by Anne O’Connor
(Reprinted with permission from “The Minneapolis Star-Tribune,” May 30, 2000.)
Kids don’t raise their hands in Connie David’s classroom. When she asks a question, a quiet chorus of names riffles through the room: “Vanessa,” “Raphael,” “Chris,” “Jessica.”
“Let’s hear from someone who hasn’t answered yet,” David says.
Blindness may keep her from seeing her third-grade class, but it doesn’t keep her from knowing her students. With the help of a longtime aide, David has been navigating Minneapolis classrooms for eight years. Now at Wenonah Elementary, she continues to keep her kids in line and learning.
The kids know she’s tough, and they like Ms. David. The hardest thing is not being able to pet her Seeing Eye dog.
“I’ve never really had a dog in the room before. It’s hard not to pet him,” said student Faith Randal.
There are a growing number of blind teachers in classrooms around the country, according to the National Association of Blind Teachers. But David is the only blind classroom teacher in Minneapolis and one of only a few elementary-school teachers in the country.
Blindness isn’t what the kids notice about David. Chris Tornio, 9, talks about how much he likes the experiments she does with the class, like putting two drops of water on a tray and seeing which one runs faster.
Tyler Coombes, 9, talks about how much he likes to be her partner and go along right next to her on walks to collect cans.
“I like being her partner. A lot,” he said. “She laughs a lot. She’s a good teacher.”
In the beginning there were adjustments for David and the children, but the early discomfort is long forgotten. Watching her in front of the classroom, it’s easy to see how. When the kids talk, they look into her eyes. When they pause and look at her, her eyes point at theirs. David holds the students’ attention as they discuss the story, or the math problem, or the geography lesson. Little happens in the room that she doesn’t know about.
“Raphael, sit up straight and show me you’re ready to learn,” she demands, and the boy puts the chair on the ground and does just that.
“Thank you,” she says and quickly moves on to the day’s discussion about the differences between a city and a town.
She moves through the room and feels a notebook on top of Jessica’s desk, when the desks are supposed to be cleared.
“Why do you have this out?” she asks sharply. Before Jessica can open her mouth, David answers her own question. “Oh, you were looking up the answer,” she said. “That’s what I call resourceful. That’s OK, you can keep it out.”
David is determined and strong-willed. She can be prickly and blunt. But she is usually seen as truly dedicated to her students. She’s known for her extra phone calls and notes home to parents. Her firm control means that other teachers turn to her for help with disruptive students.
“I found that she sees more in the classroom than a teacher who can see,” said Art Lakoduk, principal at Jefferson Elementary, where David worked for six years before transferring to Wenonah. “It’s amazing to me. Just by the movement and how it was, she knew who it was. She always had tremendous control of the classroom. She clearly was in charge of that room.”
David said her teaching philosophy is simple. Her job is to teach children, not to be their friend.
“My kids in this classroom all know that I care about them, and they all know that what I want from them is the best that they can give,” she said.
Jan Randal requested David as teacher for her daughter, Faith. She got to know David when Faith was in second grade and Randal was trying to start a can-collecting project at school. David was the most enthusiastic and supportive teacher. Randal realized that her high expectations would be good for Faith, who is a good student.
She hasn’t been disappointed. When Randal was having trouble understanding the math Faith was bringing home, David sat with her and explained it.
Randal said Faith has learned a lot about people with disabilities from David, but that’s not why she asked for her.
“When I think of her as a teacher, I think about her teaching abilities,” Randal said.
“I don’t think the road has been easy for her,” said Joan Hultman, principal at Wenonah. “It’s said that you have to do twice as much to be half as recognized. And I think that’s true. But she has done it quite admirably, and with a lot of skill.”
A teaching team
David couldn’t do it alone. She’s clear about that.
Three key supports help her navigate the sighted world: her reader, her Seeing Eye dog and her classroom aide. Julie Christenson reads David’s mail and other materials onto tapes for David to listen to. Her dog usually sits in a corner in the classroom. David doesn’t tell people the dog’s name. That, and the ban on petting, is for safety. If her dog became attached to the children, it could run after them and pull her along — even into traffic. It almost happened to her years ago.
Sandy Pierce, 46, is David’s eyes in the classroom and her full-fledged partner in teaching. The two frequently speak in half-sentences to each other. The rest is understood.
Pierce is the one who corrects the papers, who helps the kids learn cursive writing. She checks knees for scrapes after recess and prepares whatever David needs for the lesson. She writes on the board; she reads to the class. She watches the kids’ faces and tells David if something is going over their heads.
David and Pierce have been working together for eight years, and it hasn’t always been easy. Lakoduk, who was responsible for the pairing, said that between the two of them, the students are in good hands.
“They were kind of like husband and wife — most of the time it was good, some of the time they needed some mediation,” Lakoduk said.
David and Pierce say that working together has gotten easier as they’ve figured out how to accommodate each other’s needs.
“We are a team,” David said. “We are a team in the true sense of the word.”
Tough beginning
David recognizes that she’s not always sweetness and light. But her style helps her keep control of her life when so many things are out of her control.
“You give up your sense of privacy. There’s always at least one other person who knows how much money I have in my checking account. I can never read my own mail,” David said. “That’s just kind of how I’ve had to be in order to do the kinds of things I’ve wanted to do in my life. If you’re a person with a disability, you don’t get what you need by sitting back and hoping someone will notice, because they don’t," she said.
David, 48, was born in Clinton, Iowa, the third of seven children. She arrived 12 weeks early and weighed less than 3 pounds. A nun fed her by eyedropper. In 1952, doctors didn’t know that high concentrations of oxygen in incubators caused blindness. David has never known sight.
While blindness doesn’t define her, it has shaped her life. At age 5, she was sent to a school for the blind 120 miles from home. She was with her parents and her siblings every other weekend. Her mother would set the table for dinner, come to Connie’s place and burst into tears. At the school, things weren’t much easier. There were no hugs, no cuddling, lots of scolding. The girls were watched all the time and did nothing independently.
By the time David got to high school, she was very busy — with 4H projects, with baby-sitting, with cheerleading — and visits home became even less frequent. Then she went off to college.
Her list of credentials is long: a 1979 degree in child development from Rockford College in Illinois, a master’s in educational psychology from the University of Minnesota, a parent education license and special training in the teaching of reading. But even with a teaching license, she couldn’t find a job. In the early 1980s, teaching jobs were scarce, and no one needed to take a chance on a blind teacher, David said.
She started in the Early Childhood Family Education program 15 years ago. After seven years there, she got her first elementary classroom job, in the third grade at Jefferson Elementary. David had to fight to get the job, but she converted the staff into believers.
Now, a longtime employee of two schools and about 200 third-graders, David said she sometimes grows weary of having to prove herself over and over. But her profession is an extension of her desire to help people learn, she said.
She is a teacher because she sees how much education changes the world for kids. She recalled a boy who came into her class a nonreader.
“When he comes to me and throws his arms around me and says, ‘Thanks, Ms. David, now I can read.’ He read this whole book! I almost cried. It’s stuff like that that makes it all worth it.”