Lessons in Diversity

When it comes to money, Michael Doerfler lets his fingers do the talking.

Blind since birth, Doerfler, who was born three month premature, has a system to decipher his bills. A $1 bill is laid out flat, while a $5 bill is folded in half. A $10 bill is folded in thirds.

As for coins, Doerfler, 28, uses his sensitive digits to identify quarters, nickels and pennies by their size and shape.

Doerfler explained this to a captivated audience of third-graders at on Wednesday. A 2001 graduate, Doerfler was there as part of the school’s focus on diversity.

“This is all for diversity and learning about disabilities,” Doerfler said. “Being diverse is an OK thing.”

For the past three weeks, Doerfler has visited the school to demonstrate how a blind person functions in the seeing world.

When he the showed students how he walks with a silver cane – which he swings from left to right -- and demonstrated a Braille machine, he almost made it look easy.

The third-graders soon found out it wasn’t.

Following his talk, the students were blindfolded and sent to one of five stations – each manned by a fifth-grade student – and asked to do everyday activities like identify coins and bills, pour water from a pitcher into a glass, cut food, and walk – with a cane.

Third-grader Rebecca Loeffler, who was trying to differentiate a quarter from a nickel at the one of the first stations, said she enjoyed Doerfler’s talk.

“It was really interesting because you get to see how the blind use money and how they pay the bills,” she said.

Julia Callahan, another third-grader, liked learning how Doerfler navigates with his silver cane, which folds into a compact piece when he’s not using it.

“It was interesting to see how people get around,” she said.

It wasn’t the first time Doerfler ventured back to his alma mater to speak to students. His mother, Kathy Doerfler, a special education aide at Haine, said her son usually returns to the school every year for Read Across America events.

Doerfler himself estimated he has spoken to students on and off for a least 12 years.

“They always ask me a lot of questions,” he said. “Usually, they’re pretty interested.”

Doerfler said he also wanted to spread the word among the younger generation that having a disability doesn’t have to hold you back in life.

After his time at Seneca, Doerfler went on to study communications at Butler County Community College before graduating from Point Park University. Today, he works for The Blind Association of Butler County and he is a dedicated member of the local Lion’s Club organization.

There’s good reason for that.

When Doerfler was 18-months-old, his mother said, he had to have an eye operation at Duke University in North Carolina. She said the Lions Club, which is dedicated to aiding the blind, helped pay for the family’s expenses while they were out of state.

“He’s been with them for years, “ Kathy Doerfler said. “He joined when he was 18-years-old because he wanted to give back.”

Guidance counselor Rozann Lamberto, who helped lead the program at Haine, can remember Doerfler from when he was a student at the elementary school. He was just as out-going then, she said, as he is now.

The school, she added, even had an aide learn to read Braille while Doerfler was a student so she could better assist him.

"As a staff, this was our first experience with a blind student," she said. "We were excited to have him so we could learn from him."

After meeting Doerfler, she hopes the students will realize the blind aren’t much different from them.

"I want our students not to feel sorry for them, but to respect them and to look for ways to have communications with them," she said.

After meeting the students, Doerfler will use Braille to write them a letter, which the students will translate using a code. After that, the third-graders will write an email to Doerfler, who can listen to it using a special program on his computer.

“The hope is that they’ll become pen pals,” Lamberto said.