"I hear how tall you are" - schoolgirls from Lenggries immerse themselves in the world of being blind

Created: 05/17/2022, 1:00 p.m

By: Felicitas Bogner

Lena Mittermaier leads her classmate Ela Nas down the stairs at Lenggries station.

Nas tries out different tactile techniques when using a white cane.

Teacher Christian Martino (right) observes the use of his protégés.

Corinna Konrad and Sarah Amodio (above left) are already waiting to be deployed.

© arp

As part of a P seminar, guest lecturers take schoolgirls from Hohenbrug's St. Ursula High School into the world of being blind.

The aim is to create understanding.

Lenggries –

Am I about to run into a post?

Or am I tripping down a step?

Why does the ground suddenly feel different under the sole of my shoe?

Questions like these are buzzing in the minds of the Hohenburg high school students in the “Blind Living” P seminar.

In teams of two, they try to find their way around the Lenggries train station and move on.

The challenge: One student at a time sees nothing.

She's wearing a black mask.

As an aid, she is given a white cane.

Markus Ertl explains exactly how this is used.

He is one of three guest lecturers at the seminar led by Christian Martino.

Ertl himself is blind.

When he was nine years old, doctors diagnosed him with a progressive retinal disease.

Since he was 40 years old, he has seen almost nothing.

Pupils try to find their way “blind” at the Lenggries station

Ertl has been committed to inclusion throughout Europe for many years.

He likes to take part in the P-Seminar in Hohenburg.

After all, his daughters also attend the St. Ursula High School.

So that nothing goes wrong during the exercises with the cane and mask, classmates lead their classmates by the arm.

At the same time, they practice guiding techniques for the blind.

This was demonstrated by guest lecturer Sonja Walser from Königsdorf.

The social worker has a daughter with severe motor disabilities.

The author Franziska Sgoff from Freising described the perspective and needs of the person being guided.

She is blind from birth.

All guest lecturers know each other through various inclusive projects, explains Walser.

Very carefully, the girls step forward step by step.

"Stairs feel like a big hazard," says Sarah Amodio.

Corinna Konrad is leading them up and down the station square.

"Downstairs scares me even more than going up the stairs." Relieved, the 18-year-old student pushes the mask onto her forehead and looks around to see where she has landed.

Different techniques to use white cane

After the first practice rounds, in which the girls were free to choose their path, the next challenge awaited: "We're going to cross the street in teams of two," announces Ertl and progresses routinely.

At the Lenggries train station, he would like to see guidance systems for the blind, especially in front of and not just on the platform.

"It makes things a lot easier for us," he says.

Even without a traffic light, he fearlessly marches across the street.

The reason: "I know my way around here well, after all I wasn't born blind and didn't grow up in Lenggries." In addition, he can rely on his ears.

"I can tell whether a car is just starting up or how far away it is." But that's not all Ertl can tell by hearing: "I can also hear how tall you are," he says to the reporter and puts on a mischievous smile .

As the?

"I hear,

Even if the students know each other, it is an unfamiliar feeling to have to rely on someone else to cross the street.

“The noises are confusing,” everyone agrees.

Franziska Sgoff reports that she is no different.

"The more familiar I am with a person guiding me, the safer I feel." Ertl has had other experiences: "What is decisive for my well-being is how confident the guiding person appears and walks." He knows that some are more cautious and therefore less secure when guiding a visually impaired person.

"In my close environment there is a person who I no longer let myself lead because I am becoming insecure myself."

Giving practical tips for dealing with blind people (from left): Franziska Sgoff, Markus Ertl and Sonja Walser.

© arp

Teacher Martino wants to promote inclusion and get it into the minds of the students by working with the guest lecturers at his seminar.

"The lack of contact often creates unconscious prejudices or miscalculations," says Walser.

As before, it is only possible to educate a disabled child inclusively with her active commitment and the reliance on the goodwill of third parties, she reports.

Creating understanding for the needs of disabled people is therefore the be-all and end-all. Sgoff and Ertl also stated this again.

Not least because of this, they are involved in the school project, which gives the schoolgirls greater confidence in dealing with people with disabilities.

Creating an understanding of needs is the be-all and end-all

Empathy and respect for the situation of others is of immense importance.

Ertl explains this with an example: “Someone once wanted to help me at the train station, but he neither warned me nor spoke to me, just touched me and switched me around.

That doesn't work at all.

It's offensive, and it scared me to death.” Something similar happens to Sgoff over and over again.

“On the train, someone put my suitcase somewhere else without being asked.

That made me extremely insecure.” That's why the schoolgirls also learned how to approach a blind person correctly.

"You should address a person clearly and say who you are," says Ertl.

Again and again it happens that one is simply touched.

“There is no difference to other people.

Nobody wants to be touched by strangers without being asked.” The motto is to treat everyone as equals.

Over the next few months, the students will get ever deeper impressions of the lives of blind people.

A joint excursion to Munich with blind people is planned for July.

In the end, according to the lecturers' plan, everyone will have "a kind of driver's license for dealing with blind people".

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