Lauren Missan found her calling at the age of 5. On a visit to her aunt's house at that tender age, Missan met Helen Keller and knew immediately that teaching the blind was what she wanted to do when she grew up. "To overcome what she did was phenomenal," Missan remembers.

Carrying this inspiration with her through childhood, including a period of time when she thought she might like to be a microbiologist instead, Missan ultimately received an elementary education degree from Queens College and then obtained her master's degree in the blind and visually impaired at Hunter College. She has since devoted herself to teaching all different kinds of children with visual impairment.

"I've spent time as a teacher in a resource room, pulling kids out of their regular classroom to teach them. I've done a self-contained class of visually impaired, multihandicapped children. I've done nursery school through 12th grade, as well as early intervention with infants," Missan, who currently works for the Western Suffolk Board of Cooperative Educational Services says.

The content of her work is as wide-ranging as the students she serves. When teaching the very young, she focuses on tactile manipulation to prepare a student to learn Braille and maximize their sense of feel. For those who are visually impaired (20/70 or worse) but not legally blind (20/200), Missan's work often focuses on maximizing the vision they have. A variety of tools are used, such as closed circuit televisions that enlarge print for easier reading, talking typewriters that allow the student to hear exactly what they've just typed and talking calculators.

Missan teaches her students how to read and write Braille and she often spends a great deal of time functioning as a Braille transcriber--"Brailling-out" worksheets and textbooks so her students can perform assignments in their regular classrooms.

"I'm a resource person for both the parents and teachers," she says. "I help parents know where to go for different materials their child might need and also consult with the classroom teacher to adapt equipment and learning materials. If the assignment involves using a test tube, for instance, we need to adapt. Everything is very individualized."

Keeping up with new technology and changes in educational techniques is a constant challenge. Missan attends every conference she can, including recent ones on the revamping of the Braille math code. Scientific notation uses a different form of Braille as well. When helping students with math and science assignments, Missan says she often finds herself re-learning subjects she hasn't thought about since high school. "You have to keep learning as you work with each child," she says.

In addition to assisting her students with their schoolwork and the skills they need to learn, she also helps them with the social graces they'll need to fit into society. "We learn so many things from vision, from imitating what happens around us--when to shake a hand, when to smile, when not to smile, when to be in our own space. A blind person can't see that," Missan explains. "We make them aware of 'blindisms,' like rocking or head movements, so they don't do that in public."

In teaching the visually impaired and blind, there are often reasons to be discouraged--a child struggling to learn or a passer-by gawking at the blind--she says. But, there are just as many reasons to be encouraged. Medical advances that cure blindness, such
as the ability to reattach a detached retina, always bring hope. "Blindness used to be considered a death sentence. I once taught a sixth grader who was born normal but was going blind, and it was very hard to deal with. But, with are so many new things that might be able to help, one never knows," she says.

The best reward for her work, she says, is seeing a child overcome the challenges of being visually impaired. "I had a child who was legally blind, but acted like he was totally blind. He couldn't read anything. Now, he is reading at a third-grade level, using enlarged print on a closed circuit television. I'm ecstatic."

Lauren and Harvey Missan are the parents of Dara Missan, a UD sophomore majoring in medical technology with a minor in biology and music. They live in Commack, N.Y.