the food court court that we'd just passed, I know we got some funny looks... :)
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