| October 9, 2008 Blind students experience circus on "touch tour"
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(Ally Donnelly, NECN) - 13-year-old Garrett Knight strokes a caramel colored pony at the TD Banknorth Garden in Boston. He easily tells me that the horse's mane is rough and his coat soft like a pillow but has a harder time choosing the horse's shade.
Garrett is a student at the Perkins school for the blind in Watertown, Massachusetts.
Garrett: Picture closing your eyes for an entire minute and picture never being able to open them again.
He and his classmates have come for a "touch tour" of the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus.
Meeting creatures tall and small.
Getting up close and personal under the big top.
The experts and the kids say it's critical for them to see and smell and touch the animals and the clowns so that they can see it when the big lights are on, under the big top.
Kathy from Perkins: Someone will sit next to them at the circus and say, oh, there's an elephant it's really big..it has a long trunk...this way, they've touched it, they've felt it, they're going to have a much better idea of what an elephant is.
Leo Acton is boss clown for the greatest show on earth and says *every child should have a three ring memory to cherish.
Leo, Boss Clown: We want them to have a chance to experience the circus the way that everyone else does --- to really pull it in with all their senses.
Student: It makes me happy. It makes you happy? Yes. Is that the most important thing? Yes.
Indeed
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