Unforgettable lessons: life in Polish residential schools for children with visual impairments as narrated by former students

This article presents recollections, experience and emotions expressed by 19 research participants who have studied and lived in Polish residential schools for children with visual impairments between 1985–2013. Based on in-depth interviews, I explore the impact of residential schools on their graduates’ future attitudes and actions, including their perceptions of social integration vs. segregation of people with visual impairments. I focus on salient aspects of their experience, i.e. homesickness, feeling different and ‘abnormal’, individual and group identity, learning self-reliance, knowledge about sighted people, transition and ‘real life’ that follows graduation. Their stories highlight the role of the school staff, especially residential school educators, whose attitudes and actions – both explicit and unconscious – seem to have a significant impact on students, as a form of instruction about possibilities and limitations that stem from visual impairment, thus creating and socializing students into a specific role of a ‘blind person’.