Visit to the Dialogue Museum in Frankfurt

A couple of weeks after we joined the new school, our new class teacher Ms. Kaiser-Herz informed us that we had a whole day laid out for us to do an activity with the point of getting to know each other. Various activities were chosen and after ten minutes of discussion, our options and voting, we picked the Dialogue Museum located in Frankfurt.

Those of you who don´t know what the Dialogue Museum is, it is a museum created with the main aim to show people who are gifted with complete sight, how people who are visually impaired experience life.

On the Monday before the “big day“ which was the 4th of November, Ms. Kaiser-Herz came to the lesson accompanied by two Finnish women. They were teachers from a school in Jyväskylä. They were to be in our school on a two week basis. Later that week we were informed that not only the Finnish teachers would accompany us to the museum, but they would also feed us with information about visual impairment.


A day before the excursion, the Finnish guests teachers came and took over the lesson, using “their own kind of teaching method“, as they called it. We were first asked to align ourselves according to our ages, without exchanging words. It was easy, but at the same time not easy. Easy because we had done that before in another lesson, hard because we couldn't communicate using just gestures. Then someone had the brilliant idea of writing what we wanted to say down. In a matter of time, we were done. After the alignment, we were divided into groups of five. There were different tasks to do. Each group got a task when it was its turn to perform. After each performance we discussed the task.

Each task had to be done with a blind-fold on. One task in particular, a group member was given an item. He had to identify the colors and write each down. After the blind folds were off, it was time to discuss. We talked about how the people who guessed the colors, thought of their answers. Most of them said they just thought of items which feel the same and what color they were. The Finnish teachers then explained to us, that people who were born completely blind, don't know how colors look like. For the next two lessons we discussed thoroughly about this topic and others that came before and after. We were informed and ready. The next day, we met at the train station and rode together to Frankfurt. There we took a suburban train to our location. After locking our belongings in lockers, we were divided into groups of eight and given different times.


Before going into the dark room, we had an work shop with a visually impaired woman. But first, we had to wait for about twenty minutes in a hallway-room. On one of the walls of the waiting room was the alphabet in Braille. Some of us tried writing different things on papers that were laid out. Where as some played a quiz game on a machine in a corner and the rest just had conversations. When it was finally time for our session, we all gathered in a room and the woman fed our curious minds. I found the way she moved and communicated remarkable. 45 minutes later, we were back in the waiting room. After what seemed long ages, the groups started disappearing one by one, and then it was finally my group´s turn. In front of the entrance, there was a man. He explained to us, what we shouldn`t take with us and gave us walking sticks. He then led us into the darkness and handed us over to our guide. In the darkness he introduced himself and we did the same. He showed us first into a cold room. You could hear birds chirping, the water flowing and the wind. On the walls you could touch water. It felt so real!

After discussing possibilities of where we were, we walked on a bridge and left the room. We walked carefully through the dark hallway into another room. Sounds of cars, suburbans, bicycles, traffic lights and people talking could be heard. We walked around the room touching everything and talking about how traffic lights serve the blind. After some of us had a ride on the tiny cars, which could’t even move, we left to go to the next room.

In the next room we were asked to sit on sofas and we listened to music. After a few minutes we talked about the hightened sense of hearing which comes with blindness. Soon enough we were back wandering in the dark halls.

The last room was a room where those who wanted got an opportunity to see how it is to eat in the dark. As those who bought themselves some food ate, we had the chance to ask questions. Surprisingly, it turned out that our guide wasn’t actually blind. We talked about random things, laughed a lot and then it was time to go. An hour later after we went out of the darkness, we emerged and were directly enchanted by the light. Sadly we didn’t get to see our guide who made an hour seem like ten minutes.


After everybody was out, we shortly discussed what we had experienced and left. Blindness is not a curse, it may be a blessing in some ways, too. Someone gets to see life from another perspective. This angle shows you everything exactely as it is even without seeing it and this is just beauty. Not only did I get closer to my classmates through the communication, I also learnt a lesson. 

Joy Rose Kanini, 11/1
Date: 12/2016