Unforgettable lessons: life in Polish residential schools for children with visual impairments as narrated by former students

Abstract

This article presents recollections, experience and emotions expressed by 19 research participants who have studied and lived in Polish residential schools for children with visual impairments between 1985–2013. Based on in-depth interviews, I explore the impact of residential schools on their graduates’ future attitudes and actions, including their perceptions of social integration vs. segregation of people with visual impairments. I focus on salient aspects of their experience, i.e. homesickness, feeling different and ‘abnormal’, individual and group identity, learning self-reliance, knowledge about sighted people, transition and ‘real life’ that follows graduation. Their stories highlight the role of the school staff, especially residential school educators, whose attitudes and actions – both explicit and unconscious – seem to have a significant impact on students, as a form of instruction about possibilities and limitations that stem from visual impairment, thus creating and socializing students into a specific role of a ‘blind person’.

Points of interest

• This research is based on in-depth interviews and encounters with nineteen graduates of Polish residential schools for children and youth with visual impairments.

• Interviewees shared their emotional recollections of their time at the residential school, covering all stages of this period – from the initial painful longing for family home, to the final apprehension at leaving the school for the ‘real world’.

• The analysis explores the impact residential school educators and teachers have on the emotional and social development of students with visual impairments.

• Long-term stay in a residential school had a significant influence on research participants, shaping their group identity, their self-esteem and self-reliance.

Keywords:

• Anthropology of disability
• visual impairment
• special education
• residential schools
• collaborative ethnography

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank all study participants for their openness and willingness to allow me to become part of their lives.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The research has received support from the University of Wrocław.