The Struggle: A Necessary Component of Disability Freedom

I recently read an education-related article (Anderson, 2022) that espoused allowing children to struggle with problems before engaging them with pedagogy. There should be an expectation that the student will strive to learn and understand until they hit a wall. Although being carefully observed by their teachers to ensure the accrual of just the right amount of cognitive load, stress, and frustration, the theory states that students will be hungrier for knowledge and more ready to be taught than if the teacher simply provides information in advance of any student effort.

Today, teachers are overloaded and curricula and standardized tests abound, so it may be more efficient to spoon-feed students to get them through their classes and examinations rather than to take the time to permit them to try on their own. This situation is an admittedly unfortunate state of affairs that can be remedied if lesson plans are restructured to allow for some struggle, even some failure, before structured teaching begins.

The Disability Connection

According to the National Blindness Professional Certification Board (2022), a professional credentialing body affiliated with the philosophies of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), the term “structured discovery” first appeared in 1984. It is a method of teaching cane and other independence skills to people who are blind or have low vision. It emphasizes the development of confidence and problem-solving skills.

Structured discovery appears to have emanated from a broader educational and training perspective (Bruner, 1960). Social, educational, and cognitive psychology theories combine in Bruner's approach, which focuses on the ways knowledge is acquired, emphasizing direct experience. If the learner is both cognitively and experientially connected to the learning process, knowledge acquisition will take place more solidly than if the student is passive. Moreover, confidence and problem-solving skills will be greater.

A hallmark of the NFB approach is the use of nonvisual techniques, especially if an individual's vision is so poor as to render task-performance inefficient. By the mid-2000s, the NFB had codified structured discovery into a preferred and fleshed-out mobility and independence skills teaching methodology.

At that time, I attended a few structured discovery symposiums offered by NFB. Discussions ranged from open and honest questions about how to teach using structured discovery learning to “political” questions about overall NFB philosophy. The so-called political questions and debates came as much from the NFB's inextricable melding of structured discovery with nonvisual training techniques as from the structured discovery method itself.

An example of this method can be found in a lesson designed for a student in which he or she is asked to locate a curb cut in advance of a street crossing. The instructor provides up-front information, reviews prior training, and then permits the student to search the area near the crosswalk until the student either gives up or announces, “I think I found the curb cut.” The instructor, who has remained close by the entire time, either verifies or instructs. Using Socratic questioning, the instructor asks the student to explain everything he or she is doing and thinking during and after the learning activity is finished.

The Nondisabled Experience

Most sighted people are frightened when they observe a blind person or imagine what it would be like for them should they lose their eyesight. In fact, blind people probably start out just as frightened when their vision deteriorates. But, as with most things that begin stressfully (e.g., learning to drive a car), the more you practice, the quicker mental and muscle memory take over, and what was once a big deal becomes a “no-brainer.” The same principles apply to blindness independence skills. Before one knows it, the awareness level and tactile, auditory, and other perceptual skills required to perform a variety of tasks become embedded in “muscle-memory.” This notion also pertains to cognitive tasks such as understanding complex concepts after a solid foundation of basic ideas has been laid down.

People without disabilities, specifically those who have had no or limited contact with people with disabilities, often react to their vicarious experience and either jump in to “help” a person with disabilities or avoid the individual altogether. It is unfortunate because people with disabilities might not receive the balanced level of consideration from those without disabilities that would be most helpful. If they did, not only would people with disabilities have greater opportunities to learn more about how to manage with their own disabilities but also nondisabled people might come to understand how to best help them to learn. At a minimum, they might de-catastrophize the disabling condition in their own minds. Most importantly, they would give people with disabilities a chance to struggle and succeed, or fail, en route to a greater learning experience.

Conclusion: Facilitate the Struggle

In today's classrooms, and in life in general, doing things for people with disabilities may be expedient, but it does not help people with disabilities to accrue the variety of skills and meta-skills they need to be most independent and fulfilled in the long run.

If people without disabilities would pause and observe for even a few seconds when encountering a blind person who is, for example, trying to find a seat on a bus, they would not jump up to escort the person or ignore the individual, but instead, provide verbal directions.

It is not only in the classroom or public spaces where many a person with a disability is not permitted to struggle in the learning process. There are many job situations in which blind employees are denied training and promotional opportunities because of the a priori biases of their nondisabled supervisors. Once in place, many people with disabilities are left to use super-human drive to fight their way into in-service training and promotional opportunities. Those for whom this proves too daunting remain in place and often underemployed.

If you meet a blind person who has achieved well in life and work, it will no doubt be because of a high degree of effort. This state of affairs exists because of the social structure and nondisabled people's “instincts” to help get in the way. It can also lead to the lack of availability of reasonable accommodations. The struggle, whether it leads to success or failure, will not have a chance to bear its beneficial fruits, not because the endeavor is too hard, but because the surrounding systems do not permit it to take place.

The essence of achievement is in the struggle. Through structured discovery learning or other ways, let us foster the conditions that allow for that struggle. In the end, it will be more valuable to teach someone to fish than to give them a fish.