Hi! Taught my first class today. First DBT class since my vision loss. Took a lot more preparation and set up, but then preparation seems to be the name of the game for the visually impaired.
I had gone over my notes and had what I was going to teach in mind. Made sure I had all my tools and materials and everything was in order. It is sort of hard to wing it or to keep talking and rifle through your notes when you have to bring things to your nose to see them! Rather hard to be casual about that.
Of course there were technical difficulties. True to my word, I fumbled with putting the CCTV camera on my students and then back to my notebook. I got some help with that.
There really are many kind people in the world.
Of course, just to make things really interesting, when we got the camera back to the page, the image was upside down! What was with that???? It was first suggested I turn my book upside down which worked except that sliding it up it went down and sliding it left it went right. I am spatially challenged as it is so that was a treat. Someone finally suggested turning it off and back on again. Reset, of course. I should have thought of that!
I could not see the faces of my students. I had expected that. It is going to be harder to learn names. I expect they will sit in the same places anyway but I made a point of asking them to do so.
Old joke: how do you punish Helen Keller? Answer: Rearrange the furniture. New joke: How do you confuse your DBT instructor ? Switch seats!
The lesson went reasonably well. There was a lot of participation. When I was futzin’ about with the CCTV, I had some people read the slides to me. Asking for help can be hard at times but we are all in this together. Better to ask for help and keep the class moving than fumble around. Fumbling is just frustrating. Enough frustration in this world.
All told, good class. One more hurdle behind me. I know I can teach for a while longer.
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