By Sophie Hardach19th September 2021
Marburg in Germany
prides itself on being a Blindenstadt – a city adapted to make life for the
blind and partially sighted as easy as possible. But it owes this reputation
and its inclusive social structure to a particularly innovative school.
At the age of eight,
Leon Portz was gradually losing his eyesight due to a congenital condition when
he was given his first computer. By the age of nine, he had figured out how to
speed up the machine-generated voice that read out websites and other
electronic texts, allowing him to grasp the information faster. He now listens
to texts at five times the standard speed, which is unintelligible to an
untrained ear.
But his love of science only truly flourished when he moved
from his hometown in central Germany to the nearby town of Marburg, a leafy,
medieval university town, to attend a specialist school for the blind. As it
turned out, that move transported him into a hotbed of inclusive innovation.
Marburg proudly calls itself a "Blindenstadt", a
city for blind and visually impaired people, due to its long history as a hub
for accessibility. A ground-breaking educational institute for the blind, the
Blindenstudienanstalt (or Blista) in German, was founded here during World War
One, to provide opportunities for young men blinded in the war. The institute
has spawned countless inventions for blind people since then, including a
tactile mathematical font. It has also profoundly shaped the town around it,
turning it into a place where, as Portz puts it, "everything is ideal for
blind people".
Some of the
innovations that make Marburg so accessible also exist elsewhere. But the way
they are joined up here is unique, Portz and other blind people who have lived
in the town say. The clattering sound of guiding canes is ubiquitous in
Marburg, as blind people navigate the town aided by beeping traffic lights,
pavements and floors with ridges and bumps that act as tactile signals of
hazards or barriers. Buildings often have raised maps and floor plans, while
detailed miniature bronze models of major sights such as Marburg's castle and
town square allow blind visitors to feel the entirety of each landmark.
Other convenient features are a result of the town's natural
shape. Marburg is small and hilly, making it easy to orient yourself simply by
noting if you are going up- or downhill. A web of accessible leisure facilities
spans the city, such as a horse-riding school for the blind, and blind rowing,
football, climbing and skiing clubs. The town's university has Germany's
highest proportion of blind students, and the widest range of degrees taken by
blind people.
Many landmarks around the city have detailed scale models
for partially sighted visitors to feel their way around
The Blista and its students have driven many of these
innovations, developing everyday aids such as a foldable cane, but also,
working with the university to improve accessibility across departments. Law
and psychology are among the most popular course choices, as the materials are
text-heavy and can be studied easily with aids such as screen readers. Now
teachers and pupils from the institute are prising open another field: the
natural sciences, which have long been beset by barriers for blind people.
"I don't feel like a pioneer, but I guess I am
one," says Portz, who is studying biochemistry and computer science in
Düsseldorf. He is the first blind biochemistry student there, and by his own
estimate, one of fewer than a handful of blind chemistry students in all of
Germany.
Chemistry remains relatively closed to the blind, due to the
hazards of laboratory work, and the ubiquity of images, charts and graphs. But
chemistry teacher Tobias Mahnke, who taught Portz at the Blista-associated
Carl-Strehl-School in Marburg, argues there is no reason why his subject should
be so restricted.
"No human being can see molecules, no human being can
see atoms, and yet, chemistry education is so visual. Why? There shouldn't be
any disadvantage for blind people, given that sighted people can't see all
this, either," he says.
Mahnke, who is sighted, started working at the school in
2013. At the time, it didn't offer an advanced chemistry class. Since then, he
and his colleagues have developed an array of multi-sensory tools and methods for
teaching natural sciences, supported by the chemistry faculty at Philipps
University in Marburg, as well as funding from the charitable
Reinhard-Frank-Foundation. Mahnke has written a master's thesis on developing
inclusive materials for teaching chemistry, and published some of his findings.
Unlike conventional science models used in classrooms, the
Blista models are designed to reveal entire processes and wide-ranging
relationships. For example, a three-dimensional model of a water molecule,
developed by a group of chemists at different universities, can be squashed
flat, to encourage students to think about how it is depicted in two
dimensions. A 3D-printed plastic model of a curving river bed, developed by
Mahnke's colleague Tanja Schapat, is intended to be held under a tap. Students
can feel where the water flows faster or slower, and how this shapes its
contours. They then learn that where the bed is flatter, the water is shallower
and therefore gets warmer in the sun, attracting fish and reeds.
The laboratory is adapted to blind pupils' needs, with
electric burners in perforated metal cases, instead of Bunsen burners with
naked flames
"Most scientific experiments go far beyond seeing. You
can touch things, something becomes warm or cold, you can smell and hear
things, and in experiments with food, taste them," says Mahnke as he shows
the models via video. "In regular teaching, we focus on vision because it
means I can demonstrate an experiment within five seconds, and it can be seen
by 30 students. It's fast and efficient for the teacher, but not for the
pupils."
In 2017, the school offered its first advanced chemistry
course, and in 2019, demand was so strong that it offered two classes. The
laboratory is adapted to blind pupils' needs, with electric burners in
perforated metal cases, instead of bunsen burners with naked flames. Mahnke and
his colleague Tanja Schapat have developed a method for teaching pupils about
heat and fire, using heat-sensitive swelling paper to allow them to explore the
properties of a burning candle. A special sensor, developed at the school in
the 1990s, emits a high or low beep when a liquid brightens or darkens during a
chemical reaction.
During the pandemic, Mahnke taught students about the
Covid-19 infection curve using raised charts printed on swelling paper. When
the school closed to stop the spread of the virus, teachers posted models to
home-schooling students. Each model is tested by pupils at the school, further
refined with their input, and produced in the school's in-house workshop.
In recent years, the Carl-Strehl-School has started
accepting a limited number of sighted children, who learn alongside their blind
classmates using multisensory materials, which in their case also incorporate
sight. Research has shown that children and adults learn better when they can
grasp new information with multiple senses, and not just visually. Mahnke says
in his own experience, "multi-sensory experiences lead to much deeper and
longer-lasting learning".
For Portz, it was not just the school that broadened his
world. He fondly recalls moving around Marburg with confidence, assisted by
beeping traffic lights, talking bus stops, and a sighted population very used
to interacting with the blind. Bus drivers in Marburg are trained to stop to
give blind passengers easy access, shop assistants routinely deal with blind
customers, and many restaurants offer menus in Braille script. He's encountered
some of these elements in other cities, but never in the form of such a
comprehensive web.
"In Marburg, all these individual elements are very
well-connected, and there are few gaps," he says. "It's also the
mentality in Marburg. There's the Blista, and many stay on to study at the
university, so there are many blind people, and every institution is confronted
with that, sooner or later."
Marburg's blind football team has been particularly
successful over the years
Uwe Boysen is a retired blind judge and former president of
Germany's association of blind and visually impaired students and
professionals, the DVBS, which was founded in Marburg. He attended the
Carl-Strehl-School and then studied law in Marburg in the late 1960s. In his
opinion, the sense of community and self-help that has evolved in Marburg plays
a crucial part in sparking innovation: "It gives you courage, it makes you
dare to try out new things."
That self-help spirit shaped Boysen's own educational path.
Professional opportunities for blind people were more limited when he was a
student, though he estimates there were about the same number of blind judges
in Germany as there are today, over 100, also because of the war blind. He and
his blind peers invented many aids on the fly, swapping recorded tapes of their
textbooks, and later, using their legal skills to campaign for more rights.
Bahaddin Batmaz, a blind software developer and
accessibility trainer in Marburg, argues that many of its accessible features
hold important lessons for innovation as a whole. One is that good design
benefits everyone. He gives the example of the talking bus stops, which
announce the next bus and its destination when a button is pressed. In his
experience, many sighted people find this function convenient, too. Similarly,
when he makes a website more accessible to screen readers, its search ranking
usually jumps as well, because the underlying technology is the same.
"Linking together technological innovations, and the
human and social factor, is hugely beneficial," he says. "If you're
not constantly wondering how to cross the road, you're less stressed. You're
not already totally overwhelmed by this stupid road, and then you're also more open
for innovation, and more accepting of others."
Dago Schelin, a sighted filmmaker and media studies
researcher at the Philipps University, comes to a similar conclusion in a case
study of Marburg as a model for inclusive innovation. He and his co-authors
describe it as a "smart city for the blind", and argue that
"Marburg appears to specialise in an alternative mode of smartness".
Instead of revolving around digital technologies, this type of smartness is
more human-oriented. It centres on supportive interactions between differently
abled people, and on accessible institutions. Schelin and his co-authors
suggest that Marburg might become "a reference for prospective smart
cities", with accessibility perhaps becoming "one of the criteria for
a city's smartness status."
I think the most difficult barriers are the ones in people's
heads – Leonore Dreves
Schelin, who is from Brazil, experienced this
innovation-boosting effect himself when he moved to Marburg in 2014. He met
blind people interested in filmmaking, and developed multisensory methods for
teaching them. "It strengthened my notion that filmmaking is a community
effort," he says.
Leonore Dreves, a blind software developer in Heppstadt in
southern Germany, leads the science, technology, engineering and mathematics
sub-group of the DVBS professional association. Most members of the group work
in information technology, a comparatively accessible sector. But even there,
too many digital barriers remain, according to Dreves. Changing human attitudes
is also part of the challenge: "I think the most difficult barriers are
the ones in people's heads. In my own case, as a woman and blind person, I had
to prove myself for a long time before my colleagues accepted that I can do it
just as well as them."
Around the world, blind innovators are slowly dismantling
some of those barriers. The chemist Mona Minkara is designing an inclusive STEM
curriculum, the computer scientist Chieko Asakawa is developing accessible
artificial intelligence, and the astronomer Wanda Díaz-Merced is using sound to
study space, to name just some.
In Düsseldorf, Portz continues to work on making his own
environment more accessible. Sighted friends help him with his image-heavy
textbooks, describing charts and pictures. During the pandemic-related
university closures, he listened to his recorded lectures at double speed,
slowing down for the more complex bits. He still discusses new ideas for
science materials with his former teacher, Mahnke, and continues to feel
inspired by his old school. "It gave me a super strong push," he
recalls of his time there. "I realised what was possible, and what can be
made possible."
No comments:
Post a Comment