0:00:05.4 VB: Welcome to the Inclusive Education Project. I'm Vickie Brett.

0:00:09.2 AS: I'm Amanda Selogie. We're two civil rights lawyers on a mission to change the conversation about education, civil rights, and modern activism.

0:00:19.5 VB: Each week, we're gonna explore new topics, which are going to educate and empower others.

0:00:25.6 AS: And give them a platform to enact change in education and level the playing filed.

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0:00:33.0 AS: Welcome back, friends.

0:00:34.9 VB: Hello, listeners. We have a very special part one of a part two podcast. I just [0:00:41.2] ____ do it. [chuckle]

0:00:42.2 AS: Yes. We have a very special guest that we were fortunate enough to be on his podcast as well. So, we've had some great chats with him, so we're very excited. Michael, welcome to the pod.

0:00:54.2 MH: Well, thank you. It's good to be here. You know, it always seems to work that way. I've had several people invite me to be on their podcast, and I've always said, "Well, it's gonna cost you," [chuckle] and of course, everybody thinks it's gonna cost money. I said, "Well, now you have to come on on Unstoppable Mindset.

[chuckle]

0:01:09.3 VB: Yeah, yeah.

0:01:10.0 AS: Yeah, we had so much fun talking with you. You have such an incredible story and perspective to things, and we even talked about the early days of special education, which is always great for our listeners to hear. So, I'm gonna throw it to you and have you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself, and we'll get right into your story.

0:01:29.4 MH: Well, I am, as you said, Michael Hingson or Mike Hingson. I don't care if it's Mike or Michael. [chuckle] But I've learned to say Michael Hingson because if I say Mike Hingson, they always wanna say Mr. Kingson.

0:01:40.5 VB: Oh, my gosh.

[laughter]

0:01:41.5 MH: It took a Master's degree in Physics, a secondary teaching credential, and 10 years in sales to figure out, say, Michael Hingson. Anyway, I've been blind my whole life because when I was born, I was born two months premature and given a pure oxygen environment, so that can oftentimes cause retinas not to form properly, and in my case, that's what happened, although it was about four months before they discovered it.

0:02:04.0 VB: Oh, wow.

0:02:04.7 MH: When it was discovered, the doctors in Chicago told my parents, "Send him to a home, because no blind child could ever grow up to amount to anything or be a contributor, and if you keep him, he's just gonna really mess up the whole family dynamic." And my parents said, "Absolutely not. We're not gonna do that. He can learn to do whatever he wants to do, and we're gonna give him that chance." And so, I grew up with that kind of an attitude. I went to public schools and went eventually to the University of California at Irvine, and as I said, while there, secured a Master's Degree in Physics and also a secondary teaching credential. And I had planned on going into teaching, but things happened along the way. I joined the National Federation of the Blind, the largest consumer organization of blind people, in 1972.

0:02:51.4 MH: A couple of years later, the president of the federation, Ken Jernigan, at a national convention, cornered me and he said, "We got a thing," and I said, "Okay." [laughter] I don't think he worded it quite that way 'cause he's from Tennessee. He uses bigger words than that. But he said, "There's this guy, Ray Kurzweil, who says he's got a machine that will read printout loud, and he needs help developing it, so we're going to work on a joint project to do that. And the project's gonna be that we're gonna get several of the machines, and we're gonna get foundation funding to pay for it, and we're gonna put those machines around the country, and we wanna hire somebody who will literally be responsible for coordinating all that, going to where the machines are, making sure they're working, teach people how to use them and eventually write a final report saying what is good, what's not good, what needs to be fixed on the machine. And we wanna hire you to do that." Well, I was just an intern. It wasn't gonna happen right away, but after I graduated with master's degree and then still wasn't happening quite yet, I took a year of business courses at UC, Irvine, and then it was time for the project to start. So, instead of teaching directly, I went off and did this project and literally lived out of suitcases in hotels for 18 months across the country.

0:04:04.7 AS: Wow.

0:04:05.4 MH: And it was fun, learned a lot and just was an experience that I wouldn't trade for anything. So, we put machines in a few blindness agencies, we put one at the New York Public Library at 1 East 40th Street, and we put them in other places as well. The idea was that blind people could come and use them, and I wrote training curriculum and taught people how to use them. And then the idea was that they would use them, give me feedback. And I collected all of that, and then eventually in June of 1978, we wrote our final report telling Ray Kurzweil what he needed to do to make the machines better. So, we did that.

0:04:42.7 MH: And then he said; Kurzweil did, "I am gonna hire you, but it's gonna be a little while yet," 'cause he said, "I want you to come and work for us." Well, in November, I went to Massachusetts, maybe it was October of '78, I went to Massachusetts and moved into an apartment and joined the staff at Kurzweil Computer products, and was there about seven or eight months when I was called into the office of the VP of Marketing, who said, "We have to lay you off." I went, "Why?" He said, "Well, it's not that you're doing a bad job, you're doing a great job. We like what you're doing, but the problem is we've hired way too many non-revenue-producing people, and a lot of engineering startups do that. We did, and we have to bring in revenue, so we have to lay off some people so that we can bring in sales people to sell. So, that's what we have to do with you." And then he paused, he said, "Unless you'll go into sales."

0:05:33.6 VB: Oh, here we go. I was wondering when you had mentioned sales before, I thought, "Oh, that... " Yeah, how did you get...

0:05:38.6 MH: Well, and not only that, he said, "We don't want you to sell the reading machine for the blind. We have a new commercial version, and that's what we want you to sell." And I have to admit, I realized that must be a pretty good compliment, and I think a lot of the Kurzweil reading machine for the blind sold for $50,000, but the Kurzweil data entry machine sold for $125,000.

0:06:00.6 VB: Oh my God. [laughter]

0:06:00.9 MH: If you want one, maybe we can still get you a deal.

0:06:03.7 VB: Right. Yeah. My goodness.

0:06:04.9 MH: But anyway, so the bottom line is that, as I love to tell people, I lowered my standards and went from science to sales. And I took a Dale Carnegie sales course that Kurzweil sent me to and became involved in sales and sales management, and that's what I've been doing ever since. What I realized though, as I took the Dale Carnegie sales course is, all that teaching experience and that teaching credential were extremely valuable, because the best sales people are teachers or counselors. They're guiding people, they're guiders. They're not trying to push something down one's throat. So, I've been in sales, and then later, I switched from selling hardware to selling philosophy, but that's another story.

[laughter]

0:06:45.3 VB: Well, you know what's so interesting is, with you talking about just specifically the decade of the '70s, for us, is important. In '73, Section 504, the Rehabilitation Act that protects the rights of people with different disabilities and against agencies that receive federal financial assistance came about. And then in 1975 is when President Ford signed in the law in which we now advocate, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which at the time was the All Handicapped Children Act. But it's interesting 'cause it just... Hindsight is 20-20, but it seems like, "Oh my gosh, the '70s, so much was happening in terms of people... "

0:07:32.1 MH: And in addition to all of that, in California, AB77 was passed that was supposed to create products and mechanisms for college students with disabilities to receive assistance. Several of us were really opposed to it because...

0:07:46.6 VB: Interesting. Yeah.

0:07:47.6 MH: What it really did was it gave the colleges these programs, but then they were the ones who hired readers for blind people, rather than the student is doing it for themselves. They were providing all these services, and blind students, for example, didn't learn how to do those things for themselves, even though that's what they would have to do later on. But all the agency people thought, "Oh, it's the greatest thing since sliced bread and any way, AB77 pass. And today, these student services or services for students with disabilities provide so many services, but they do it. They don't have a mechanism to really allow students to learn to do that stuff on their own, so when they get out of college, they're not gonna have the skills that they need to do what they should be able to really do because they didn't get to learn that in college. In college, I hired my own readers, I fired my own readers, and I did both. But students don't get to do that today.

0:08:44.1 VB: Right. Right. It's really...

0:08:44.9 AS: Well, and students in high school aren't really taught the transition skills to even get to that point in the first place too, so it goes back even further, unfortunately.

0:08:54.7 MH: Well, it does. It all stems from that. But yeah, high school students too. And high school students and college students... High school students don't, for example, get encouraged to be involved in their individualized education plans or IEPs, and they should be, unless they really can't because of ability. But even then, people should be properly trained. College students don't learn how to get access to or find resources to make books available that aren't otherwise available. That's a lot better today, actually, because now many more things are electronic. But still the bottom line is that students should be learning those skills, and they're not.

0:09:35.3 VB: Absolutely. And I think one of the cornerstones of the IDEA is, the overarching goal is to produce productive members of society, and more often than not, we see teams that are either, we feel taking the easy way out by providing services that is just gonna be easier for them to provide. So, "Oh, it's gonna be easier to have this child with limited mobile ability to be in their home, and we'll just set up home services," rather than the benefit of having that child in a classroom, being part of the community and learning what it is to be a member of society. So it's really interesting to hear your take when, at the beginning, it feels like baby steps. And I think a lot of it was also, even though some of the laws... One of the documentaries that Amanda and I watched during the pandemic was Crip Camp, with the story of the individuals with different abilities that were really at the forefront of creating the laws, and at least they were part of the conversation. They were at the table. But more often than not, even just at a minimal everyday level, if your child is able to sit in the meeting and hear what accommodations they're getting, what modifications, that is so needed. They need to be part of the conversation. We heard that with our clients, so it's nice to hear you agree with that, because I think it just gets overseen so often.

0:11:14.2 MH: But look, why isn't that happening? It's not happening because parents are part of society, and the reality is society has not come to grips with the fact the disability shouldn't mean a lack of ability. Students with disabilities are generally capable being involved in making these decisions and participating. And even people with developmental disabilities have opinions and should be included. But the bottom line is that parents need to not shelter their kids, but give them the freedom and opportunity to grow.

0:11:46.8 VB: Absolutely. And I think that... I know this is kind of a clunky transition, but we do wanna speak to you about being 9/11. I think that the transition that I was going for is you had everything in front of you to get yourself to safety. And if your parents weren't the type of parents they were, I think having that perspective of like, "This is how I'm gonna enter the world, this is how I'm gonna deal with the world," I don't know that you would have been the person that you are, and that would have gotten you through that gate. Can you talk to our listeners about that story, which is incredible? And we know it, but we wanna hear it.

0:12:26.8 MH: When I was 3 years old, we were still living in Chicago in an apartment, and I was playing with one of those little kiddy cars. You get in it and you pedal it and you go. And I was wheezing around our apartment, and suddenly, my chin hit the coffee table, because the front of the car went under the table. And nice amount of blood, and my mother took me to the hospital to get it stitched up. And when we came home, her response to all that was, "You gotta learn to watch where you're going." And I knew what that meant. I knew what that meant. I needed to be observant. She didn't say, "We're taking the car away 'cause it's too risky for you." She didn't do anything to limit. She said, "You've gotta learn." She was right. Well, I will guarantee you I never did hit that table again with the car.

0:13:13.3 MH: But the bottom line is that I learned from that and so many other things, to be prepared. And there are sometimes that it's a challenge. It's a little bit less of a challenge in some ways today. But when I was growing up, I got my first guide dog at the age of 14, and that's the first time I used a mobility device. I hadn't used a used a cane before then. No training was available to me where I was. But then I got a guide dog, and even right off the bat, I learned my job was to know where to go and how to get there, and the dog's job was to make sure that we walk safely. And when I was 18, I got my first white cane, started using it and discovered... I was able to learn how to use a cane in five minutes. Why? Because it's easy to learn to use a cane, you tap it back and forth, and there's a process for that, but learning to have the confidence to use the cane, if you're not already mobile, learning to have that confidence takes months. Well, having used a guide dog and being aware of my surroundings, it was easy right off the bat to learn to use a cane, and so I did. But bottom line is that I knew that wherever I went, I had to be aware of my surroundings.

0:14:17.3 MH: Well, and you've mentioned the World Trade Center. When I first began working in the World Trade Center in preparing to open the office that we did, that was actually the second time I was in the towers. In 1996, we moved back to New Jersey, and I went to work in Tower 2 of the World Trade Center on the 23rd floor, opening an office for a company. But I left that job in '97. But then I was hired to open the office that we did on the 78th floor of Tower 1 in 1999, and we actually opened the office in 2000. I knew that I had to learn everything I could about the World Trade Center. Why? For two reasons, one, for my own survival, because I needed to be able to walk around and I wasn't gonna be dependent on people. I wasn't gonna contribute to the attitude that a blind person can't walk around without being led or guided. And I should bring out the point that guide dogs don't lead, they guide dogs. Dogs don't know where to go or how to get there. I don't want my dog to know that. My job is to give the dog directions step by step. The dog keeps us safe when we walk.

0:15:18.9 MH: But anyway, so I learned all I could, and I realized as part of that, I had to really learn what to do in the case of an emergency, 'cause we had, of course, a bombing in 1993, didn't do a lot, but nevertheless, I needed to know what to do, so I talked to the Port Authority people, the fire people, and so on. I even have, in my bookcase still, a Braille copy, all of the emergency evacuation procedures, and so on, from the Port Authority in the World Trade Center. I keep it in a very reverent place.

0:15:46.7 AS: Wow.

0:15:47.3 MH: But I learned everything that I could do for two reasons; one, as I said, my own survival, but two... Well, three reasons. Two, if I had other people in the office and they were reading signs to get out or do whatever and they couldn't because there were smoke-filled areas and all that, I had the help. But three, the other main reason was, I was the leader of that office, so I needed to know what to do. I needed to know where the restaurants are. Customers come up, "You wanna go to lunch? Let me take you. What do you want to have? What kind of sandwich do you want?" If I didn't do that, somebody would have to lead me, and if I didn't know that, and how would that look a couple of hours later if we're negotiating multi-million dollar contracts? So, I needed to know all of that.

0:16:29.9 MH: And did, because I learned it all. So, on September 11th, I had actually... Well, though I didn't realize it until much later, I had created a mindset in my brain that I knew what to do, I didn't need to fear. If I could do whatever needed to be done, I would do it. If the building was gonna fall on me, there's nothing that I can do anyway, right?

0:16:48.9 VB: Exactly. Right.

0:16:50.0 MH: So the mindset kicked in when the terrorists attacked. We did have some guests in the office, and one of the people who was there was from our corporate office who had never visited my office before, and he saw fire when the plane hit the building and started shouting, "Oh, my God, the building's on fire." And I said, "Slow down, David." And he said, "No, we gotta get out of here." And I said, "Slow down." And finally, he used the big line. Of course, everybody reverts back to it. "You don't understand. You can't see it." "Of course," like I said. People say to me all the time, "Well, of course, you didn't know what happened that day, 'cause you couldn't see it." "Excuse me, the last time I checked, Superman and x-ray vision are fictitious."

[chuckle]

0:17:33.5 VB: Right. Yeah.

0:17:35.5 MH: And I can offer the evidence why nobody knew, but we'll get to that. But the bottom line is that the problem wasn't what I wasn't seeing if David wasn't seeing, which was I had sitting next to me, because she came out from under my desk and I had her heel come out on my left side and sit, Rozelle, my guide dog, who was yawning and wagging her tail and went, "Who woke me up?" She wasn't indicating any fear, which told me that whatever was going on wasn't such an imminent danger that we couldn't try to evacuate in an orderly, safe way. And so, David finally focused, and I said, "Get our guests to the stairs. Don't let them take the elevators," which he did. "And don't take elevators," because he saw fire, and if there's fire in the towers, it could get to the elevators, which it did. And so, it was important not to do that. Well, bottom line is, David and I, after everyone else was evacuated and started down the stairs, David came back and we went to the stairs and we started down. And almost immediately, I began smelling an odor, and it took me about four floors to realize I was smelling the fumes from burning jet fuel.

0:18:36.3 VB: Oh, wow.

0:18:37.3 MH: And when I realized that, I observed it to other people around me. We were all speculating as to what happened. And I said, "Look, I'm spelling the fumes from bringing jet fuel," and people said, "Yeah, you're right. That's what it is, 'cause we all do a lot of flying." So, they said, "We must have been hit by an airplane." But look, none of us knew, because the planes hit, essentially, 18 floors above us on the other side of the building. No one knew.

0:19:01.1 VB: My God. Yeah.

0:19:02.1 MH: So, we went down the stairs assuming an airplane hit, but had no details. In fact, I never really learned what happened until after both towers collapsed, reached my wife, who told us how two aircraft had been crashed into the towers, one to the Pentagon, and a fourth was missing. I had called her before we left the Tower, before we left the office, but that was well before the media got the story. So, the bottom line is that it wasn't until like 10:31, 10:32 in the morning that I finally learned what happened.

0:19:31.5 AS: Wow.

0:19:32.1 VB: When Amanda and I are at IEP meetings and we are pleaing with the people that work with the children every day to see their abilities, to not put on...

0:19:45.7 AS: And worth.

0:19:46.0 VB: These labels. Yeah. And they assume they cannot. And this is just the perfect example of, "You don't know." So, why try to really cut this child up before you even know their true potential? And it's just... When you tell the fish that they're dumb because they can't go up a tree, I think that's a Einstein quote, they're gonna think that they're the dumbest creature ever. But it's like, "No, you're not meant to climb up a tree. You're a fish. You're meant to swim." [laughter]

0:20:20.9 MH: The issue is that people don't recognize that disability doesn't mean a lack of ability. And when I point that out, they say, "Well, but disability starts with this," and I say, "So does discreet, so does disciple, so does discern. And they're not negative terms, so back off." But more important, the reality is all of you sighted people have disabilities too, and your biggest one is you're light-dependent. If the lights go out, what do you do? You gotta find a light source, a smart phone, or a flashlight or something. But the reality is, if you can't, you're in the dark, literally speaking. And the bottom line is that Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb as a reasonable accommodation so many years later, under the Americans with Disabilities Act to help light-dependent people be able to function in the dark. And you spend a lot of time... As a society, we have spent a lot of time as society making products to create an easier access to light on demand. But make no mistake, the disability is still there. And unfortunately, people won't recognize that and recognize that we all have challenges and we all have gifts. Don't underestimate and decide what people can and can't do. That is not what should be done. And the reality is...

0:21:35.6 AS: Especially the children who are very young, their brain is still developing and we're still getting to know them, they're still getting to know the world and themselves, and we make so many assumptions that we shouldn't.

0:21:48.6 MH: One of the most famous pieces of literature ever written, or a couple of them, is this thing called the Iliad and the Odyssey. Who wrote those? Homer. What about Homer? He's a blind guy.

0:21:58.3 VB: Blind guy.

0:22:00.4 MH: John Milton was blind. Sir David Humphrey, a chemist, blind. There are any number of people who have eyesight issues, Franklin Roosevelt, mainly did a lot of what he did from a wheelchair. There are so many other stories. The President of the National Federation of the Blind many years ago did a speech entitled "Blindness: Is Literature Against Us." And he tells a number of stories in there from literature about how blind people were treated, but also pieces of literature about what blind people can and can do. Jacobus tenBroek, the founder of the National Federation of the Blind, was originally told he could never do anything in law. I won't go through that whole story, but the bottom line is he became one of the foremost constitutional law scholars of the 1940s, '50s, and '60s. And the reality is, blindness isn't the problem, and in general, disability isn't the problem, the problem is what we think about them. And the fact is that technology can and does make so many improvements that we ought to take advantage of, and that we ought to use. And we ought to recognize that technology takes different forms for different kinds of people, depending on their gifts.

0:23:12.3 VB: And that is the perfect segue for our listeners to join us for our part two with you, Michael. [laughter] We so appreciate you going through your personal story. In our part two, we'll dive into technology and your involvement with it, how it is helping many individuals. And listeners, we're gonna leave it there for you, and we will talk to you next week.

0:23:38.2 AS: Bye.

0:23:38.9 VB: Bye.