Education

Mat-Su educator named national Braille Teacher of the Year

Ginger Shepardson stood quietly on the sidewalk in Palmer a couple of weeks ago, her white cane in one hand and her teacher standing nearby. She listened for the sound of car engines. She tried to recognize the traffic patterns, just as her teacher, Jacinda Danner, had told her.

Shepardson is a 16-year-old student in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District and is legally blind. After a few minutes, during a break in the sound of passing engines, she walked across the street. Her cane clicked against the pavement as she moved it from right to left. Danner followed, staying a few feet away as the student navigated the streets of downtown Palmer.

It was the second day of summer school and another lesson aimed at Shepardson's independence.

"She can do anything she wants," Danner said.

For the past 17 years, Danner has taught students who are blind or who have visual impairments in the Mat-Su School District. She tells them they can reach any goal they set, said her boss, Dennis Boyer, the district's behavioral health supervisor. Boyer praised Danner for her enthusiasm, her passion and the positive impact she has had on students' lives.

"I see how she works with the kids and how those kids' self-esteem is so high and their life is so normalized," he said. "She doesn't just teach the student, but she teaches the staff that work with the student, she teaches the parents, she teaches the community. She brings people in."

Danner's work with students who are visually impaired recently earned her national recognition. The Braille Institute in California named Danner its 2017 Teacher of the Year. She will fly to Los Angeles in June to accept the award.

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Sergio Oliva, national programs director for the Braille Institute, said a committee selected Danner from 23 teachers nominated for the award, now in its 11th year. She's the first Alaskan to receive the Braille Teacher of the Year title. For Danner, Oliva said, "it was a clear win."

"Jacinda has this whatever-it-takes mentality," he said. "Jacinda just doesn't teach Braille. Jacinda teaches life skills, Jacinda teaches how to self-advocate, Jacinda teaches how to be determined and set goals."

Danner didn't always want to become a teacher, she said in an interview. But while she attended college in Florida and attempted to figure out a major, she polled those close to her for help.

"Well, you'll teach, of course," said her then-boyfriend, now husband, Greg Danner.

As Danner considered what she would do, she said, she thought back to social gatherings and how she always ended up teaching something to children, and she thought back to high school when she volunteered with students with disabilities. She started to pursue a teaching degree but wanted a specialty. She decided to work with students who are blind. She learned Braille in a semester.

"I love what I do," Danner said. "I get to make a difference in people's lives."

At the Mat-Su School District, Danner and another teacher work with about 60 students who are blind or visually impaired. The students attend schools across the district and range in age and ability level, she said.

Some have other disabilities, Danner said, so her work with them might include using photographs so they can point to objects as a way to communicate. Danner also infuses technology into the students' daily routines to aid them in communication. She helps them learn practical skills like folding laundry, as well as hobbies that have ranged from showing dogs to track to T-ball.

"I get to be part of their lives," Danner said.

Shepardson, who just finished her sophomore year, attends typical high school classes but reads textbooks and takes notes in Braille. She described Danner as an "amazing teacher."

"I'm so thankful because being blind, it is hard in some ways," she said.

Shepardson lost nearly all of her vision to a brain tumor that destroyed her optic nerve. Doctors removed the tumor when she was 5, she said. She can't see anything out of her left eye and has 10 percent vision in her right eye.

Shepardson recounted the ways Danner has affected her life.

She talked about the Braille Club in middle school that Danner helped create so students without visual impairments could also learn Braille. Shepardson said it helped her make friends.

Together, the students completed a "Braille Trail," creating and posting plaques in Braille at Houston Middle School and Palmer Junior Middle School. Shepardson helped check the signs for errors, serving as "quality control," Danner said.

Shepardson also talked about the recent effort to get a pedestrian signal installed at an intersection near Wasilla High School that plays an audio recording to tell students when they can cross the street. Danner helped the students write letters to the Alaska Department of Transportation, and the signal was installed in April. To celebrate, they held a "white-cane awareness and low-vision day," organizing a ribbon-cutting ceremony with about 30 people, including school administrators and Shepardson's friends.

This summer, Danner is hoping to teach Shepardson how to navigate Palmer, teaching her the road names and intersections as well as how to cross streets safely. As they walked into the public library, she explained to Shepardson that right outside the doors, the garbage can was to the left of the book drop. She opened and closed the latch to the book drop so Shepardson could hear the sound.

"She's amazing," Shepardson said of her teacher. "She just opened the door to the world for me."

Tegan Hanlon

Tegan Hanlon was a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News between 2013 and 2019. She now reports for Alaska Public Media.

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