Slaying dragons: building self-confidence and raising expectations through orientation center training

American Rehabilitation,  Autumn, 2004  by Sandy Tigges

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Self-confidence is a difficult concept to define. Self-confident people have positive, yet realistic, views of themselves and their situations. They trust their own abilities, have a general sense of control in their lives and believe that, within reason, they will be able to do what they wish, plan and expect. They take risks and remain positive even when they fail. Because they accept themselves, they do not feel the need to conform just to be accepted by others.

Adult students at our center have defined self-confidence in a variety of ways, as evidenced in a group discussion held on September 15, 2003. One student said that it is what allows you to walk instead of crawl through life. Another said that self-confidence is knowing that you are capable of doing things with dignity, like taking public transportation and going through a buffet line without a mishap. A third said that it is what allows you to participate fully in school, work and the other things in life. A fourth student put it best: "You know you have self-confidence when you can trust yourself to figure out how to overcome successfully the fears and challenges you must face every day." (2)

The development of self-confidence and a positive attitude about blindness are linked. Students must learn that they and not their families, friends or society as a whole should control their attitude about themselves and their blindness. In his 1982 book, Strengthening Your Grip, Charles Swindoll described the importance of attitude this way:

"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company, a church, a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it. And so it is for you ... we are in charge of our attitude!" (p. 126).

The development of self-confidence and a positive attitude about blindness are the focus of every class in the center. This process is a lengthy one, because it requires students to make a 180-degree turnaround in their attitude. For this reason, students train in the center for an average of six months. They must come to trust the teachers who are demanding so much of them, and teachers must learn to gauge the right levels of sensitivity, encouragement, prodding and confrontation that will help each student achieve this objective.

The story of Janice is typical. Throughout her training, she struggled with the notion that she could become competent as a blind person and as a result had to be told constantly to keep her sleepshades down. For their final cooking project--a seven-course dinner--students are expected to write their menus and recipes in Braille, take the city bus to the grocery store, purchase their groceries from lists they have written in Braille, and prepare and serve the meal for their families and friends. As she confronted this dragon, a tearful Janice became paralyzed with fear and threatened to pack her bags and go home. Letting her avoid this dragon was not an option, since it would undermine any self-confidence she had acquired and make it easier for her to hide from the next dragons she would inevitably encounter. Reasoning, encouragement, and prodding had no effect on her. Finally, taking the risk that she might run, as the program administrator I resorted to confrontation and called her a quitter. At first she was angry, but after thinking about it for awhile she decided that she had to prove me wrong. She unpacked her bags and successfully went to the store, bought her groceries and prepared and served a wonderful dinner to almost 50 people.