Blind Naperville student snags training scholarship
Amy Bosko's life is a flurry of motion and sound.
One moment she's admiring the One Direction posters that populate her room, the next she's warming up her singing voice and belting out her favorite songs.
One moment she's typing some school work or chatting about pictures on Instagram, the next she's begging her mother to let her go out with friends, then grabbing her cane and breezing easily out the door.
Amy, 16, just finished her sophomore year at Naperville North High School, where she has performed in theater productions and earned an $8,000 scholarship that could propel her toward the future she imagines as a voice teacher, acting coach and professional performer.
The scholarship, from the Naperville Noon Lions Club, will send her to an eight-week program in Minneapolis beginning June 14, where her always-in-motion life will be filled with several new experiences.
Living on her own. Cooking her own meals. Safely navigating the streets of a new city. Working a part-time job. Maybe even starting to read music in Braille.
"For my age, I feel like I'm pretty advanced," said Amy, who has been blind since birth because of congenital cataracts with secondary glaucoma. "The main things I'm going to work on are cooking and traveling outside."
Transportation moves as simple as crossing the street or as complex as hopping an overseas flight all become exercises in safety and strategy without the sense of sight. That's why Amy hopes to learn some "more intense" travel tips and household management skills from her time in the Blind Inc. PREP program, which stands for postsecondary readiness and empowerment.
"She's reached a point in life where it's time for her to learn some lifelong skills that are going to help her in her next phase," said Amy's mother, Michelle Michalski, who is losing her sight because she has the same genetic problem that made Amy blind at birth.
Vision problems in Amy's family started when her maternal grandmother got a measles virus, which can damage eyesight. The problem was passed along to Michalski, who began experiencing glaucoma as a teenager. Genetic testing revealed Michalski had a 50/50 chance of passing congenital cataracts to her children. Her 19-year-old son was born without vision problems, but when Amy had the defective gene, Michalski said she decided not to have any more kids.
"If you're blind, you still have to function in a sighted world," she said.
Blindness 101
Participants in the PREP program learn to function on their own in apartment-style dorms with other students and counselors nearby. They work 20 hours a week and take classes on ordering books in alternative formats, exploring career opportunities, traveling independently and using adaptive technology.
Amy hopes this knowledge will make her more equipped for college without detouring in a post-high school program for students with disabilities. She's got her heart set on her dream school - Berklee College of Music in Boston.
"It's definitely a step up if I can apply to the college but not have to take advantage of all the resources" for students with disabilities, she said.
The PREP program teaches "alternative techniques of blindness" that help students build confidence in their ability to take care of themselves. The eight-week course also includes travel to Orlando for the National Federation of the Blind convention, where keynote speeches and seminars can help attendees learn from others who share their lack of vision.
Building confidence
Amy's already got self-reliance and an outgoing nature, her mother says.
"She's very confident and courageous and I keep pushing her," Michalski said.
One of Amy's friends, Naperville North schoolmate Alex Pasulka, marveled at how Amy doesn't get frustrated when people use words about the sense of sight in figures of speech: "Want to go see a movie?" "Have you seen this band live?"
"She's just so comfortable with that and that made it easy when I was getting to know her," Alex said.
Amy has, in fact, seen movies like the "Harry Potter" series and the video version of the musical "Les Miserables." She's been to plenty of live concerts, too, and she decorates her room with images of her favorite artists.
"I don't see them, I just love them for their hearts," Amy says about her One Direction posters.
She's the same way with her friends, Alex says. Amy will make observations about fellow students, saying things like, "Oh, she's so pretty," and meaning it.
"She can just tell from people's mannerisms," Alex said.
Amy's attitude also makes it possible for her to find support networks and go on adventures, which continually impresses her mother.
Amy has traveled to Washington, D.C., for a March for Life with her church's youth group. She's played the lead role in the school play "Our Teacher is an Alien."
She's won a worldwide essay contest sponsored by the Lions Club and accepted her award at a convention in Seattle. She's rocked out at pop concerts and visited friends in Rhode Island whom she met through a One Direction fan forum.
She hasn't cooked much yet and she wants to improve at getting around outside, but there's only one thing Amy can't do. And the summer program she's soon to attend won't change that.
"The only thing I can't do is drive, unless you want to die," she says, over her mother's disapproval of her dark sarcasm. "It'll be like one of those video games, except you'll actually die."
Lions Club President Jim Ebers described Amy as "very upbeat and very active," saying she is a perfect candidate for the PREP program, where the club has sent at least one scholarship recipient before.
"It's really pretty amazing what she can do now," Ebers said. "I think she'll greatly benefit from the experience that she'll have this summer."
Amy's mother has high hopes for her daughter's experiences in Minneapolis, too, and she's expecting an even more independent Amy to return in two months.
"I won't miss her because she needs this," Michalski said. "This is her future and these are the skills that she's going to need to be independent."