Division on Visual Impairments

VIDBE Quarterly Volume 60(1)

A quarterly newsletter from the Council for Exceptional Children's Division on Visual Impairments containing practitioner tips for Teachers of Students with Visual Impairments, Certified Orientation and Mobility Specialists, and other professionals.

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; Lorem Ipsum Dolor Spring 2016 5 business as usual in a environment where they have little control over their own destinies. As Browder et al. (2001) note, "Learning skills related to self-determination is important, but these skills are meaningless if the students' environments do not allow the use of these skills" (p. 238). Despite some attempts at reform, most schools still operate in ways that stifle ingenuity, eradicate difference, and ultimately, remove student choice from the equation. Alfie Kohn (1993) writes, "The educators who shape the curriculum rarely bother to consult those who are to be educated" (p. 10). Regardless of educators' best intentions, the current reality of schooling is one in which students and teachers acutely feel the pressures of standardization and the curricular mandates that come with it. However, if we want to encourage students to be self- determined, they cannot be passive recipients of knowledge; they should be engaged in actively making meaning for themselves. Student choice (regarding what and how they learn) should be a 37

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