Full Transcript
Jeff Thompson:
Welcome to Blind Abilities. I’m Jeff Thompson. Today with the coronavirus affecting all of us across the nation, there’s changes happening everywhere, and one of those is in the high schools. Students taking their classes online and changing how students interact with each other and that interaction is something that State Services for the Blind in Minnesota is addressing. Being able to network and learn at the same time, and that’s why we brought in transition coordinator, Sheila Koenig. Sheila, how are you doing and welcome to Blind Abilities.
Sheila Koenig:
Hey Jeff, I’m great. Thanks for having me here.
Jeff Thompson:
Well Sheila, thank you for taking the time to come onto Blind Abilities, really appreciate it. I’ve been hearing about a new opportunity that you and your team are ready to roll out for transition aid students.
Sheila Koenig:
We are really excited about this opportunity for students to connect with each other and learn the skills that will help them own their own futures. This workshop series, Level Up, will help students be the best person that they can be. Students really have the power to know who they are and to get out there and bring their best selves in their schools, in their workplaces, in their communities. We’re excited to bring them all together in this series to help them network and connect with each other, and build on these skills.
Jeff Thompson:
What a great workshop series. Not only are they able to connect up, but they’re able to connect up with their peers. Good job to you and your team. Why don’t you tell us more about the Level Up workshop series?
Sheila Koenig:
Absolutely. We are excited to still be connecting with students and creating some fun programs for them to participate in. Level Up is actually an eight week series about self-advocacy. As the foundation for our discussions and our activities in the course, we’re using things like movies and music and things related to pop culture, in order to be able to have some discussions about what advocacy is and how to become a better advocate.
Jeff Thompson:
Well that’s really cool because, movies and music, that’s something they can really relate to.
Sheila Koenig:
Yeah, exactly. One of the things that we were talking about in one of our meetings the other day is that for a lot of people, we kind of had to learn about advocacy by going through our own tough circumstances. What we’re hoping is that this class, which is going to be conducted by phone and Zoom; hopefully it looks like we are going to be able to the Zoom platform. So we’re excited to go down that road. But our hope is to be able to just make it fun to learn about advocacy and maybe people will have some of those knowledge and skills that they don’t have to learn through harder obstacles and circumstances.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, what a great way to explore self-advocacy. I mean through the experiences that all of them had, they can share and toss ideas at each other. Because self-advocacy is very important. It’s a lifelong skill.
Sheila Koenig:
Yeah. And we’re really excited too, to be able to bring kids together. I mean, a lot of times kids might be the only blind, or low vision, or deaf blind student in their school. So, already there may be slightly more isolated than sighted peers, but I know that a lot of districts are good at bringing those kids together. So now that they’re not actually in those same physical spaces, we’re glad to be able to bring them together in this virtual space. Kind of like being their best self. We hope that they also come to understand that they get to direct the course of their lives.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, that’s so important. Now this is not a one and done. Like you said, level up is an eight week series.
Sheila Koenig:
Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. We’re starting this week Thursday, April 16th, for the introduction. In the intro want everybody to get to know each other a little bit, get a sense of what self-advocacy is. Then each week is going to have a different focus. So there are going to be sessions about self-awareness, goal setting and decision-making, intrinsic motivation, assertiveness and problem solving, positive self-talk, understanding disability and initiative and leadership.
Sheila Koenig:
So what we’re kind of envisioning is that each week is going to connect to one of those topics. And before the session we’re actually going to be sending out to students clips from movies, lyrics from songs, other things that they can watch and listen to ahead of time. So that when we get to the call we already have a foundation set up for our discussion. Within each call we also plan to bring in students who are in college and adult role models because, of course, our students, our high school students still need to hear from people who are a little bit further along in the journey.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh yeah. Role models, mentors sharing experiences. You mentioned bringing them together. As my days in college it always felt a little bit isolated. There weren’t as many blind and low vision, or deaf blind on campus. But being able to be around others with liked experiences, those type of networks are worth building.
Sheila Koenig:
Yeah, and a lot of times students learn so much from each other too, in terms of problem solving. Like, “Hey, I am on this Moodle. I have a class on Moodle and I’m not really sure how to navigate it.” And someone else might be able to be like, “Oh well I use such and such an assistive technology for Moodle.” And maybe the same technology doesn’t work as well on other platforms. So it’s a cool way to really help kids help each other solve their own problems.
Jeff Thompson:
Very important.
Sheila Koenig:
I think it’s a time that connecting with others is really more important than ever. It’s kind of a funny balance of planning for the future and also knowing things might not be turning out the way you think they are, but it’s important to keep moving forward and keep building those connections. I think that this workshop series is one that will really deepen connections, as well as strengthen your sense of self too.
Jeff Thompson:
That’s true. Sheila, I want to go back to the eight workshops that you mentioned starting with self-advocacy. I think they’re all great workshops. One of them stood out, it was called positive self-talk. Could you explain what is positive self-talk?
Sheila Koenig:
Yeah. I had the opportunity last summer to go on a retreat in Utah. The retreat was based on the work of Brené Brown. She’s a really famous researcher and thinker and she does a lot with the topics of being vulnerable and being courageous. And one of the things that she talks about is how we have different arenas that we step into in life. For example, our workplace might be an arena, our schools might be an arena. The relationships that we have with people, each of those are arenas. And what she kind of delves into is the importance of talking positively to ourselves around each of those arenas.
Sheila Koenig:
So one thing that we’re going to have students do, when we get to the session on positive self-talk, is to choose a song that they feel really kind of pumps them up, makes them feel the very, very best about themselves that they can. And we’ll talk about the importance of having songs like that and how that can kind of give you a little confidence boost right before you’re going to do something that’s difficult, or go into an arena that’s difficult.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, that’s great because there are so many different arenas that we have to participate in.
Sheila Koenig:
Yeah, exactly. So each of these classes is going to look at how to help students build their confidence and their belief in themselves, and how to carry that into their communities and their schools and their friendships.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah. You know, this is really exciting because life is a patchwork of experiences that you bring together and this is going to be another experience that they’ll be able to draw from and use as they go forward in their pathway.
Sheila Koenig:
Yeah, absolutely. If I think back to my own life and learning self-advocacy, I mean there wasn’t one class that did it. There wasn’t one thing that did it. But you’re right, it’s the collection of experiences a person has and it’s also kind of a reflection of the connections that you have with other people too. So this workshop I think brings all of those things together. It’s kind of the academic part, right? We have these eight topics. But it’s also the collective experiences of all the students who are participating. And it’s the reflection of all of the connections that we to each other and then our own individual communities and worlds.
Jeff Thompson:
Well, that’s great. Well, Sheila, how can people get connected up to Level Up?
Sheila Koenig:
Yep, thanks for asking that, Jeff. So what we’re having people do, I guess first I should say that this particular series is open to students who are in high school or if they’re in a transition program ages 18 through 21. So college students will be guest appearing in this series, but this particular series is geared more towards the high school audience. So if students are interested, they can email me. My email address is Sheila.koenig@state.mn.us. When I get the email from them, I’ll go ahead and give them the call in information for Thursday’s session. Our classes are going to be on Thursday evenings from 19:00 until 20:00.
Jeff Thompson:
Well, that’s great. That starts on the 16th and it goes for eight weeks.
Sheila Koenig:
Exactly. And we’re really excited to have students from across the state participate in our classes.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh yeah. Well, I think it’s great that you’re taking the initiative to reach out and get the students all connected and this is a great opportunity for them to do it. Be sure to send that email. We’ll put the email in the show notes and you can click on that, send Sheila an email and level up.
Sheila Koenig:
All right.
Jeff Thompson:
So thank you, Sheila.
Sheila Koenig:
Thanks Jeff.
Jeff Thompson:
You bet. Be sure to contact your State Services for the Blind, your Voc Rehab, and find out what they can do for you. Live, work, read, succeed. For more podcasts with the Blindness Perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com. On Twitter @BlindAbilities and download the free Blind Abilities app from the app store and on Google play. That’s two words, Blind Abilities. You can also enable the Blind Abilities skill on your Amazon device. Just say, enable Blind Abilities.
[Music] [Transition noise] -When we share
-What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.
Jeff Thompson:
For more podcasts with the blindness perspective:
Check us out on the web at www.BlindAbilities.com On Twitter @BlindAbilities
Download our app from the App store:
‘Blind Abilities’; that’s two words.
Or send us an e-mail at:
info@blindabilities.com Thanks for listening.
send us an email at info@blindabilities.com. Thanks for listening.
Contact Your State Services
If you reside in Minnesota, and you would like to know more about Transition Services from State Services contact Transition Coordinator Sheila Koenig by email or contact her via phone at 651-539-2361.
To find your State Services in your State you can go to www.AFB.org and search the directory for your agency.
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