Andrew Leibs's Blog

Posted by Andrew Leibs

I was 10 that spring when candy bars jumped from a dime to a taxable 15 cents, but somehow, was never broke. My world was foundations and mountains of excavated dirt, the rattle of plastic machine guns, and wooded paths down to the village where I’d buy patches to be sewn onto my jacket and borrow records from the library.

In school, after a fall of futility, we finally began beating Mr. Butler’s class in kickball. I wasn’t a good player. I was legally blind (a fact I’d learn five years later), and excluded from all but calisthenics in gym. But that spring, I improved: I was fast; could now kick out of the infield, and made the occasional putout, once catching an outfield fly tipped into my arms by a backpedaling classmate. Leading off first, Mr. Butler motioned to a defender to keep an eye on me. The direction drew a squint and scowl but that acknowledgement thrilled me.

Feelings made forms in my consciousness: the sound of the words the teacher pointed to at the end of stories that unlocked their meaning…or anticipating and feeling the rightness of a song’s refrain.

At the end of that year we took a field trip to Americana Village. After lunch, as half the grade ran screaming among teachers playing keep-away with a Frisbee, I wandered up a little ridge to another corner of the field. A red ball rolled toward me. I picked it up. It had a thick, shiny skin—an older, heavier model that looked like a cartoon bomb. I held it in both hands. It was dry, yet slippery. When I tossed it back to the boy retrieving it, how slowly it slid from my hands, frictionless, as if on the moon. I stared off in that moment of surprise, entranced, fatigued with joy, and with an odd separation, felt not just happy, but aware that I was happy.

I’m sensitive to these memories of high childhood, that feeling of limitlessness when one’s heart opens to the world, because I know the exact moment when it ended—on the first day of sixth grade.

The school had a Huxleyan system of sorting students into four groups based on perceived ability. My visual impairment alone landed me in Group 4, the lowest one. The syllables, “Andrew, 4” stunned me. Every good feeling was gone as this first placement borne of my disability quelled me into self-questioning silence.

I ached to prove myself and was helped by a prescient, unexpected gift from my homeroom (and Social Studies) teacher Mrs. Kendall, who’d spent a summer recording the thousand-page Western Civilization textbook onto reel-to-reel tapes as a reading aid. Reading along as I listened made the text come alive, augmented my ability to answer each chapter’s questions quickly, and enabled me to get far ahead in assignments.

Within a month, I was raised to Group 3 for Reading and Social Studies—the only convenient promotion as Groups 1 and 2 had Math and Science during this time. I was encouraged, however, and pressed on, ignoring all pleas to slow down, and finished the book three months early. I then tackled independent study projects until Mrs. Kendall, bemused and mildly bothered by my doggedness, struggled to fill my freed-up time.

During those final weeks, I sensed she saw me as more of an anomaly than a top student and that she marked my reading accomplishments with a kind of asterisk—as if reliance on tapes justified the Group 4 placement or validated her teaching tool more than my eagerness and ability to learn.

I was vindicated, however, on the June day, when, returning from recess, she announced that my mark of 97.5 on the final exam was the highest in the grade.

Compounding my joy was news we’d have a kickball game on the outdoor basketball court, which I saw as a chance to punctuate my performance and end the year on a shining note of normalcy.

Late in the game, I singled with a hard kick kept in the infield when it hit the double pole holding up the hoop at the end of the court, which also served as second base. A teammate then blasted a ball far onto the grass.

I knew I could score from first. I ran as fast as I could, shot deftly between the poles at second, grabbing one with my left hand to fling myself towards third. Racing home far ahead of the throw, I slipped cleanly between the other set of poles, feeling kinetic and capable before slowing into nonchalance in expectation of acknowledgment. But when I came near Mrs. Kendall, she was shaking with laughter. She looked at me, wagging her head, cheeks puffing, glasses bobbing on their chain, words tumbling into laughter. I gathered from her depictions, made not to me but to another teacher, that she assumed I saw nothing not inches from my face; that my baserunning was to her an unfolding comic catastrophe sure to end with me clanging off one of the poles.

It’s still difficult to quantify and frame for the fully sighted what I can and cannot see. But I was crushed that my accomplishments did nothing to expand her sense of who or what I was. Since I was coded for disability, she saw me as one ever in need of help, if not protection.

Despite her dismissal, I had learned not to dismiss myself, and my introduction to auditory learning through her tapes pointed the way to a world of reading.

After the game, she signed notes on our report card envelopes. I waited for her to sign mine, but she never reached for it till the end, when, looking up at the clock and with the bus pulling into the circle, she said, “Well, it’s late, I’ll have to just sign my name,” scrawling “Mrs. Kendall” as sufficient token.

Posted by Andrew Leibs

I coasted downhill on my brother’s dew-soaked 10-speed, balancing a notebook. The hill dropped steeply before a blind left turn. I squeezed the brakes. The bike sped up. I tore over the metal grate, took the turn, and waited for the fall. But I stayed up, and shuddered down a less-steep section of the hill, eventually getting a foot down to stop myself.

I thought grace had preserved me as I pedaled on to cover the Battle of Oriskany’s bicentenary for the school paper—my first assignment—on the eve of my first road race, a 20K. It was August 6, 1977.

I reached the battlefield, panting into a sea of 15,000 swelling the woods and every dome and dip of the grassy field, awaiting a reenactment of the minor battle on Saratoga’s bloody undercard, taught to us as a Revolutionary War turning point.

There was a rumor that Henry Fonda, whose 1939 film Drums Along the Mohawk indirectly references the battle, would show up. He didn’t.

I was confused and clueless, no line of sight or story, caught in an incoherent ebb and flow of action. Later, I sat on the grass watching musket loading and line volley demonstrations, trying to ignore the increasing rain. “That’s just heavy dew, folks,” quipped the tinny megaphone voice. I sulked with the responsibility of turning these opaque tableaus into news. I wandered the field for hours, looking for strands of narrative.

I ran into a cross-country teammate dressed in a blue coat and tri-cornered hat. He asked me to turn pages as he sat on the piano bench accompanying his compatriot on the Oriskany Bicentennial Trio on the trumpet. I said I would, though I had no idea how I’d know when to turn the pages, or why the trio only had two people. I stood stiff, oblivious to his nods. He turned the pages himself. He wasn’t angry, but suggested I interview one of the Indians by the monument’s iron gate.

I saw a gaunt face, tomahawk, and a fluttering of leather fringe. I asked him where the Iroquois lived now. At last he said, “Oh, probably all over.” I helped him. “Well, where do you live?” “Me, I live in Oriskany.” I later found an actual Native American, a woman from Ontario, who took my notebook and pen to expedite the recording of my asked and unasked questions.

With ink on paper, I wanted to bolt, but was hailed by a teacher back from a stamp dedication in Rome. “I’m going there tomorrow,” I said. “For the Fort Stanwix race.” We stood by the field’s 85-foot stone monument, the race’s midway point. She said, “Oh I know; I’ve seen you go by my house every day this week, practicing.” Practicing? I let that word, perplexing and somewhat patronizing, punctuate the day.

The 20K was far less enervating than walking those fields. That fall, after winning junior high JV meets, I was moved up to varsity. That same week, however, I saw that my rambling battlefield narrative wasn’t in the school paper. The advisor said they’d decided it was old news, an explanation I found irksome yet fitting, even ironic, as I then understood the term.

Posted by Andrew Leibs

I was glad to see that the United States Association of Blind Athletes (USABA) is holding a developmental cycling camp in September at the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.

I attended one of its first cycling camps in April 1994 a week after running the Boston Marathon as part of Team With a Vision, a fundraiser created by Pam Fernandes that also raised awareness of the marathon’s visually impaired category. Fernandes was at the camp, too, and went on to win Paralympic gold in the 1 kilometer time trial in Sydney. Fernandes is coordinating the September camp.

The USABA camp, as I recall, made full use of a week with twice-daily sessions where we learned how to maneuver our tandem bikes, turn, take a fall, and the proper way to pass. Along with the training rides, we had a 10-mile time trail on a windy, wide highway, a mountain ascent (I rode the van back down—hate descending), and an afternoon of races on the Velodrome track. There were strength-building sessions, evening presentations, and unending food: ah the heft of that steel ball I’d raise to pour yet another glass of chocolate milk.

Most importantly, that camp, and others like it, give disabled athletes amazing access (I paid for just my airline ticket) to exploring a sport. For some, it’s a life-changing experience—whether or not they go on to compete.

I didn’t pursue tandem biking. I see well enough to ride alone. The previous summer, I’d biked from Seattle to Asbury Park with a group of 38 other riders. I thought it was unfortunate that the Paralympics has no events for the visually impaired riding single bikes, but understand the need to consolidate categories: tandem biking is more inclusive.

I embraced what I learned at camp, including training techniques that helped me in triathlons, and the ability to zero in on goals, like scoring half-gallons of Hood Simply Smart Chocolate Fat Free Milk.

Posted by Andrew Leibs

For low-vision students, cultivating their own relationships with classroom teachers and organizations that provide reading resources is what drives academic success.

Reading is the most difficult and time-consuming school task, yet is also how we discover and explore interests, develop our identity, and connect with the world. So it’s vital for students to know how to accomplish any reading task, regardless of deadline.

From long experience, I can tell you that when you’re legally blind (i.e. too much vision for braille, but still in need of help), literacy isn’t acquired, it’s built: you read using an internal triage system of cultivated resources that include: audio- and large-print books; e-texts, screen readers, magnification devices, personal readers, and other strategies that develop through awareness of one’s skills and needs.

Such a system could take one years to develop, as it did me, or could be outlined for a student in an hour or two.

Unfortunately special education doesn’t work this way. It shepherds rather than liberates. It’s hard to imagine a special education teacher saying, “Let’s take a morning and get you everything you need so you can get back to being a student.” Such independence might unloop that student from the cat’s cradle of coercion and compliance known as the I.E.P.

Fortunately, there is nothing special education provides that low vision students and parents can’t get on their own, usually for free, always more quickly and efficiently.

And it’s this getting, this surveying and connecting, that far beyond leveling the playing field, enables students to storm the heights: to develop a system that facilitates any reading task and fosters an identity-building spirit of exploration, confidence, and independence. Resource-conscious students get what they need immediately, are open to reading and learning opportunities beyond the I.E.P., and can easily increase academic performance while making the day-to-day management of classroom participation more efficient for teachers.

I remember the futility of my special education—peeking under a blindfold to distinguish braille dots. Braille and typing classes addressed none of my needs, but at my I.E.P meeting, the teachers told me quitting would mean no more books on tape. Five years of special education eroded my self-esteem, consumed precious time, diminished my enthusiasm for learning, and delayed for years the full development of my literacy.

The school’s justification (not without merit) was staying in a program would insure access to services and materials. The harm was not learning that I could access taped books, the most crucial component of my education, on my own.

At 17, almost by accident, I learned how to join Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic. I went on to earn a Master’s degree, read thousands of books in a variety of formats, and devoted my first book, numerous articles, and an upcoming e-book to expanding low-vision literacy.

Despite my experience, I’m not against special education and know many adults (though none with low vision) who would never have become educated without it.

In the end, it’s not about me, or about debating the efficacy of special education, but simply asking, “What does my child need to succeed in school?”

If parents knew just how accessible the essential resources are, their child’s success, with or without special education, is all but guaranteed.

Posted by Andrew Leibs

Since 1988, the Paralympic Games have steadily achieved parity of prestige with the Olympics, completing disabled sports’ decades-long development from recreational therapy to a viable industry.

A funding gap, or chasm, persists, though as I write, I wear a pair of Air Jordans sent last summer by Paralympian April Holmes, whose foundation co-sponsored an essay contest with Jordan Brands. Later this year, I’ll compete in two 5Ks offering prize money for blind and visually impaired runners.

Programs are popping up, hence the need for disability sports conferences like the ones detailed here.

Developing Amazing Leaders Paralympic Conference

The 2009 Developing Amazing Leaders Paralympic Conference takes place the weekend of April 17-20 at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs and offers opportunities for learning, networking, and inspiration from experts in the Paralympic movement. This conference is geared towards those running or wishing to start a Paralympic sport programs in their communities.

Workshop sessions provide hands-on experience with a variety of Paralympic sports, an in-depth dialogue about best practices, and a variety of sessions focused on working with injured military personnel. Call 719.866.4837 for information.

National Disability Sports Conference

The 2009 National Disability Sports Conference takes place September 10-12 at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia, about an hour north of Atlanta.

The conference will feature 30+ interactive sessions on topics such as coaching, recruitment, and program development led by top sports professionals, with elite coaches and Paralympic athletes sharing leading-edge techniques. Attendees will have access to one-on-one consulting on crucial program components, including fundraising, risk management, public relations, and grant writing.

Adaptive sports equipment, including wheelchairs, will be available to facilitate a hands-on learning experience.

“We really try to do hands-on workshops for coaches and program leaders so they can go home and be better coaches,” says program director Jeff Jones. “The work is geared towards developing athletes whose disabilities fall under the main Paralympic categories, including the blind and visually, those with spinal cord injuries, and amputees.”

Conference costs have not been set, though Jones estimates the price will be about $250 for the weekend event. Call Jeff Jones (770.850.9095) for more information.

Posted by Andrew Leibs

Running continues to be a growth area in accessible sports and recreation, especially for visually impaired runners, whose participation options range from United States Association of Blind Athletes (USABA) developmental sports camps to the Paralympics and include prestigious road races.

The Vision 5K, the US national championship 5K-road race for the blind and visually impaired, takes place Sunday, June 7 (9:30 AM) at Boston College in Newton, Massachusetts.

The race has a new course (the last two ran through Boston’s Back Bay), but still awards prize money to the top five visually impaired male and female finishers (and their sighted guides).

Another popular race feature is the Blindfold Challenge, where participants don blindfolds and pair up with sighted guides to experience what it’s like to run without sight.

The Vision 5K is sponsored by and is a major for a number of organizations that serve the blind, including the Carroll Center for the Blind (Newton, Mass.), the National Braille Press (Boston) and Vision Community Services (Boston).

Register online after March 1, 2009 or call 617.732.0264 for information.

Another 5K that offers prize money to elite blind runners is the Mark Lynn & Associates Stampede for VIPS, which takes place Saturday, August 29, 2009 in Louisville, Kentucky.

The race is a fundraiser for Visually Impaired Preschool Services (VIPS), based in Louisville.

This year’s location is not set. In past years, the race ran out and back under the lights of the Second Street Bridge connecting Louisville’s Waterfront Park with Jeffersonville, Ind. An Ironman triathlon scheduled the next day makes the Waterfront unavailable. Locations being considered include Churchill Downs and the Louisville Zoo. Call USABA coach Jim Vargo (502.452.8042) for more information.

Posted by Andrew Leibs

My friend Julie York Coppens recently posted photos from Ski For Light’s 2009 International Week on Facebook. Those images reminded me how that program, which began in 1975, has come to epitomize accessible recreation’s broad range of benefits.

Ski For Light affords many disabled people their first taste of outdoor sports; it can reveal deep reserves of untapped competitiveness; it’s turned professed non-athletes into Paralympians, and gives nearly every participant, guides included, a new perspective on what’s possible.

I first attended Ski For Light in 2003, the last winter till this that New Hampshire lay under a deep covering of snow. In Alaska, however, it was so warm they had to dump trucked-in snow on the rainy streets of Anchorage to start the Iditarod. Each day at Russian Jack Springs Park, volunteers shoveled snow from the woods to maintain our icy tracks. We had only one full day of skiing.

But I was glad I went. I’d read about SFL for years, but wasn’t sold until veteran skier Annemarie Cooke described the palpable energy she’d feel entering the hotel dining room each night, filled with over 300 people, accomplished, competitive, caring, all creating a dynamic community, from curious guide dogs howling softly from under tables, to relationships and rivalries that build and change over the years, and most of all, people who are more than what they were for attending Ski for Light.

I met many, including Laura Oftedahl of Berkeley, Calif., who attended SFL in the early 1980s depressed and sedentary, and within four years had dropped 50 pounds, quit smoking, and won a gold medal in the world championships. And Amy Bower, an oceanographer from Falmouth, Mass., who found in Ski For Light a way to maintain her love of cross-country skiing and connect with a peer group of goal-achieving, blind professionals.

I, too, was transformed. Ski For Light breaks down barriers: it doesn’t matter that you are blind, or a first-time skier, veteran guide, or a top athlete. Everyone is equal; everyone moves forward at their own pace. At week’s end, most skiers enter the race/rally, a competition that, rather than separate athletes, brings them together.

Simultaneously calling out to one’s need for a comfort zone and competitiveness infuses Ski For Light with that rare inclusive energy that can change lives.

The 2009 Ski For Light International week took place at Soldier’s Hollow (near Provo, Utah) the Nordic ski venue for the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. Ski For Light 2010 (January 31st through February 7th) will also take place there.

Posted by Andrew Leibs

Last summer, my good friend Alan Ammann wanted to paint my portrait for the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition of the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C.

Alan’s request surprised me: he knows I catalogue our culture’s long history of sensationalizing albinism and he made no secret of wanting to explore the striking shades and contrasts of one of limited color.

I also worried that the top hat, a boxed antique he borrowed from the St. John’s Masonic Lodge in Portsmouth and wanted me to wear for some early digital shots, would distort my image—somewhere between British poet and heavy metal drummer.

I eventually warmed to the experience, however, as I did when Rick Guidotti photographed me for Positive Exposure. My nervousness ebbed with the growing sense of being captured and elevated into art.

Alan’s concept was amazing: his entry consists of two oil portraits and a hand-built viewer. When one looks at the paintings through the viewer, the images merge to form a 3-D, stereoscopic image much like that of an old Viewmaster toy.

Alan’s entry has already made the semifinals; portraits and viewer are being crated and sent on to the next round of judging. If it survives, it will be displayed this fall in the National Portrait Gallery’s triennial competition.

I hope Alan wins, though I already take my hat off to his artistic vision and skill.