[Cagdu] on schools and assemblies

[Ken Volonte]

This morning, I went to an elementary school for an assembly of Kindergarteners and first graders.  I was invited to this function by one of the teachers who was a guide dog puppy raiser.  I sat horrified as this person explained how blind people couldn't do anything without the assistance of their guide dogs.  "That's why I'm raising guide dog puppies and I'll do it for the rest of my life", she said.  In short, I was just there as a prop as this raiser did an infomercial for herself and, just incidentally, for guide dog school.  The next horrible thing that happened was her instruction for the children to close their eyes.  "Are you scared?" she asked.  "Yeeeees!" they all answered.  "Well that's how a blind person feels all through the day, so you should thank God you can see."  We're not through yet.  Next, she had me work my dog through a series of obstacles and was very upset when he returned by a different way than he had gone.  We had headed for the exit and then had come back to my chair.  The worst thing was when she picked out two hapless little kids and had her puppy "guide" them through the obstacles.  Remember this was a puppy, a cute little six month old black lab puppy who had behaved flawlessly, despite long ear splitting whistles of very high frequency feed back.  Now I am glad to go and speak to school kids.  I have even shared lunch in the cafeteria in my time; but this debacle was too much.  When it was my time to speak, I congratulated the kids on how brave they were and told them that blindness was normal for me.  That ended my time.  It ended the whole assembly As I said before, I'm glad to speak at schools, but next time, I'll only address an assembly if I am invited by the school principle or other administrator.  Kids are so much smarter than adult puppy raisers.  That's why I liked it better when it was a 4-h project.  
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