Reflections from Case Study #1: While I have not taught a student with a visual impairment, I have worked

in a camp setting with a child that was blind, had an intellectual impairment and also had left side weakness therefore needed a brace and a cane to walk with. When I reflect on this experience I remember it being very challenging to help facilitate friendships for this student and I feel that many of his peers saw themselves as helpers rather than friends. I also recognize that there was a great deal of uncertainty about the childs condition among his peers and since we only had a short time with him (and were given little information ourselves) we did not make it a priority to explain to the other cabin members what his impairments were and what they meant for his participation in activities. If I were to encounter a situation like this again I would make a concerted effort at the beginning of the year/session to do more get-to-know-you activities to help the boys recognize more of what they had in common as opposed to what set them apart. Being forthright about his exceptionalities would also be important. As I mentioned in a post earlier in the course, the set up of Collaborative Base groups, long-term groups (lasting for at least one semester of year) with stable membership whose primary responsibility is to give each member the support, encouragement, and assistance he or she needs to progress academically and develop cognitively and socially in healthy ways, may be a way to accomplish this throughout the year in a classroom setting. As Im looking at this case from the lens of a high school teacher, teaching social skills through collaborative learning may be more effective than a structured social program. Question for Colleagues Hutchinson (2014) as well as other researchers recommend that teachers be forthright and explain to other students in the class the nature of the individual students disability, in this case visual impairment. I am questioning whether it is easier to be forthright about physical exceptionalities, which may be more visible to other students, than other exceptionalities and whether it is just as important to disclose information about students who have exceptionalities such as intellectual impairment, ADHD, learning disabilities etc.?