My High School Experience

Paige demonstrates how she uses her eSight glasses to bring the world closer. The essay below describes her high school experience.

When I was in high school, I took part in two extracurricular activities: Play Unified and Multicultural Club. Play Unified is an organization where other students who have disabilities play adapted sports. I participated on the Play Unified basketball team. When we had practice or played games, someone would tap the hoop's rim, so I could shoot the ball. I could see the outline of the hoop in the air. Sometimes I could hear my teammates from the sidelines cheering me on. They were saying, "Go Paige! Just shoot the ball straight up over your head."

Multicultural Club is a club where we talked about different cultures. In the club, students would bring in food and artifacts of clothing to share. When they brought in clothing, I was allowed to touch it. I once got to see a Japanese kimono up close, which had different colors. Once, we went to a festival in Pennsylvania, and I was able to see the trees that we were sitting near.

When I did my school work, I would use my iPad and a Braille display. A braille display is a device that connects to a phone or iPad by Bluetooth. When you connect a Braille display to a phone, Braille dots pop up on the display. Braille is created from six dots. Different combinations make letters and numbers. For my Financial Readiness class, I used a laptop with a program called JAWS. JAWS stands for Job Access for Windows. JAWS is a screen reader that reads text aloud. I would also use the laptop to access Excel spreadsheets. In math class, I used a Perkins Brailler.

To see the board, I would use my eSight glasses. eSight is an artificial intelligence device that looks like glasses and magnifies. The device has a remote attached to zoom in. eSight costs about $10,000. I would use my eSight glasses for anything that I could not see from the back of the room. For example, if there was something that I had to view in math, then I would use my eSight glasses. With these various adjustments and technology, I was able to succeed in high school.

Paige, New Jersey

High School Graduate