Louise Brown
The Toronto Star , Nov. 5, 2009
Rod Michalko orders his students to sit in the same seats all year. For the blind professor at the University of Toronto, getting to know their names hangs on hearing their voice from the same spot in the room.He holds his talking wristwatch to his ear from time to time to make sure his lecture isn't running long.When it is time to mark papers, his teaching assistants read them to him and he dictates comments to be written in the margins. And after each class, he asks his assistants whether the students ever seemed bored, "because that's something I can't always tell without seeing them."It's rare to have a blind professor, and I do some things in a different way than most, but that's cool - and together with my students we get the job done."The shaggy-haired sociologist with dark glasses and white cane is at the eye of a storm of protest at the University of Toronto - but should you even use that phrase? As a specialist in disability issues, Michalko wants people to think twice about words they use that can seem insensitive to those of differing abilities.
James Morton
1100-5255 Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario
M2N 6P4
416 225 2777
2 comments:
I had a blind literature professor during my freshman year of college, over 20 years ago now. The class loved him. He was amazingly sharp. I remember we had to sit all term in the same place we sat during our first class, and he had all our names memorized within a few days. He would always respond with your name when you asked a question.
He told us once about how he graded papers. TAs would either read the papers to him, although he was using some very new prototype reader at the time, in which he could feed the papers and they would be read to him. I remember being amazed at the concept; it still seems a bit advanced even today.
At any rate, I learned so much from him. He improved my writing immensely because he was so strict on using descriptive words efficiently. I still self-edit my writings (aside from random blog comments ;) with his "voice" in my head.
It was nice remembering him thanks to this article. Thanks.
Good Luck to the students!!
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