Meg, If reincarnation is for real, I want to come back as your child.
Monona Rossol, M.S., M.F.A., Industrial Hygienist
President: Arts, Crafts & Theater Safety, Inc.
Safety Officer: Local USA829, IATSE
181 Thompson St., #23
New York, NY 10012 212-777-0062
-----Original Message-----
From: Osterby, Meg <OsterbyM**At_Symbol_Here**WESTERNTC.EDU>
To: DCHAS-L <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU>
Sent: Mon, Feb 13, 2017 1:38 pm
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Color-blindness as a lab safety concern
Kudos, Monona,
I like the fact that you aren=E2=80™t afraid to say this stuff. Some things just don't make sense for a person to aim for. My middle child is color blind, quite severely,
and the day he was diagnosed, I told him, you will not be able to be an airline pilot, and you should not try to be an interior designer or any other profession that depends on being able to see color the same way most people do. He is a director of the news
programs at one of our local television stations, and is quite good at his job. In this position, his disability does not require an accommodation. Makes sense to me.
Meg
Meg Osterby
Lead Chemistry Instructor
Western Technical College
400 7th St. N.
LaCrosse, WI 54601
608-789-4714
"It's better to be careful 100 times, than to be killed once."
Mark Twain
As you know, I'm so liberal I'm a bit to the left of Lenin. But this part of the ADA makes me crazy.
I'm sorry, but if you have bowed legs lady, ballet is not for you. Tone deaf? Put down that Butterfly score. And not everyone can become an Olympic athlete, a
brain surgeon or a star.
I want to find that teacher who first told her/his wide-eyed charges "you can be anything you want" and smack him/her upside the head.
There are a many things each person can choose to do for their life's work. To pick one that requires significant accommodation and changes in everyone else's life
around them is not a good use of anyone's time. Instead, teach students to realistically look for something that fits their strengths and weaknesses.
In my business, you go to class and find out both your performing strengths and your weaknesses and work out a plan that accommodates both. You cherish criticism
because it helps you see those weaknesses faster so you can determine if you can fix them or whether, instead, you need to find a way to use them to your advantage.
You audition and someone decides if you both look and act right for the part. And you don't take rejection personally. You sit in front of your make up table and
figure out realistically what your features will let you do and what they are NOT suited for. And as you age, believe me, that assessment changes along with your repertoire or you are a fool. And that's all good and part of life--part of reality--remember
reality?
Instead, I'm lecturing to college theater and art students who are so unrealistic they are delusional. And they are so immature that they cry when criticized. What
ARE the schools creating?
It's the same for chemistry. You can figure out a way to read color instrumentally, but is this really helpful for a student who then goes out into the real world
for a job where staining is part of his/her job? Wouldn't this person's time be better spent learning all those other really interesting things to do in chemistry that are NOT affected by color blindness? They can find one of those that is of interest and
do the hell out of it.
We all have disabilities. Some just show more.
Monona Rossol, M.S., M.F.A., Industrial Hygienist
President: Arts, Crafts & Theater Safety, Inc.
Safety Officer: Local USA829, IATSE
New York, NY 10012 212-777-0062
This is an interesting discussion indeed. Thanks to the Individual with Disabilities Education Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, in the education
realm, there must be accommodations made for a diagnosis of color-blindness or other disabilities if they interfere with the education process. Consider that students affected by this in chemistry are also, by definition, novices in chemistry. There are
many work-arounds we have developed.
I teach introductory microbiology in a community college setting, and color blindness is an issue with Gram staining. Every situation is unique, but I always say
that the science class (chemistry, microbiology, whatever) is where you get a true handle on the nature of the disability, how (or if) it will affect success, and what kind of "work-arounds" you'll need. The most valuable source of information about how to
handle situations like this is to ask the person, "how have you solved similar problems?"
Red Clay Consolidated School District
We did not inherit the Earth from our parents. We borrowed it from our children.
It is also a job-requirement for people working in theatrical lighting, set design, costume, make up, etc. Since there are no such requirements in art, it may explain
the work I am seeing lately.
Monona Rossol, M.S., M.F.A., Industrial Hygienist
President: Arts, Crafts & Theater Safety, Inc.
Safety Officer: Local USA829, IATSE
New York, NY 10012 212-777-0062
A Chinese student in our graduate program in the 80s told me that students either could not take, or could not major (slept too many times since then) in chemistry
in China. Not sure if it is true now, but I did find this at:
http://mbbs.cucas.edu.cn/HomePage/Univ_14.shtml#
Application Requirements and Materials
Entry Requirements:
1. High school graduate or above, qualified for university entrance, medically sound foreigners(applicants with color weakness and color blindness are not eligible to apply).
2. Emigrants from mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan applying as international students must have obtained their current foreign citizenship before April 30, 2011. In addition, the applicant must have lived abroad for at least 2 years during the period
between April 30, 2011 and April 30, 2015.
What about anosmia? I have had to work on how to accommodate this one with stockroom personnel for safety issues as well. It is not a recognized disability, but it is pretty scary to think about. I found out about this worker's loss of smell when a beaker
of starch was left heating unattended on a hotplate. The worker was in the office next door with no clue anything was burning.
Any loss of our senses (Hah!) adds to the risk for lab workers.
S-
On 2/10/2017 8:01 PM, J & K Smith wrot
Another anecdote:
When I was in undergraduate chemistry about 1950, my professor was finishing his thesis in reactions of permanganate. He was colorblind also and had to have his wife
read the color changes during the reactions. That was before the automated graphing spectrophotometers and all had to be done by hand. He would be in the lab for hours.
Kenneth Smith
Former CIH
-----Original Message-----
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2017 9:13 AM
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Color-blindness as a lab safety concern
An anecdote:
When I worked in aerospace, a colleague described a situation in which he and a group of fellow electrical engineers and electricians were working on wiring up a control
panel for a nuclear power plant. They got it all hooked up and tested the system and it didn't work. Checked connections, etc. - nothing. Repeat. Finally decide to go to lunch and think about what might be wrong. Over lunch, one of the group mentions
that he's color blind. You guessed it - turns out the entire crew, including my friend, were color blind and the wiring was all color-coded. They finally found an admin person with normal color vision who helped them make sure the proper wire got connected
where it was supposed to be connected.
My spouse is color-blind - it makes for some amusing family stories.
Debbie M. Decker, CCHO, ACS Fellow
Past Chair, Division of Chemical Health and Safety University of California, Davis
(530)754-7964
(530)304-6728
Birkett's hypothesis: "Any chemical reaction that proceeds smoothly under normal conditions, can proceed violently in the presence of an idiot."
-----Original Message-----
Oh, my! Yes, color blindness is a safety issue in the lab and lots of other place.
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We,
the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, we are now qualified to do everything with nothing.
Teresa Arnold paraphrased from Konstantin Josef
Jire=C4=8Dek (1854 - 1918)
Samuella B. Sigmann, MS, NRCC-CHO
Senior Lecturer/Safety Committee Chair/Director of Stockroom
A. R. Smith Department of Chemistry
Appalachian State University
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