[Art_beyond_sight_learning_tools] Models still leave impression on blind students

[Shelley L. Rhodes]

What is the consensus out there regarding Models in education for tangible 
items that say the students couldn't touch?

I am wondering as I grew up touching animals, and other models every chance 
I got, and it helped me in my clay sculptures.Anyway see the article below 
on a very old set of tactile models.


Shelley L. Rhodes and Judson, guiding golden
juddysbuddy at velocity.net
Guide Dogs For the Blind Inc.
Graduate Advisory Council
www.guidedogs.com

The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to
stare up the steps - we must step up the stairs.

      -- Vance Havner
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Leon Gilbert" <BlindNews at GeoffAndWen.com>
To: "Blind News Mailing List" <BlindNews at BlindProgramming.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2005 8:38 PM
Subject: BlindNews: Models still leave impression on blind students


Ohio.com
Sunday, January 30, 2005

Models still leave impression on blind students

By JOE BLUNDO, Associated Press

COLUMBUS , Ohio - After 65 years of eager fingers playing over its facade, 
Monticello is looking a little worse for wear.

The scale model of Thomas Jefferson's house, faithfully rendered right down 
to the spindles in its railings, has a missing porch column here, a loosened 
chimney there.

But as an aid to helping students understand the elegance of the real 
Monticello, the model remains a useful tool at the Ohio State School for the 
Blind.

America was in the grip of the Great Depression when the Work Projects 
Administration, a federal agency that employed people in public-works jobs, 
commissioned the building of scale models for schools for the blind.

The Ohio school received a $45,000 grant for models produced in the late 
1930s. Accompanying them was a book, Models for the Blind, describing the 
history and significance of the buildings, devices and natural features 
depicted.

"The blind and partially sighted children ... can tell you how many windows 
there are at Mount Vernon, what the portico at Monticello is like and even 
how the guillotine works," wrote Harry Graff, supervisor of the Ohio 
Writers' Project, a WPA program that employed writers to produce the book in 
1940.

In the years since, the models fell into disuse and disappeared from many 
schools for the blind, said Lou Mazzoli, superintendent of the Ohio school.

Nine forgotten WPA models from the Michigan School for the Blind in Lansing 
were headed for the trash heap until an alumnus alerted a Smithsonian 
curator, who took them to Washington. Perkins School for the Blind in 
Watertown, Mass., the nation's oldest such school, still uses some WPA 
models and has others in storage, spokeswoman Barbara Castleman said.

The Ohio school has kept its collection largely intact. The models rest on 
long tables in the basement, a miniature inventory of some of the world's 
great architecture and inventions.

Generations of children have run their hands over the White House, the 
Wright brothers' airplane, the Arch of Titus and the Taj Mahal. They've been 
able to spin a working model of a windmill and feel the cable of a 
suspension bridge. Models for the Blind lists about 90 items made for the 
Ohio school.

Doris and Dale Pennington, who graduated in the 1960s, said the models 
remain a strong part of their school memories. He remembers the gristmill. 
She remembers counting the steps on the Statehouse.

"It's been 37 years, but they made an impression on me," said Mrs. 
Pennington, 55.

They were still making impressions on Ceil Peirano's class of fifth- and 
sixth-graders early this month.

After learning about volcanoes, the students went to the basement to touch 
models depicting them. Peirano guided the hands of Sam Shepherd, 14, over a 
model, making the craters, vents and domes she had told him about less 
theoretical.

But the volcano wasn't enough. In a room holding everything from the Leaning 
Tower of Pisa to the Washington Monument, the students fanned out, running 
their hands over everything within reach. About 45 percent of the school's 
130 students are totally blind; the rest have varying degrees of vision 
impairment.

The age of some of the models is obvious: Air transportation is represented 
by a Douglas DC-4, a propeller-powered airplane from the 1940s. Still, 
Peirano said, she uses them several times a year.

Because texture was as important as appearance, the model makers took pains 
to simulate real surfaces. Grooves were painstakingly carved into wood to 
give the feel of brick. The rough texture of stone on the Salisbury 
Cathedral was simulated by mixing sand into paint.

Mazzoli said he would like to find craftspeople who would volunteer to 
refurbish some models.

Significant as both learning tools and historical artifacts, the models 
deserve preservation, Mr. Pennington said.

"They are treasures that you would never get again."


http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/10774143.htm?1c




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