Learned Helplessness

Hello. Today, I will blog about learned helplessness, but first, I want to bring up expectations and blindness hierarchy because I feel these concepts are all somewhat related.
First, let’s talk about expectations so that you can help sighted folks understand it and so you can utilize it if you are apt to become a teacher or just so you can improve expectations you may have for yourself.
What I like to do is first imagine just any person and then to declare what I expect to occur. For example, I imagine a student since I am going to become a teacher, (hopefully). What do I expect a student to do, and it is critical to be specific here? My topic might be to have the student demonstrate an ability to properly identify different locations on a globe. To accomplish this objective, I might ask the student to indicate certain locations on a map of a globe, which I have provided to the student. So now, I have answered the question: What are my expectations for the person—the student will demonstrate understanding of locations on the globe by writing in the location names on a map of the globe. Second, I ask myself how can the person, (student), accomplish this goal? To answer this question, I want to then ask myself questions about the senses? How could someone do this activity using vision? How could someone do this activity using touch? How could someone do this activity using hearing? How could someone do this activity using smell? How could someone do this activity using taste?
I might claim that smell and taste will not be beneficial for this experiment, but before I make this claim automatically, I really need to try to come up with an appropriate way to use all five senses, including taste and smell, to do this experiment, and I need to try to think of more than one example. For example, let’s say for taste, I have chocolate pudding to mark Australia on the globe itself, and during the demonstration during the learning phase, the student would taste this portion of the globe. And so the student would use chocolate to mark Australia on this paper by smearing it right where Australia would show up. Why does it sound as if I am being silly here? The answer is because sometimes we automatically assume something can’t be done using a specific sense without actually first thinking about the possibilities and, as a result, we leave out effective ways of accomplishing goals for ourselves, our students, and those sighted people we encounter in our lives whom we teach about blindness or any other disability.
Let’s see if I can come up with a legitimate example where taste or smell would work, since those are the senses that we might not imagine could be useful. Would smell help us in travel? At the mall in the town near where I live, the theater entrance can be identified by the aroma of popcorn that permeates the area. In a science lab, I might be able to identify a certain mixture by its smell, for example, ammonia has a unique smell to it. Smell can also help me to identify if food is completely cooked, though this sense will be used in combination with other senses as most tasks will.
Tasting enables cooks to know if they have just the right ingredients, or if more of something, such as salt, is required before serving the meal to guests. In a school, taste might be used to enable a student to develop a visual of a picture on a monitor screen by using the tongue as an alternative to vision. Please note I have heard of this being done, but I have never personally experienced it, though I would love to just for the experience.
So first, we asked what did we expect the person to do, and second we asked how could the person do it using the five senses? We never thought of the disability and specific needs for the students. It might be after the above has accomplished that you bring the person, in my case, the student into play. I prefer this because starting out, we are adapting for all students by adapting for multiple senses. Now, we can say, this person is sighted, and so vision is the best method for accomplishing the goal, but this other person is blind, and so touch and/or hearing might be the best methods to make this individual successful. It is okay for people to use multiple methods, including those with sight. Sighted cooks look at a produced meal to see if it looks good, but they also smell it and taste it as well. Thinking of the individual and their style at this point can also help us to further adapt the activity so that they can be successful. Some people are visual performers, for example, those who read Braille and print, and some people are audio performers, for example those who listen to audio. Some people can use both, and knowing the preferred way for an individual to perform a task can help us meet their individual needs so that we can match those needs with the challenges that result from various characteristic traits, such as blindness, height, etc. Keep in mind that if you are a teacher, and if you expect students to learn to spell and read fluently, you may need to require audio learners to use print or Braille because the only way to learn these skills is through experience. So you might allow them to read physically, meaning in print or Braille, and then to read it in accompaniment with audio, except for lessons where reading and/or English is taught, in which case, they should probably use print or Braille most all of the time.
Again, I want to emphasize that I focused on what needs done and how to do it using the various senses; I never thought of the specific disability, such as blindness, and what someone who is blind could not do. My focus is on how to accomplish a goal in different ways and not on how a specific group could not do something. I feel in this way I am not going to automatically say a task cannot be done by a blind person because I will be focusing on how to do the job using various methods. The individual needs to come at the end of these steps because first, I try to adapt the task for everyone, and then, I make any adjustments based on personal needs, if required.
Now, I would like to talk about blindness hierarchy because I just told you that I do not like to focus on how somebody can’t do something. Even at schools for the blind, I have noticed the atmosphere of the blindness hierarchy concept come into play, and my hope is that someday this concept will disappear from our classrooms, our activities that we structure for the blind, and our lives. Blindness hierarchy refers to the various levels of vision from total blindness to full vision, and it claims that someone with less vision, meaning that they are closer to the end of total blindness on this continuum, have less abilities than do those closer to the end of full vision. In other words, some tasks can only be done if a certain level of vision is present. This is important for me to mention here because this belief is completely false; a person’s level of vision does not dictate what they can and cannot do, but the level of vision does alter the method for accomplishment of the task. By focusing on how tasks can be accomplished using the five senses, one will discover that someone with total blindness can accomplish the same tasks as someone with full vision. Both methods may be equally effective. Also, the method used by a totally blind person to perform a task may be the most effective method even for the individual at the full vision end of the continuum. If one goes through the procedures mentioned above where one considers how to do the tasks using each sense individually of the five senses, one can then determine which method to use in order to perform the task safely, effectively, and efficiently, and there may be more than one method to do the job.
So, with expectations and blindness hierarchy in mind, what is learned helplessness and how does it apply. Learned helplessness is the perceived inability to do for oneself as a result of negative attitudes associated with blindness that have been pushed on the individual by society, by friends, by family, and by the individual’s own negative perception of blindness. In other words, learned helplessness means that a person habitually asks others to do tasks for him or her because he or she believes the task is unaccomplishable or because he or she has fallen into the habit of allowing others to do things for him or her just because it is easier. Notice here that low expectations from others and low expectations from oneself is guiding one’s actions. Also, the belief that the inability to see means helplessness and inferiority come into play. Let me first say that asking for and receiving assistance from others is an acceptable thing to do. I am not saying that just because someone asks for assistance means that they are playing the poor, helpless blind person role. What I am trying to get across to you is that a habit of asking for and receiving assistance leads to learned helplessness, and that someone constantly doing something for someone who is blind teaches this learned helplessness. My goal is to try to uncover some solutions so that those with learned helplessness, including myself if I apply, can overcome this serious condition.
First, knowledge can help. If you know you are doing something just because it is easier for you to do for the blind person, or if you are a blind person and you know you are allowing someone to assist because it is easier, then you have recognized you are exhibiting learned helplessness. Knowledge of steps to take to avoid this can then be implemented.
Second, know how to have high expectations for blind people, and if you are blind, know how to have high expectations for yourself by asking yourself how a task can be accomplished in many different ways. Also, ask yourself why you believe something, and ask yourself if this belief is a belief that results from concrete evidence or if you believe it simply because you always believed it and others say it’s true. If you feel justified in your belief that the best way to accomplish said goal is to have someone else do it for you, then you should be able to produce evidence and objective reasoning to prove this point. For example, when I go out to eat at a restaurant with a buffet, I believe I should go up to get my own food, but that I should go with a sighted person who can identify the various foods for me. This is not because I do not have the ability to fix my own plate; it is because out of the five senses, taste is the one that would help me to identify which food is in which container. I feel it is rude to taste everything on the spot here because of the possibility to contaminate food or pass on germs. So, I will allow an assistant to help with this. One way for me to identify the different foods independently would be for Braille to be written on the containers for the items and for foods to always be in a certain spot, but this is unlikely to happen in a world that is set up for the sighted. Some foods will be identifiable by touch, but since all are not, I choose to use vision to learn the type of food in a certain container.
Now, as I am walking along the buffet, a sighted person can say this bowl contains rice, this one contains meatballs, etc., and then I can then independently fill my own plate. However, if I am with a sighted person who is not comfortable with blindness or who is in a hurry, my goal is to fix my plate, and it is not a time to teach about blindness. So to show respect to the individual, I will allow them to fix my plate. A time to teach them may come up for me if I am focusing on the person, his or her fears, and the best way to approach the person with how blindness does not mean helplessness.

I, therefore, must determine if I am allowing someone to do the task because it is easier or if I have considered the safest, most efficient way to accomplish the task.
How about you? Do you constantly hold on to someone’s arm just because you are afraid to use your cane or because it is easier to be guided? Do you feel uncomfortable walking in crowds and feel embarrassed when you bump into someone or touch them with your cane or when you call out to the crowd for the location of an empty seat? Or, are you holding onto someone’s arm because you have thought critically about the situation and determined that doing so is the safest, most efficient way to accomplish the task? Just to clarify, you may be justified in your decision to hold someone’s arm. For example, I have the ability and can walk along a crowded boardwalk, and this is important for me to know if I should ever be required to independently move along the board walk. This might be the case if the person I am with is incapacitated and can no longer walk with me or if I am ever out with a specific purpose to accomplish on the boardwalk and I am alone. However, I feel it is fine for me to hold onto the arm of a sighted friend to walk along the boardwalk. After all, my goal is to talk with the person and have fun; I do not want to focus my attention on dodging the crowd.
I want to point out that you may think a way is the most effective and most efficient if you are accustomed to using that way. So think about the five senses and how to do a task using all of them. Also, consider why you want the help. Are you afraid? Are you uncomfortable or embarrassed about blindness and how others might perceive you when you do it on your own? If so, you are probably relying on others because of learned helplessness.
Please share your thoughts on this subject so that others may benefit. Also, please pass on the blog’s address to those who may be interested.