When I was in 8th grade I had an awesome group of girl friends that I had known since we were 4, entering Kindergarten and growing up in the same neighborhood together. We had that funny small-town connection that you see in nostalgia-inducing movies like Now & Then. We showed up to school dressed alike by accident (and sometimes not by accident let's be honest) and often finished each other's sentences. They were a blessing in my life.
One of our favorite activities to pass the time during class-- particularly French, sorry Madame-- was a game called "Random Thoughts." Someone would write a random sentence, or part of one, at the top of a paper and the paper would make its way from desk to desk, thrown over shoulders passed in books and tossed behind the teacher's back. Giggles were suppressed as the message got increasingly complex and fairly ridiculous. A version of this involved hiding the original message and adding on blindly. The entire joint creation was read in the locker area between classes, and most of the time we were amazed to see how our brains connected ideas and created some sort of order out of the randomness. Everything seem to be connected.
I am reminded of this game as I think about a class I had last week. I'm taking a course called The Exceptional Learner, which is designed to help education students think well about including children with special needs in their classroom and designing a community of learning that accepts, embraces and encourages all learners.
A few weeks ago we had a guest speaker come and talk to us about people with blindness and visual impairments. She is a mobility instructor for individuals in our area and one of her main tasks is helping people with visual impairments move around town as pedestrians. She explained to us how complicated it can be to stand at an intersection and use only your hearing to determine when it is your turn to cross the street. The "ped heads" on street poles with buttons we all push to signal we want to cross present challenges-- they are always at different heights, in different locations relative to the intersection, some beep some dont, etc.
One complication she brought up that I had never considered: hybrid cars.
Hybrid cars do not make noise while they idle.
A person who is blind standing on the street corner is analyzing the traffic that runs parallel to his or her path in an effort to determine when it is her turn to cross the street. If a hybrid car is idling next to her, she cannot hear it and therefore it presents a great hazard to her if the car intends to turn right. Right now apparently there is litigation to get hybrid car companies to include some sound device-- a click perhaps-- in the car as it idles to help those with VI's be safe in traffic.
I've thought about hybrid cars for a car for myself in the future... and I think they're pretty cool. Now, I'm not expert and to be honest haven't done a huge amount of research so don't go crazy if you think I'm wrong (although I'd be more than happy to hear why). But this is something I had never thought of-- if you can't hear my car, does that make it a hazard to you?? How do the purchases I make affect the people around me in a very real way?
It's just like reading the final product of a class period of Random Thoughts and realizing everything is connected...
Luckily Lil Rojo currently makes enough noise to wake the whole neighborhood.
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