Body of Work: Changing the Lens

They say your eyesight starts to change in your 40s, but I thought that was for other people. I’d always had “good eyes.” Then, sometime around 43 or 44, I noticed that something felt…off. It was taking my eyes longer to focus when I shifted from reading a magazine to looking up at the TV. Words on the page weren’t as crisp. I was convinced something was majorly wrong – with my eyes or maybe even my brain.

I made my first eye doctor appointment, half worried, half certain he’d discover a serious problem. After the exam, he looked at me kindly, and said, “I could sell you some glasses, but I won’t. Go to the drug store and pick up some 1.25 readers.” Then he asked, “How old are you?” When I told him, he nodded. “You do know vision changes with age, right?”

I said yes, of course – I knew that in theory. What I didn’t know was that it would feel like this. I didn’t know that this slow, quiet blur was what “normal” aging eyes would be like. I left both reassured and slightly disappointed: nothing was wrong except that I was getting older.

The funny part is that this wasn’t even the first clue. That had come a few months earlier at a school event.

One evening at a celebration for parents of graduating seniors, I was slated to read aloud the names of each family in attendance. We’d done a complete run through of the script earlier that day. The event itself took place in that lovely light of late spring at an inside/outside setup with sliding glass doors. As the evening went on, the natural light faded. Inside, the lighting stayed soft and subtle, perfect for a dinner, less perfect for reading fine print.

When it was my turn to step up to the podium, I looked down at the list of names…and could barely see them. The combination of small font and low light turned the page into a blur. Recognizing what was going on, my colleague flashed a big smile from his seat, popped up, and handed me his readers. He saved the day, the parents chuckled, and I was rattled. I hadn’t been in the habit of wearing readers. I genuinely hadn’t realized my vision had changed that much or that low light made such a difference.

He’d been telling me I needed glasses. I’d been telling myself I did not.

Eventually, I gave in to the drugstore readers. And because I never wanted to read blurry words again, I became a reader person: pairs in both cars, in both home and school desk drawers, on the coffee table, by the bed. My husband teased me and called me Fred G. Sanford, after the character who always pulled out a jumble of glasses from a drawer on Sanford and Son. I laughed, but he wasn’t wrong. At any given moment, I was surrounded by a small collection of readers.

Readers helped, up to a point. They let me keep reading menus, books, and labels, but they also became their own kind of work: on, off, up, down, where‑did‑I‑put‑them‑down-this-time? Presenting to a group meant juggling: I could see faces or I could see notes, but not both easily. Teaching in person or online required a constant sliding on and off of my glasses.

Eventually, after tiring of the reader shuffle and after being told I needed to wear sunglasses to delay cataract progression, I invested in real glasses, not the multicolored three‑packs I had been ordering from Amazon. I made the shift to progressive lenses with transitions. Cute frames with lenses that let me see both far away and up close, and tint that darkens outside so I actually protect my eyes from UV. Without glasses, I can still read street signs from a distance and smalltype projected on a screen, but when I’m reading up close without my glasses, it’s blurry. Put the glasses on, and the world snaps back into focus.

My prescriptions, according to the optometrist, change a little every year. I don’t notice the difference in my daily life. I just know that when I get new lenses, things look a bit sharper again. The need for help isn’t a failure; it’s just one more reminder that my body – and my perspective – are not static.

Over time, this has become one of my favorite metaphors when I talk about equity and learning: It is not “equitable” to give my husband my glasses and expect him to perform at his best. He doesn’t need my prescription; he needs his own. Until I was about 40, I didn’t need any corrective lenses at all. Now I do. Our needs are not the same, and they’re not fixed, either. They change over time.

The same is true in schools and organizations. We can’t assume that if everyone has the same view of the text, the policy, or the meeting agenda, they also have the same ability to make sense of it. Some people need more light – more context, more time, more examples. Some people need a different “prescription” – more scaffolding, different modalities, alternative ways to engage. Equity is everyone seeing clearly enough to participate.

These days, progressives feel like the best gift I’ve given myself. They make it easier to see the front of the room and the notes I’ve prepared, the big picture and the small type, without constantly taking glasses off and on. In my work, I want that same kind of flexibility: the ability to look up and see the system, then look down and see the individual in front of me, without pretending those are the same distance.

If you facilitate learning or lead others, you might sit with a few questions of your own:

• Where are you still trying to squint through an old lens, insisting nothing has changed, instead of admitting you need a new prescription?

• In your school or organization, who is being asked to see clearly without the corrective supports they actually need?

• How might your existing tools and structures be more like my drugstore readers – helpful for some, frustrating or useless for others?

• What would it look like to treat equity the way we treat corrective lenses: not a luxury, but a basic condition for seeing the work at all?