How NFB training is changing my life, by Holly Scott-Gardner

So, I am going to talk about my experiences at an NFB training center. But in order to really explain how this training has impacted my life and will impact my life once I graduate, I think I kind of have to tell you all where I came from, because where I came from is not what you see me doing today. One of my earliest memories is of being on stage. My left hand was trailing along the curtain. I remember the feel of the material, heavy, a little scratchy under my fingers. But I was comfortable on that stage, even as a toddler, with my three words to say. I have other childhood memories. I remember climbing, my small hands gripping the pile of logs I was attempting to scale. Push with your feet, pull up with your arms. I never thought about falling, the movement of my body felt so natural, there was no way gravity could capture me. I was four years old and I felt free in every sense of the word. My parents, unconcerned by my blindness left me to climb, to run, and yes, despite what I believed sometimes to fall. I knew I was blind but to me, blindness was just a fact. I couldn't see but I still participated in every aspect of my family’s life. Back then I could never have imagined that one day my blindness would be a source of shame and anxiety that would almost entirely govern my life.

As I grew older my differences became more apparent. Where my peer’s worlds seemed to grow wider, mine closed in around me. I couldn't walk to school without holding on to someone's hand. I couldn't see what clothes were cool or keep up in the sports my friends wanted to play. The could nots began to outnumber the coulds, and the things I could do, like explain scientific concepts or read faster than most of my classmates, seemed small and insignificant.

I received orientation and mobility training as a child, but like many blind children across the world, I didn't use a cane outside of my classes. It is normal for blind people in the UK to rely almost entirely  on sighted guide. This doesn't mean that every blind person does it, but it isn't viewed as surprising if you do. My parents did the best they could, and, they genuinely believed that as a blind person I could be successful, but they were limited by their own lack of knowledge about blindness. And how could they be expected to know things that nobody had ever told them?

And so I grew up. And for a while I went to a school for the blind. In part, this was to escape the reality that at home I would be utterly dependent on my family to move from place to place. Independence was an illusion. I could tell myself that I was independent by avoiding doing the things that would force me to step out into the world alone, even if that meant going to school a couple of hundred miles away from my family.

I knew though that this wasn't the real world and so I came back home and started at the school my sister had attended. I was 16, practically totally blind and on my first day at a brand new school I showed up without a cane. I remember getting out of the car, listening for the sound of the doors and heading towards them, with no idea whether there were steps or any other obstacles I could fall on. I hoped I wouldn't crash into anyone, that somehow I would avoid them. I hoped nobody would know what I was. I knew everyone would know I was blind, and that was ok if they knew because of the braille I was reading. But I didn't want to make a mistake or embarrass myself.

A year later, depending on everyone around me had become too much and I requested more orientation and mobility training. I had always dreamed of studying abroad but I knew that if I carried on living that life I couldn't even go to the store, let alone another country.

I didn't receive the training I'd hoped for. The handful of hours I was given barely gave me the confidence to walk down the street and so I looked for other opportunities. I ended up applying for a guide dog. I received orientation and mobility training while I was on the waiting list and when I got my dog I combined the natural travel skills I'd gained from having to navigate my environment without a cane with finally having a tool I knew how to use.

We travelled a lot in those years. In the almost seven years we worked together we studied abroad twice, went to university, attended countless events, and also, I'm going to be honest, a lot of partying.

But during my first year of university I began to ask myself what would I do when my dog retired. By that point I'd had a dog for about three years, and I knew that at some point I was going to have to make a decision about what to do next. Would I get another guide dog? Would I have to, because the choice to use a cane wasn't really an option for me at all.

With limited opportunities for training, I decided that I needed to take things into my own hands and make a decision. I'd heard that the Colorado Center for the Blind offered a scholarship to international students. What did I have to lose by emailing them. And so in 2016 I went on the waiting list for CCB.

On June the first of this year, the day after my guide dog retired, I stepped off the plane in Denver. I was not only stepping into a new country, but I was also stepping into a new life. Little did I know that in two short months I would gain immeasurable amounts of confidence, skills I didn't even know I was lacking, but, more than any of these things I gained a family. Luckily for me, CCB was not the first time I'd used a cane. The summer before I was a camp counsellor at Enchanted Hills and there were lots of days when it was too hot or impractical to work my dog. I had some confidence in walking around with a cane and so I used that to pretend that I knew what I was doing.

Of course I didn't, and during my first few weeks in travel classes I learnt so many things. I learnt how to actually hold my cane properly, to feel the sun on my body in order to work out which direction I was facing. I learnt that even when I got lost I have the knowledge to find my way back. I talk a lot about travel because that is where I felt most trapped, but training has given me so many other skills and opportunities. If I walk into the kitchen and say I want to learn a particular skill, I am  not met with an "are you sure, that might be unsafe." I love to cook, and working with an instructor who challenges me and pushes me to become even better is something so new and valuable to me. I am now helping to teach other students how to use technology, which is one area where I felt very confident. But once again, the instructors and leadership at CCB have found a way to challenge me and develop my own skills as an instructor and future leader.

These are the skills I can measure, but they are only a small part of the picture. We tend to think of blindness training as a ladder. You start somewhere and throughout your training you climb up as you gain new skills. But that isn't a true reflection of training. The greatest gift training has given me so far is the opportunity to really look inside myself. Do I still make judgements about other blind people? Do I expect everyone to feel the same about blindness as I do? Do I understand that losing your vision is an utterly different experience from being born blind? At a training center you will meet people from all different backgrounds. None of us have the same story, and there is beauty in these different lives converging. We celebrate our victories both big and small, and we share our deepest fears and insecurities. I used to think that in order to matter I had to be the perfect blind person. People were going to judge me for being blind, and so I had to show them that I didn't make mistakes. Whilst the world might judge me for being blind I do not have to be perfect. Not just because I'm blind but because nobody, blind or sighted, is perfect. Training isn't going to make you a model blind person. But what it does do is give you the skills and self-belief to go out into the world and decide what path you are going to take. I know once I leave training that my choices will not be limited by my blindness.

Lots of people ask me if you need training to go to college and be successful. Now I don't think you necessarily do. I graduated university and did many things very successfully before I went to training. But what training will give you is the time to try new things. It will give you an environment in which you can decide you want to learn something and be met with enthusiasm rather than opposition. I could have been successful in a narrow sense without training, but I would never have become the best version of myself. My world no longer feels like it is closing in around me. I can still explain scientific concepts and I do still love to read. But these things do not feel small and insignificant because they are not all that I am. They are valuable parts of what makes me unique. But so is my obsession with baking the perfect loaf of bread, or slating all the states without making a mistake, also my limitless curiosity about my surroundings. When I graduate from CCB I will be lucky enough to have two families supporting me. First, the family I was born into, who love me unconditionally and who taught me to speak up and choose my own path in life. But I will also have another family, not by blood but by shared experiences, who cheer me on as I step into my future.

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Holly Scott-Gardner is from the United Kingdom. By many measures she is a very successful woman. A self-described activist-advocate for people with disabilities who has done public speaking in the U.K. and elsewhere in Europe. She authors a blog "Catch These Words" and is the voice on the podcast "Working Blind", which can be heard on Spotify, Apple podcasts, and Tune In Radio.

Yet she wanted to come to the Colorado Center for the Blind for training. On her first day at the Center, she accepted the challenge to go rock climbing. She attended the National Federation of the Blind Convention with us in Las Vegas in July and a few weeks later attended a conference on blindness in Guadalajara, Mexico.  About midway through her 6-month program at CCB she finished her mini-meal for 15. She made a deeply satisfying cottage pie, cake, and fruit punch (all traditional foods from home). Instead of feeding 15, she could have fed thirty!

In August she was invited to speak to the NABS Pacific Region Conference held at Enchanted Hills near Napa Valley in California.