A retired learning support teacher uses her experience to help people with sight issues embrace technology — including computers and artificial intelligence.

Phyllis Harshaw, a former teacher at CedarBridge Academy who is visually impaired, said she believes in the concept of “equifinality”, in which a common goal can be achieved through diverse strategies.

She explained: “Essentially, two different ways of doing things can end up with the same result.”

She has adapted to life with impaired vision by following the concept.

She added: “That’s why I like to teach here at Vision Bermuda. I can show the clients different ways to do things.”

Ms Harshaw teaches twice-weekly typing classes for six people with vision issues at the charity’s headquarters at Beacon House in Hamilton.

She has taught there since offering summer classes in 2016, prior to her retirement from CedarBridge in 2018 after 36 years as an educator.

Banking on her experience teaching public school pupils with learning disabilities, she brings a special approach to the charity’s classroom.

After learning how to navigate the keyboard, clients move on to typing sentences.

“We then build on the Word documents and other programs like the Excel spreadsheets,” she said.

Even with her years of experience using Microsoft Excel, Mr Harshaw said that from time to time she forgets tricks such as the shortcut keys to add a column.

She said: “I would have to go and Google it, and then the AI would tell me what to do.”

Ms Harshaw relies heavily on technology such as her iPhone for her daily duties.

She said the phone’s applications were user friendly — a plus for people with vision issues.

“iPhones have voiceover,” she explained. “There are two things working here: AI, which is Siri, and voiceover, which is the text to speech.

“Siri is my AI friend, and voiceover is even better a friend. I use Bluetooth most of the time.

“It is important for me to hear, and not everybody else to hear, if I get a text message or an e-mail.

“If I want to send an e-mail, I say ‘hey, Siri, send an e-mail’.”

Ms Harshaw joked that the digital assistant was “on strike today” when she spoke to her device to demonstrate for The Royal Gazette — and got no response.

Her clients at Vision Bermuda range from people with low vision issues to the fully blind.

To aid in their typing skills, she places plastic rubber stickers, called raised indicators, on the keyboard for clients to become familiar with the device.

She said the charity needed laptops for the clients to use in their free time at home, since many lack the means to purchase the devices.

Ms Harshaw’s vision began to decline when she was 8, from hereditary retinal degeneration, when a mix of genetic conditions cause retinal cells to deteriorate, leading to progressive vision loss.

At age 9, she fell while clambering up a poinciana tree, fracturing her wrist and elbow so severely that her arm had to be amputated.

She obtained her primary education at Cavendish Hall, the precursor to Saltus Cavendish, before moving on to the Whitney Institute, where her eyesight continued to fail.

One of her teachers at Whitney, Pat Hide, gave her a manual for touch-typing at the typewriter.

“That book helped me a lot,” she recalled.

“With computers, it is an amazing thing, because my computer talks to me and I type around 43 word per minute, thanks to that book.”

She went on to obtain a bachelor’s in education and a master’s degree in special education and learning disabilities from Adelphi University at Garden City, Long Island, New York, followed by a masters of arts, management and human resource development from Webster University in St Louis, Missouri.

She taught for several years at the Whitney Institute as a learning support teacher.

When CedarBridge Academy opened in 1997, she was among its first educators, spending 22 years there.

Ms Harshaw has an affinity for horses. Despite her vision issues, she rode horses all her life, including at the annual Agricultural Exhibition, and attended the tenth Paralympic Games in Atlanta in 1996 to compete in dressage.

The sprightly Ms Harshaw plans to continue teaching at Vision Bermuda since she does not consider herself as “actually retired”.

She explained: “I tell people I’m on a retired vacation, because I still have a lot to do and I am having a ball.”