StoryCulture :: Muses

The Simply Brilliant Invention of Adaptive Eyewear by Physicist Joshua Silver

My eyes became nearsighted in the second grade, and my vision rapidly deteriorated to the point that without corrective lenses, I'd be considered legally blind. By fortune of birth, I grew in the United States where my family could afford to buy me glasses, and later contacts. I now am back to glasses as my eyesight changes again with (ahem) age. What if I'd been born poor in Africa?

Though it has long been alleged that some of the masterful effects in famous artists paintings were in part due to the painters impaired eyesight, my encounters with the visual world are filled with gratitude for the nuisance of corrective lenses -- and I clip on sunglasses to fend off cataracts lest I suffer the fate of Monet, Degas, and Mary Cassatt.

The Japanese Bridge by Claude Monet 1923-25

collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Monet's eyesight diminished in the early 1920s and he wrote in frustration, "To think I was getting on so well, more absorbed than I’ve ever been and expecting to achieve something, but I was forced to change my tune and give up a lot of promising beginnings and abandon the rest; and on top of that, my poor eyesight makes me see everything in a complete fog. It’s very beautiful all the same and it’s this which I’d love to have been able to convey. All in all, I am very unhappy." --August 11, 1922, Giverny. 

Without good vision obviously one's ability to work also becomes limited by the willingness of others to accommodate the sight impaired. I read about Josh Silver's invention of adaptive eyewear last summer, and have since often thought about how access to his simple invention could transform thousands of lives.

Adaptive glasses are as charming as the 1960s vintage pair my 16 year old son wears.

The true beauty is in the universal design by which one pair may be used to correct the vision of over 90% of people who require correction. The diopter power is changed by varying the amount of fluid in the lens with syringe controlled by the wearer. Astoundingly brilliant.

 

Adaptive spectacles technology link. 

More information about the Adaptive Eyecare non-profit: CLICK HERE

I remember the wonder I felt coming home with my first pair of glasses. Suddenly there were individual leaves on trees. My wish is that everyone in need receive this most basic opportunity to see.

Dave Eggers TED Wish : Innovative Public/Private Partnerships for Schools : TED Prize Video : Once Upon a School

Before I knew anything about Dave Eggers, I knew of 826 Valencia in San Francisco. Even though I lived far away -- half a country away -- I wanted my children to wander in under the Chris Ware facade and zig zag through the store to the back room. Behind the artifice of a pirate supply store, schoolwork was fun.

English class in my children's public schools started to emphasize critical reading skills and grammar rules. Creative writing was a luxury for time pressed teachers who had to raise test scores. I wanted my kids to keep writing the stories that spilled out so freely in the early grades. After a boring school day, parental influence has limits. Young writers need mentors.

I share Dave Eggers TED Wish speech, because it moved me to learn how creatively committed he is to philanthropy. I knew 826 Valencia was a young writer's haven. I didn't know about the large one-on-one tutoring program for children in the Valencia neighborhood, many who come from families where English is either a second language or not spoken at home. No longer limited to San Francisco -- the idea has spread around the U.S.. In the following video, Dave Eggers describes how other communities have taken his idea and built tutoring centers filled with volunteers and imagination.

"When we think about kids and education, we have to get back to the basic undeniable that kids are individuals, they learn in a thousand ways, and there are undeniable steps to greater education for all: better salaries for teachers, smaller class sizes, and more one-on-one attention."-- Dave Eggers

Wishes Big Enough to Change the World 2008 TEDPrize

Dave Eggers Wish
"I wish that you personally and every creative individual and organization you know will find a way to directly engage with a public school in your area, and that you'll then tell the story of how you got involved, so that within a year we have 1,000 examples of innovative public-private partnerships. -- Dave Eggers
www.onceuponaschool.org
826 Valencia: The Writing Center
Dave Eggers: TED biography
Dave Eggers' first book: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
McSweeney's Issue No. 27 (McSweeney's Quarterly Concern)
Read what the press says about 826 Valencia: here
TEDPrize: link
826 Valencia: Gallery of Signs
826 Valencia: shop