With humor and sentiment, blind Lesley alum talks about harnessing adversity
October 9, 2009
Lesley alum Erik Weihenmayer, SOE ‘93 - the blind man who summited the highest peak on each continent - spoke at Marran Theater last night, discussing the motivating power of adversity and the shattering of expectations to a packed house of students and university friends.
Weihenmayer with Lesley Junior Ashley Cunningham
Though he shared a number of great adventure and outdoor sports stories, much of it with a disarming, self-deprecating humor, Weihenmayer centered his talk on the pursuit of a life vision - the idea that goals are singular and isolated unless they “live in the framework of a vision.”
“How do your goals day after day achieve that?” Weihenmayer, who spoke as his dog Willow dozed beside him, asked the crowd.
In his case, Weihenmayer’s own personally-constructed vision has served him and others well. He attended Lesley after finishing his undergraduate work at Boston College. As a student in the School of Education, he completed his student teaching practicum at Cambridge’s Buckingham, Browne & Nichols.
After graduating, Weihenmayer moved to Arizona, where he taught fifth grade and coached wrestling. He jokingly recalled listening the first day of school as children outside his classroom realized “Yes! I got the blind guy!”
Weihenmayer with Second Year Threshold Student Zach Banov
Though he ultimately moved on to adventures - he has completed the world’s toughest climbs on ice and rock and even skis and paraglides - Weihenmayer said his years in a classroom informed the sense of community, friendship and teamwork he uses when in the wild.
“I’m teaching them curriculum,” he recalled. “But I’m also teaching them how to be leaders, how to step up. I learned what a team was by being a teacher in the classroom.”
In the course of his talk, Weihenmayer revealed that he is not as unique in his achievements as one might think. His stories of disabled people climbing despite impairments revealed a small community including not just blind climbers, but a paraplegic, a man with prosthetic legs and a woman climbing with a transplanted heart. He told of another blind climber who developed a school for blind children in Nepal and brought some of them partway up Mt. Everest.
Introducing Weihenmayer, Lesley Professor Emerita Anne Larkin, remarked on her pride at seeing a student turn to inspire so many others, exemplifying the “Lesley mission of inclusion.”
“I am most proud that he has been such an advocate for people with all kinds of challenges and disabilities,” Larkin, who taught Weihenmayer in Middle School Philosophy and Education, said.
Weihenmayer revealed, too, parts of his personal life, sharing a video of himself testing a technology allowing his brain to ‘see’ shapes and print on paper. In the video, he is able to play tic-tac-toe with his young daughter.
Each attendee received a signed copy of Weihenmayer’s 2001 memoir Touch the Top of the World. Students lined up after the talk to share stories of their own adversity and that of family members and to receive personalized signatures.