Stony Brook resident helps visually impaired navigate their world

Sometimes teaching and learning transcend the classroom.

When the visually impaired learn to travel — whether to go to work, cross a street to get to a restaurant or take an airplane for a trip — it happens when tackling everyday situations step by step with an educator. One of those teachers is Stony Brook resident David Seyfert, who recently retired from the South Country Central School District after 32 years as a visual teacher and orientation and mobility instructor.

For more than 20 of those years, besides working for South Country based in East Patchogue, he was contracted out to several school districts in the county, including Three Village, Port Jefferson and others. He said over the years he has helped students from Eastport-South Manor to Amityville on the South Shore and Miller Place to Northport on the North Shore. Despite his retirement, he continues to work with a few students.

Seyfert, who is typical sighted, said he only knows about five or six instructors on Long Island like him. Describing it as a rewarding career, he said he hopes to see more people follow the same career path.

“It’s an incredibly interesting and challenging field in which to work,” he said.

In order to qualify for his profession, after obtaining his bachelor’s degree in English from The King’s College in the city, Seyfert continued his studies by achieving a master’s in special education from Adelphi University and a master’s in orientation and mobility from Boston College. In Boston, he lived in the Perkins School for the Blind. The school is where teacher Anne Sullivan once worked with Helen Keller.

Seyfert’s students can be anyone who is legally blind to someone who has 20/20 vision but doesn’t have a visual field greater than 20 degrees, known as tunnel vision. He compared the orientation and mobility lessons to backward teaching.

“Instead of kids coming to my classroom, I come to them,” he said.

When working with Seyfert, students learn how to do things such as cross the street and travel by bus and train in their area, and when they are older, he brings them into the city to learn how to ride the subway system. Seyfert said, for example, he has taken students on the 6 train down to Chinatown and up to 86th Street, and the M86 bus from 86th Street to The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“I’ll take them up to The Cloisters [in Washington Heights] and the Bronx Zoo all by train and subway,” he said. “We’ll go around, we’ll switch to Grand Central Station to take the New Haven line out to Bridgeport and take the ferry across [to Port Jefferson].”

When it comes to the subway system, Seyfert said he teaches students what to listen for and which way the stairs will be at certain stops. Once a person goes up the stairs, he instructs them to listen for the turnstiles. He said there are also posts with braille on them to prompt those who are visually impaired as to where to go.

“I always remember him saying that every mistake was a learning opportunity.”

— Megan Kelly

Seyfert will also teach tips while walking in the city such as figuring out what direction the sun is depending on what cheek a person feels it on. The educator has taken students on the AirTrain to the airport, too. A friend of his who is a traveler’s aide gives the teenagers a tour of the airport.

One of his students had an internship in the city when he was a junior in college. Seyfert said he had a knack regarding the subway systems and how they connected to Penn Station, something his parents couldn’t imagine when he first started the mobility training.

“He became completely independent traveling around New York City, so it’s really neat to see where the kids go,” Seyfert said.

The teacher said learning how to navigate not just streets and buses in their hometowns but also the city gives the students options in the future as far as their careers go.

He said while many of his students have decided to visit and work in the city, others have chosen not to go there again.

“At least you know how to do it,” he said. “If it’s not your thing, that’s fine, but you’re not doing it because you don’t know how to do it or you’re afraid.”

Barbara O’Rourk worked with Seyfert when she was a secretary to the director of student support services in the Port Jefferson School District.

“He was one of the most incredible people that I’ve met, what he did was close to amazing, and his attitude, his patience, just how he dealt with them and dealt with the parents, was just amazing,” she said.

O’Rourk also remembers him as an effective advocate for his students.

“If they needed services, he would go to a meeting and support what he felt they needed, and people listened to him because he would never lose his temper or be arrogant,” she said.

Barbara Kelly, of East Setauket, whose daughter Megan started working with Seyfert when she was attending Three Village’s Nassakeag Elementary School, said not only does he advocate for his students, but he also teaches them to do so for themselves.

When her daughter and her husband, who is also blind, had difficulty crossing a busy intersection in Farmingdale, Seyfert told Megan Kelly to write to the New York State Department of Transportation. Eventually, a “no right turn on red” sign was installed at the intersection.

“Dave really encouraged that,” Barbara Kelly said.

Seyfert is still in touch with Megan who is now 35 years old. He even traveled to her college twice to help her work with navigating the school and attended her wedding. He has since helped her with walking the streets of Farmingdale, navigating her new home and using a cane again when she was between seeing-eye dogs.

Megan Kelly, who works for Helen Keller Services teaching technology skills to adults who are blind, said she had many great learning experiences in the city with Seyfert.

“I learned to explore, and he always made learning fun, something I always hope to do for my students,” she said. “I always remember him saying that every mistake was a learning opportunity.”

Barbara Kelly described Seyfert as dedicated and that her daughter has great mobility because of him.

“He was always there to do mobility for her, so he gave my daughter her wonderful life,” she said.