Note: I wrote this piece over a year and a half ago andI still think it’s worth reading, particularly if you’re blind and a guide dog user.
SK
If you visit the blindness blogosphere you will quickly discover anecdotal postings about the failings of the major guide dog schools in the
U.S.
The reporting is of course subjective and the anger bubbles over into some pretty hard hitting assertions. One reads for instance that guide dog schools are patrician, dismissive of blind people in general, dishonest in their granting of services, even capricious—as you read these posts you’d be tempted to think you were reading about Oliver Stone’s version of the Nixon administration
I worked at Guiding Eyes for the Blind as the Director of Student Services from 1995 to 2000 before taking a job as a professor at The Ohio State University. I left Guiding Eyes because I was longing to return to college teaching. As it happened,
Ohio
State
was developing a new disability studies curriculum and I was offered the opportunity to be part of some exciting academic initiatives. Yet I left the world of the guide dog schools with mixed emotions. I consider the American guide dog schools to be remarkable institutions and I count friends among staff at many of the programs.
Still the blogs tell a story and I want to think aloud about what these narratives may tell us about the guide dog schools and the contemporary world of blind Americans. As they like to say in the public relations business: perception is everything.
It’s clear from the blogosphere entries that many blind people consider the guide dog schools to be out of step with the times. This may be an unavoidable offshoot of two factors: 1. Guide dog schools are essentially residential rehabilitation associations which are strongly reminiscent of 19th century institutions; 2. as disability rights have expanded some blind people may forget that having a guide dog is not a right but a privilege: one that results from demonstrating that the client can look after a dog with discipline and adhere to the training principles that are essential to guide dog work.
These two factors appear to be irreconcilable until you consider the possibility that not all institutions are bad and that not all rules are devised to harm historically marginalized groups, even those who experience blindness or low vision. While many blind people argue that the guide dog schools are mostly run by sighted people and offer this as proof of a kind of institutional infantilization of the clients, its also true that guide dog schools are extremely interested in the views and ideas of their alumni. To read what’s on the blogosphere you’d imagine that the guide dog schools are operating as medieval fortresses with all the peasants locked up inside.
Still it’s true enough that the guide dog field should pay closer attention to important changes in blind culture. Many of today’s blind college students are not at all interested in taking time out from campus life to attend an isolated institutional setting.
Additionally it would be very useful if the guide dog schools stopped imagining that the provision of a guide dog is heroic work. Old fashioned sentimental rhetoric that still lurks behind some of the guide dog industry’s fund raising should be updated now that almost 20 years have passed since the ADA was adopted. Times change.
What’s wrong with the guide dog schools? Not much. But they need to pay more attention to today’s blind customers.
Planet of the Blind 
Having only my experience at GEB when first going to an actual residential school for the blind, I was greatly shocked at how an institution that on the surface promotes independence could be so very lacking in practice. It was quite depressing. But with that experience I learned that while in most cases guide dog schools are far more progressive, they are still stuck in the past much of the time.
The largest argument in favor of that is the whole premise of not fixing what isn’t broken. And for the most part I don’t disagree. But I think Becky’s right that there is a lot the schools can learn from each other and across the pond.
Personally, my biggest complaint is the unnecessary downtime that can exist at the schools during training. I was greatly shocked by how much was accomplished during home training in half the time I spent at a training school. (Though, I do think it’s beneficial for a guide dog user to have attended a residential school prior to home training.) Of course, it’s difficult to maintain such a small instructor-to-student ratio, but I doubt I’ll trade that perk for two or three weeks at a campus.
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Man, I’d sure like to hear more about what could be adapted to better suit today’s consumer-students. I see the need to move out of the sentimental (bleh!) ruts of the past, but don’t understand what real change would look like.
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There was a time when guide dog schools were run almost like boot camps. Certainly not the case now, because they were forced to listen to their consumers or find themselves lacking students. I think that now the schools are more attuned to the culture and the fact that there are two consumer organizations which voice concerns of their constituents helps keep the lines of communication open. If the schools are listening it would not surprise me to see training taking place on university campuses. In the UK they have regional training and house students in local hotels for the duration of training.
So as both a guide dog user and a staff person at a school I look forward to the coming changes, whatever they turn out to be, because hopefully they’ll represent a real give-and-take with consumers and programs! I’d like to see the schools model the best in residential rehab.-type programs rather than follow the lead of existing ones!
Becky
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I guess all institutions have their problems and are reluctant to change but my wife had nothing but good things to say about The Seeing Eye in Morristown NJ which provided her dog. We were also impressed with the followup service and contacts as well.
Having a well functioning guide dog is hard work for the trainers and the recipient. I’m not sure how the guide dog schools could change the intensive school setting and still provide a quality dog. I look at it as a small price to pay for the benefit of a dog but I guess others view it differently
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