“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” Martin Luther King Jr. I can relate to this quote very well. The challenge that I have in life is that I am legally blind. Every day I have to fight against taking the convenient and comfortable way out in order to succeed in school and later in employment.

In my educational career I have two main challenges. One of them is the fact that I am legally blind. Having this challenge makes me have to find accommodations in order to succeed in school. These accommodations include such things as a PacMate (laptop with Braille display), ZoomText (screen enlarger) and enlarged assignments. The other challenge is to try and find ways to be competitive with my peers. One way that I can be competitive is to take challenging courses that are not required for graduation. This will make it so that I am more qualified in my skills than some other individuals. Another way that I can be competitive with my sighted peers is to do extra work on assignments. In order to be competitive I have to work much harder than my sighted peers but I believe it is totally worth the extra effort.

There are many controversial situations that legally blind students have to deal with every day. Some teachers feel that legally blind individuals are unable to work with their peers due to their vision loss. Sometimes these teachers put legally blind students with other legally blind students to work on school projects. This is segregation. Just because a student is legally blind doesn’t mean that they should be separated from the rest of the class to work on an assignment. By segregation blind students teachers are causing blind students to only socialize with blind students during class time. This causes the blind students not to learn what is acceptable and not acceptable while in the classroom. They don’t have sighted peers to say “It is not ok to fix your hair right now” since all the people around them are blind. Another controversial issue is that schools are either unable or unwilling to give legally blind students the technology that will make it possible for them to be competitive. A blind individual needs a note taking device in order to compete with their classmates. A Braille N’ Speak (really old bad computer) costs $2,000. This piece of technology only has a few functions that a computer has. Technology goes up in price from this point on. My PacMate for example costs $6,000 but is much more capable of working with a computer to transfer data. This inability to help with technology for legally blind students may be due to funding and the lack thereof. It also could be that the school needs to focus on other programs within the district.

It is very easy to give in to comfortable and convenient situations at school. In my academic career I have had teachers tell me that I didn’t have to complete a test. This was due to the fact that the rest of the test had graphs that I was unable to read. It would have been really easy to give in to this statement but I chose not to. Instead I found another way to understand the information that was presented in an auditory way. I would have the teacher explain the graph verbally as well draw it larger so that I could understand the presented material. This was not the comfortable way to go but it was the right choice.

Society’s opinion of blind and legally blind individuals is that they are incompetent. This is a stereotype however. Some individuals can easily do the work assigned to them while others are unable to. This is just as true for sighted individuals. Some people are better at jobs than others. Being blind just makes it harder to get certain jobs accomplished. Another fact is that it does take blind individuals longer to do tasks than sighted peers. This is due to the fact that blind individuals have to find other ways to get the job done that may require more time. Even though it may take a blind person longer to accomplish a task doesn’t mean that they will do a poorer job than their sighted peers.

An example of a blind individual needing more time on an assignment is if they have to make a map of the world. In order to get this assignment done they could use such things as puffy paint and Braille labels. The puffy paint would be used to separate the continents and different countries as well as the oceans. The Braille would be used to label the continents, oceans and countries on the map. Putting these added, but necessary, items on their map of the world takes longer than if a sighted person were doing the same assignment. By taking this extra time however, a blind person can understand how the world is structured and where on the world their country is located.

Once I graduate from high school I will acquire a double major. This double major will be in speech pathology and music therapy. The reason that I am doing this is because it is very difficult to get steady employment in music therapy but easier in speech pathology. This will make me competitive with my peers. Even though I have a vision problem I have more qualifications for the job which will hopefully counterbalance my visual challenges.

In employment there are three main challenges for me. 1) I am blind and that presents its own challenges. 2) Being competitive with my peers. 3) Convincing employers that I am competent in doing the tasks that are required. The main challenge that I have is to change an employer’s opinion about the social opinions in our society.

The main controversial issue in employment is the fact that 75 of blind and legally blind individuals are unemployed. This is mainly due to the social opinions of blind individuals. Many employers think that all blind people are incompetent. Also sometimes they think that blind individuals are not hard working. The last social opinions that causes unemployment for blind people is the fact that employers think that blind individuals are going to be a large liability for the company.

The comfortable and convenient way is the easy way out. This comfortable path is to be on SSI --free money from the government because of disability or being elderly--and be unemployed. When a person chooses this path they don’t have to worry about waking up every morning and going to work. This easy and convenient path does not require integrity. In order to help society these people should be assertive in acquiring a job and changing society’s opinion of blind individuals.

There are many facts about blind individuals within society. These facts are both positive and negative but not stereotypical. One of the facts about blind people in society are that some of them are competent and others are not. Another fact is that some of them are hard working and others are not. In order for these individuals to be employed it does take different technology that in most cases is more expensive. There are resources that can help the employer pay for these costs.

It does take a lot of integrity to make the right decision when faced with challenges and controversies. A person who does make that right decision is going to be much better off both in education and employment that the person who takes the comfortable and convenient path. I am going to choose the more challenging route in life. I will take the road less traveled by, and that will make all the difference in my educational and employment success.