by Trevor Hass
Sports Reporter
Michael Johann turns 15 years old Friday, April 1. He has already placed seventh and eighth in speech competitions this year, performed in multiple school plays and found his passion and a potential career in musical theater.
One of his upcoming goals is to try to clear the hurdles on the track at Zimmerman High School. Like most teenagers, he hangs out with his friends, studies for hours to make sure he keeps a good GPA and makes people laugh with accents and impressions – Southern and French are two of his favorites.
He has a knack for perfecting the nuances of inflection in his voice when he gives speeches. He zips through the hallways from class to class. He has aspirations and a sense of pride, and he believes he can do just about anything he puts his mind to.
He inspires those around him and is a familiar face around Zimmerman High. Someone everyone either knows well or wants to know better.
Michael Johann is blind.
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Ask an only child what life is like without any siblings. I’ve never had any brothers or sisters, so I can’t really compare the two, they’ll likely reply. Ask a person of a certain race, gender or ethnicity what it’s like as a member of that group and they’ll likely look at you inquisitively and give you a cliché, rehearsed answer. Ask a 7-foot tall man what life is like up there and he’ll likely reply by asking you what it’s like down there.
Ask a blind person what life is like not being able to see and he’ll shrug his shoulders and tell you it’s all he knows.
Enter through the main office, zigzag through the hallways and make your way to English and Speech teacher Angie Bickman’s room, Room 224. Johann sits on a chair, Bickman rests across from him and Johann’s paraprofessional, Tami Johnson, smiles a few feet away.
Johann was born blind, but he’s made adjustments throughout his life. He could never find Room 224 without Johnson and his walking stick, but with them, doing so is no problem. His parents never considered home-schooling him. They knew public school would expand his opportunities and make him an even more outgoing and well-rounded person.
During tests, he reads Braille. If there’s something that doesn’t translate, Johnson will read it out loud to him, and he’ll usually know the answer. In Physical Science recently, Johnson Googled big bright-colored bridges, and when Johann peered closely at the image he was able to distinguish some of its features. In math classes, where the learning is also visual, Johnson helps him digest the information, but he does nearly all of the work himself and uses Nemeth Braille Code.
Michael Johann, who is blind, is an integral part of the speech team and drama department at Zimmerman High.
“He’s an amazing kid,” Johnson said. “He’s fantastic to work with, because every single day he’ll do something that will impress somebody. He’s so independent. He doesn’t let being blind keep him from doing anything. There’s nothing that he won’t try.”
While Johann is legally blind, he can make out certain colors. When one object is black and one is white, he can distinguish between the two.
Johann doesn’t like to look at situations or challenges as black and white, though. He may need to make an adjustment, but he believes he’s capable of a lot more than most people think he is. All it takes is some tactical tweaking and extra effort on his part.
“It’s a little bit challenging, because the things that I want to do, a lot of people are hesitant about it because of my disability,” Johann said. “They don’t really know what I can do.”
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When Johann joined the Speech team, one of his main goals was to memorize his speech. He and his father found the perfect speech, turned it into Braille using a fancy gizmo at home and Johann printed out a copy for himself and Bickman.
Bickman’s script was two pages and Johann’s was 10. Braille text is much larger, so Johann uses a binder to keep his speech in order. He needed a table on stage at first because he didn’t have the speech memorized and he couldn’t feasibly hold the binder, flip the pages and read the content all while standing.
“Now I have the script completely memorized,” Johann said. “I worked at it and worked at it, and now I have it.”
Johann’s always had a gift for speaking, and his radio voice produced a wide range of inflection in his speech and different character voices. The more difficult challenge for Bickman and Johann was making sure his facial expressions varied to reflect the content of the speech.
He only knows facial expressions from experiencing them himself. He’s never seen a goofy face, a bewildered expression or a look of shock. Johann smiles, but he naturally doesn’t show too much emotion on his face.
“What I’ve been thinking about for you, I think that’s going to be your biggest challenge, is how to make those facial expressions,” Bickman says to Johann. “Talking through what that sad face looks like, what that happy face looks like, what that pained expression looks like, what that guilty expression looks like, I can’t just say ‘Look what I’m doing, now do that.’”
That hasn’t stopped Johann from placing seventh at Cambridge and eighth at the conference meet – which was the first time he memorized his speech. At one meet, he waited and waited until the very end for his name to be called.
“I was like, ‘All right, maybe I won’t get called,’” Johann said. “Then they said my name and I ran up there. The person told me to slow down, and I was like, ‘Nooo!’”
When Johnson has the choice between going up to the stage with Johann herself or letting a peer accompany him, she’ll always defer to the peer. She relishes every chance she gets to ensure Johann has as authentic of a high school experience as possible. Few things make Johnson more content than when she sees Johann laughing with his friends in the hallway or at a meet.
After starting off the year as a newcomer without a speech and in need of a table, Johann is now earning awards as a steady contributor on the team.
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When Drama teacher Jon Paleshewski told Johann there wasn’t an acting role for him in “Anne of Green Gables” this spring, Johann brainstormed other ways he could stay involved. Fortunately, Paleshewski was happy to have Johann play an integral role in the production. There just weren’t many male parts in the play and he didn’t have a spot for Johann.
Johann was persistent, just like usual, and he made sure he wouldn’t miss out on such a terrific opportunity.
“He came and talked to me and said he still really wanted to be involved, and we decided he could work as an assistant to me,” Paleshewski said.
He made a copy of the script in Braille, so he works as a prompter for students. Johann also critiques them. Are they projecting? How are they using their voices? How can they improve? All the subtleties he excels at.
Johann was in two plays himself the last couple years. “The Chronicles of Narnia” was his first show, and he was a grandfather beaver – which was an add-on character made specifically for him. That was when he realized how much he enjoyed acting and that it was something he might even want to pursue professionally one day.
“The Little Mermaid” is his favorite show. He was a chef and he got to take part in a chase scene. Paleshewski knows it can be tricky to have Johann briskly move around the stage, so he’ll put someone behind him or place him in a spot where he doesn’t have to move much.
Many people in Johann’s situation would be thrilled simply to take part in a play, but Johann has never been one to settle. He’s a dreamer.
“I think I could figure the choreography out for the dancing if I really, really practiced it,” he said.
Considering what he’s accomplished so far, no one around Zimmerman would be surprised if Johann clears that hurdle – the one on the stage or outside on the track.