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This is Studio One on Vision Australia Radio.
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Hello, I'm Matthew and I'm Sam, and this is Studio One, your weekly look at life from a low vision and blind point of view here on Vision Australia Radio. On this week's show.
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Tertiary Education, we look at the challenges facing people living with a vision impairment when it comes to continuing to learn stuff after they've left school.
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As we always say at this point, please do get in touch with the show. Whether you have experience of any of the issues covered in this episode of Studio One, or if you think there's something we should be talking about, you never know. Your story and your insight may help somebody else who is dealing with something similar.
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The best way to contact us is to email Studio One at Vision Australia Dawg. That's studio one at Vision australia.org.
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This is studio one on Vision Australia radio.
01:19S2
Hello there Sam.
01:21S3
Hello there Matthew. And hello again to Lizzie.
01:25S4
Hi there. It's good to be back.
01:27S2
Uh, Euston. Vigor and enthusiasm on the show. Um, how are you, Sam? Before we get to Lizzie, let's keep her on the side. Let's bring her in. We'll we'll her onto the stage because she's the the the big act. Uh, how you. First of all.
01:39S3
Oh, I am tremendously excited. Um, I've got a new phone, so I'm now a happy chappy, and things are not, uh, breaking and. Well, I do have to say a special happy birthday to my wife, Heidi, because at the time of recording, it's her birthday. And I believe you should be saying happy birthday to somebody else. Matthew.
01:57S2
Oh, I should, yes, of course, your wife and my twin daughters have the same birthday. Uh, so, yes, happy birthday to them as well. Um, but to business, Sam, we can't just use. We can't abuse our privileges like that all the time. Um, tell me about your new phone. So I assume it's, uh, it's an iPhone, because that's all people with a vision impairment use.
02:15S3
It's, of course, a Google Pixel, which was what does seem to be what a lot of other vision impaired people use.
02:21S2
Oh, really? Okay. Because, well, I use one because I like it. Uh, so if you wish to sponsor us, Mrs. Alphabet, please do get in touch. Studio one at Vision Australia dot org. That's studio one at Vision australia.org. But this week Sam we're talking about uh, further education. We'll come to Lizzy in a minute. And Lizzy has also spoken to some people in her circle of friends about the notion of the challenges facing people who are studying at university or at TAFE or at college. Uh, Sam, I can't remember what your qualifications are. Did you go on to do further education of any kind?
02:56S3
So I studied English and politics initially, and uh, then, uh, when I found there wasn't much work in it, I, uh, moved over to it.
03:04S2
Yeah. So where did you study? English and politics?
03:06S3
Uh, all over the place. Um, I started out at Canberra Uni, then moved to what is now Charles Darwin University, but at that stage was called the, uh, Northern Territory University. And then, uh, finished off, uh, at uh, Murdoch University in Perth. So I did a lot of moving around.
03:23S2
Okay. Did you actually ever nail a degree or did you just do loads of further education courses?
03:29S3
I did a lot of further education courses, and then jump ship and, uh, did, uh, my IT certification through a private company, which, as I said, proved way more useful.
03:39S2
Well, English and politics, both of them are heavy on the reading. I assume that was difficult. What was the other stuff that you challenges is the word we meant to use. We prefer to use the word problems on this show. But what were the challenges that you found? Um, back in the olden days when everything was in black and white, applying for, getting into and then, uh, fulfilling your educational needs? Uh, in, in tertiary education.
04:04S3
Getting into university was relatively easy. I mean, I am because of my sporting career. I had sort of, uh, my attention to my, uh, later studies in high school sort of fell off. But I got in as a mature, aged student, so that was, uh, fine. Um, and I believe it or not, I think it was a better way of doing it because I had a couple of years off. I was out there in the workplace and was well and truly ready to study. That was, uh, and I really would suggest anybody do that. Uh, just, uh, when you're going from year 12 straight to university, it's more of the same. Whereas, uh, you have a couple of years off and, um, it's, um, it's, as I said, something different again. And, uh, the thing was, I think that all the mistakes I made in high school, I managed to make up for in, um, in university because there was just various tips of the trade which I will go into later on.
04:51S2
Uh, so for my experience, I, I have a degree in, uh, modern and medieval languages from Jesus College, Cambridge. So I'm, uh, it's a party trick. Really? Uh, I had an amazing thing when I was at school that because I couldn't see the blackboard, I was very good at listening. And that allowed me to be good at languages. I was one of those kids where I used to sit at the back of the class playing poker in my history class, and if the teacher asked me what they had just said, even though I hadn't been listening, I was able to passively repeat it. So those sensory differences were enabled me to study, uh, language. And vocabulary and made it much easier. So it was an audio learning thing. But yeah, I got to. I was very lucky. I got to go to the oldest university in the world. And as I say, if if I hadn't, it's one of those weird things. If I hadn't been vision impaired, I doubt I would have been as good at languages. And, uh, I doubt I would have had the incredible. It was like going to Hogwarts, basically. Sam, I took my kids up to see it last year, and it was such a lovely place that they both burst into tears, said, we shouldn't be in here, daddy, why are we here? We can't get no kids. I'm. I'm a member of the university. We're allowed to be here. It's absolutely fine. But enough about me. Well, we have, uh, I recall her. I don't I don't know what you think about this, Sam. I would call her the choral director of our choir of angels. The person whose opinion we go to most and who has started bringing on loads of people with fresh people with new opinions that we haven't heard yet. Her name is Lizzie. Lizzie. Thank you for joining us again. And thank you for all your hard work getting this show together.
06:34S4
No worries. It's been a pleasure.
06:36S2
Yeah. You like chatting to people, don't you?
06:38S4
I love chatting to people. I mean, that's practically all I do.
06:42S2
Hahahahahahaha!
06:43S4
I, it has been said, could talk underwater with a mouth full of marbles. Or I think my family's other favorite saying is that I could talk these off a trained therapist. Yeah.
06:55S2
And you have done. You've left, uh, the corpses in your wake? Um, yes, yes. Uh, listen, did you do tertiary education at all? Did you go on to study after school?
07:06S4
I did, uh, but as Sam reiterated before, I jumped straight from high school to university. I went to study a Bachelor of Music performance specializing in jazz vocals. Wow. At, uh, the Elder Conservatorium here in Adelaide. But unfortunately, I dropped out because I was actually in the predicament where I left school. And two months before I was to start university, I moved out of home for the first time. I started living independently. So not only did I have to navigate the challenges of living independently, such as mobility around the neighborhood, uh, cooking, cleaning and shopping independently. But then I had to get ready to begin university, and it was a absolutely. It was a nightmare. I didn't know how to ask for help or anything like that. So it proved to be a negative experience.
08:01S2
That's absolutely fascinating, though, because in, in, in the UK and I know it's different in US, in the UK what you do generally is you go to university in a different town if you're going to go to university and yes, that is most people's first taste of independent living. So it was just a question of it wasn't a the fact that they, they, you know, the usual things people complain about is that the documents were all in the wrong format and they were all a bit biased against you, but your problem was that you took on too much at once and didn't know where to get help. Is that is that roughly what you're saying?
08:36S4
That's constantly been my problems throughout life. Uh, but yes. And because I had to face all those challenges as well about, you know, the documents we.
08:44S2
Call them problems, Lizzy. We call them problems. Only because it challenges. For me, it's the new fashionable young people way of saying problem because, you know, the word is not triggering or I.
09:01S4
Am young and fashionable. So what do you expect?
09:04S2
All right. Okay, well, I'm a whingeing old man, so I like to say problems. And my theory is that if you know it's a problem, you will. And I know to change this word not man up but person up, uh, face to face said problem. Whereas a challenge a little bit more wimpy and weedy. But okay, I'll let you go with it. You're telling me about your challenges?
09:25S4
Well, I had the same challenges as any student in my predicament, with documents being in the wrong format and not knowing how to ask for help, and also it being a music class you had to contend with the Or music degree, I should say. You also had to contend with the fact that there was a lot of notation and music that had to be translated to Braille, and I just found it really hard to keep up with everything. I then went a couple of years later to try and study criminology at the same university. Um, but unfortunately I had to drop out of that due to some mental health issues. But, um, I found that course a lot easier because I knew how to ask for help and I didn't have to deal with music.
10:06S2
So that's that's kind of an age and experience thing, isn't it? It sounds like that to me that, uh, as Sam says, a couple of years off beforehand would have allowed you to get the hang of adult stuff, which is harder, as you say, laundry, getting around all of that. You know, learning to to look after yourself is, is is almost challenging enough tertiary education and a full time course to study in itself.
10:29S4
Well, that's the thing. You know, it's not really emphasized just how different school and university is. I mean, in school, you've got people to remind you constantly, you know, oh, you haven't done your assignment, get it done, or you need to have this submitted by tomorrow at university. You have no such thing. You don't have somebody looking over your shoulder 24 over seven, making sure that you're doing the work. And the school that I went to had a unit specifically designed for visually impaired students to get work modified, and it was as easy as one, two, three practically. But at university, you had to go through the faculty directors and the disability liaison officers, and you had to go to this place in that place. And it just became such a struggle that I found it hard to focus on anything else, because I was constantly trying to navigate getting my material modified so that I could access it. Do you think.
11:21S2
It's do you think it's easier these days for people who are doing it now? Because, I mean, from what I can tell, the the even the unreadable formats have started to become accessible with, you know, the new technology from from the likes of Google, who we've mentioned earlier. Uh, do you, do you feel that people have a slightly easier time of it now than you did?
11:42S4
Yes, I think so. And not only do they have a slightly easier time of it, but now with the introduction of NDIS, you can actually employ support workers to come in to class with you and to help you to get the materials modified. And I've been talking to several friends who've had experiences where they're actually quite well supported, and therefore they're able to do their degree with minimal fast in terms of trying to navigate inaccessible material.
12:10S2
Um, I, I have to say, the one thing that I've learnt from this from both you and Sam and actually my own personal experience as well, is, uh, certainly in Sam in my day and possibly in yours at all stages of education. There was always a pressure to do the right thing at the right time. I think as a society, we've moved on a little bit these days. And, you know, this may not sound like a vision impairment specific thing, but, uh, I'm watching somebody around myself go through it, which is that that, you know, in the old days, you had to do these exams at that age, then move on and do that. I think particularly post-Covid, because so many kids haven't been to school for a while. And some of them, I think the story is 1 in 5 kids in the United Kingdom are not, uh, fully attending school because of it, primarily because of mental health issues to do with having been shut in a room for two years, uh, shut in their own houses. And I think, fortunately, the one good thing that's come out of that is that, yeah, there's no stigma to taking a couple of years off and then going to university or not completing your end of school exams on time. I don't know if that's your experiences are, you know, more young people than I do.
13:22S4
Yeah, I think it's definitely a more widely accepted idea, uh, to, to take a gap year or gap years or to just take a couple of years to figure out what you want to do with life. I know for me, the fact that I was quite a good musician and I was performing at a higher level within the vocal performance in school, you know, it was just expected that I would seamlessly transition from school to university and do quite well. And when I was at school, I had quite a lot of support setting up my disability access plan and going to the university to audition. I had support there and but obviously when I left school, all that support left got left behind. And then I was just in open waters by myself. And I did find that to be quite daunting and scary. Whereas if I'd have taken a couple of gap years, I think I could have taken the time to sort of take stock of what support I had, what support I extra support I needed to get and then go from there.
14:20S2
I think it's also about talking to people who've been through it. So if you are listening and you gentle listener, and you do want to know stuff, I think Sam, Lizzie and I would all happily take an email from you and, uh, set up a call and have a meeting. If you're if you're asking those questions and I think, again, being warned that you're going to have those accessibility issues is quite an important thing, isn't it, really? I think that part of the thing for for you, Lizzie, was the shock of not knowing what you were going to have to do.
14:49S4
No. That's right. And being thrown into independent living as well, there was a lot of mental anxiety that came with that. And people should be warned that it is acceptable and it is probably going to happen that you will feel that way. It's quite a normal response, even for well-adjusted people who are still living at home. You're going to have anxiety surrounding entering tertiary education and that's perfectly okay.
15:13S2
Well adjusted. People not like us. Um, so not like us. You've been round, Sam. Have you got your finger over the big red button?
15:23S3
I do have that over. I think we'll hear from Stephen first. Okay.
15:27S5
Um, at the moment I study. Help to run a music group every Tuesday. So what I am actually studying is, um, tablature and music and, um, basic theory. Um, now, to be able to do this, uh, being vision impaired is quite a challenge because, uh, I what I have to do is because I can't read it, I have to go on, uh, by ear, by listening to songs by ear or and go on YouTube and look up instructional videos. Now for the normal person, well, normal person, for personal foresight to be able to do that is easy enough. But with me, I have to pause the videos and go over them constantly and enlarge the screen because I actually has the tablature or the, um, the staff or stave running across the screen stuff, or stabler's the theory of music. Uh, the basic theory with all the notes, chord progressions, stuff like that. And the thing that makes it difficult for me is having to stop and start and adverts, of course, as we all get on YouTube. Um, it's something I love doing, but it is a heck of a challenge. And from a younger age when I used to study music, what I'd have to do is I'd buy the guitar books, but guitar magazines from the news agencies, and then I'd go through them and decide which songs I want to learn. So I take them back to the news agency, because this was tiny, itty bitty print, and I had to get each one of those pages that had the music on it. Enlarge by the news agency. It costs $0.10 at a time. Wow. And it took forever. And the sheets were about half the size of the kitchen table. So imagine trying to hold a guitar and have a microphone in front of me, or just hold a guitar and be able to try to read these sheets and have something to put them on to the other reader. So again, I had to do things like use a magnifying glass. So put the guitar down and use a magnifying glass. Read about a third of the way through one tiny section. Try to memorize that and go over and backwards and forwards and put the guitar down and come back to it. Put it picking up. It was extremely frustrating with schooling. Uh, I had, um, all those sort of age, like CCTV stuff like that to be on the use. But my main, uh, thing that I do now, uh, studying wise because I don't go to university or school or anything like that, it's just mainly the music group and, uh. Yeah, I love it.
18:08S4
So if someone was to present you with a sheet of music and say, learn that, how long would it take you versus a fully sighted person, and what modifications would you have to make to be able to do that because of your vision impairment?
18:25S5
Well, I'd have to break it up into sections so per line. So say you've got a sheet of music that has six lines in it. I'd have to break up each line into thirds, go over it, look at it, memorize it, and then like add to it. Once I get like a specific part of that song down, then I can add another third, then another third and keep going from there. It's very tricky on the memory, it's quite demanding and it can be extremely damn frustrating.
18:56S4
So do you find it hard to get the help required in order to make those modifications to the music?
19:02S5
No. Um, I've figured it all out myself. I use a magnifying glass. Like I stated before, I mainly trained by ear as well, so that's a good help. And, uh, for the lovely lady who I'm married to is pitch perfect. So she helps me out every now and then.
19:18S4
So when it comes to the material for your music group, the books and such, do you have them enlarged or what modifications are had to be made there so that you could read along with the music?
19:31S5
Oh yeah. So I've had to have them enlarged. There is, um, another person in the group that supplies the lyrics, and she has the, um, the, the lyrics, the, the music lyrics for each song enlarged, putting the binders, uh, very well labelled and that's, that's, uh, going on by how much she can see. Uh, we've got a lot of, um, um, totally blind users in the music group, so they have to have everything in Braille. So that's, um, another tricky thing. So we're very lucky to have, um, somebody like that in the group that can put everything together.
20:07S2
Uh, so I had a piano teacher, uh, when I was a kid, in that little window where you could possibly be good at learning the piano as a child or not. Uh, and she was 90 years old and didn't understand that. And she was the piano teacher at my school and didn't understand that I couldn't read the notes and didn't have another way of teaching. So of course. Yeah. You have to lean over and squint over the piano, and the music stand is over the notes. So effectively I can only think of one way to describe this. My nipples were over and above and forward of my hands in their position on the keyboard, so I couldn't play the piano and had to give it up. So it's a it's a practical consideration.
20:48S1
This is studio one on Vision Australia Radio.
20:54S6
Um, my name is Alex and I am currently in my fourth and final year studying social work at Flinders University. So setting up an access plan is definitely something I had to do, and I've had to go back in and do a few times over the course of my degree as my visions actually changed. The biggest thing that I've found I've needed within the access plan has been my assignment adjustments. That gives and allows for an extra seven working days on top of the actual assignment due date, which has saved my butt more times than I can count. It also allows for the use of the assistive technology room in either the main campus or in the library for exams, which thankfully I haven't actually needed, as all of mine have been ones that I can actually sit at home and do. Which means I can use my own computer to do it with my own readers, which has been a big help. It also allows for a support worker in the room to actually help me read the questions, and to spell check to make sure that everything's done correctly, but not answer the questions for me, obviously.
22:14S2
Wow, things have improved since my time and Sam's time, certainly. But. But also since your time, I guess. Lizzie. Yeah, yeah. So what do those support workers do? That's the interesting thing. You're allowed a support worker in class. What are they doing? Taking notes for you, writing what's on the whiteboard or. I don't know if you have one or not.
22:33S4
I don't think they're actually allowed to play an active hand in your study. They're not allowed to take notes or answer the questions for you. I think it's if you miss something, they can help you with that. If you're having technological issues, they can help you with that. If there's something that you can't see, they can point that out to you, but they're not actually allowed to help you to write anything or answer any questions. It's just support to access the lecture materials and things like that.
23:02S2
Well, it's interesting because one of the things that people who've been on here before and again, slightly older than than you or Alex have said, is that one of the main problems of going to university was if you walk into a lecture hall full of people, uh, unlike everybody else, you can't see whether you're sitting next to the person that you were sitting to, sitting next to last week, or whether they're two rows in front of you and talking to people is, is is hard and university part of it, certainly from my perspective, is about the social side of things. How how is that for you and should should these assistants be allowed to help with the social side of stuff or be trained to help with the social side of stuff?
23:47S4
Yes. Um, well, for me, I found it very hard to socialize. Uh, like you said, it's hard to know within a big lecture hall who's sitting with you. So it was easier to go to tutorials. And when you were split up into groups to do tasks, you could talk to the people on your desk then. And if you had the guts to do it, you could set up some sort of connection via social media or mobile phone or whatever, and plan to meet up regularly. But there are a lot of people out there. I know quite a lot of them who have a lot of social anxiety, and they wouldn't have the confidence to just ask someone to connect with them on social media and to plan things, regular social contacts. So that must be really hard for them. And I think from what I've heard from others, the support workers can help to facilitate a social connection with others just by introducing hey, this is ex and she's visually impaired and she would like to be part of your study group or something like I don't know. Yeah, well, it's.
24:46S2
That it's common sense isn't it? The interesting things that come up. There are two themes that regularly come up on our show, and one of them is anxiety, which for me, I always think is, uh, it's not surprising that a lot of people with vision impairment, um, and we dread to, um, uh, generalize and Sam will slap our legs. But I think as people with vision impairment can often have to be more cautious, certainly. And even how they get about the world. And I think anxiety is an extension of that. I think we sort of opened that up for ourselves. I don't know if that makes sense to you, Lizzie.
25:19S4
Yeah, it does for sure. And I mean, anxiety is already a massive problem for the general population.
25:27S7
Um.
25:27S4
Throw on top of that the problems and barriers associated with being vision impaired. Yeah. And I can understand why anxiety can be quite heightened. I mean, sometimes it feels like Mount Everest, but climbing Mount Everest just to try and leave the house because it's a mammoth task, you know, you have to organise public transport or other transport. You have to make sure that you're not going to get lost or nothing's going to happen to you. And because you're part of a vulnerable community or what is seen as a vulnerable community, it can be quite, um, mentally taxing. Yeah.
26:01S2
Yeah. The other positive side of that coin is if. We learned to ask for help, but also learn to a certain extent and forgive my outmoded way of expressing things. But we learned to chat people up. We learn to be nice to people, and I guess ask for things that aren't necessarily on the menu. I think that's how how I should imagine most people deal with the support worker, isn't it? I mean, I watched my friend Paula, and there are certain things that, uh, her support worker Lara does that that aren't officially what she's meant to be doing, but because that makes their relationship run more smoothly. Uh, sometimes you have to order a la carte, I guess, and be nice to people and persuade them to help you and build a relationship.
26:44S3
Well, that's just bribery. So, uh, what I found out I've got a support worker now as well, and, uh, so I've lent her things occasionally, which has been, you know, we're not supposed to do that, but, uh, you know, it's like, oh, yeah, like I need a water pump for to for the, uh, new tank that she's bought. And so, yes, I have to have one. So she borrowed it and things like that. Yeah. That's one of the secret. They'll do more stuff for you if you do more stuff for them. This is.
27:09S4
I also think that there is a lot to be said for being genuine. I mean, I have I have a lot of great experiences with support workers, and I currently have a small team of support workers that works with me. And I've found that always if I need some sort of help or assistance, being genuine about what I need and just explaining to them how this could benefit me or what the disadvantages could be if I don't get help with a certain thing, I find that genuineness wins out generally like it does persuade people, right?
27:42S2
Well, I think we've decided what next week shows about then. It's the experience of working with support workers. I'd like to know what qualifications you get. And as happens with everything else on the NDIS, do people come on a revolving door basis so you don't get to build a relationship with them? What do you think, Sam? All of the.
27:56S3
Above.
27:56S1
Vision Australia Radio gratefully acknowledges the support of the Community Broadcasting Foundation for Studio One.
