About VoJ
& Dr Bates

School years can be a challenging time for many children, and this can show in their eyes. Especially third grade (age 8), when we switch from learning-to-read to reading-to-learn, often proves to be a stumbling block as far as vision goes. The letters become smaller, while expectations rise. The resulting added stress in a child's life can easily cause blurry vision. When that happens, the child is usually taken for a first visit to an optometrist and may be prescribed glasses.

The good news is that it doesn't have to be that way. Children at this early stage of eyesight challenges can often easily return to clear vision and can avoid needing glasses by simply being taught how to relax their eyes again. As the strain has not had much chance to take hold or become deeply habitual, the progress they make can be very fast and lasting.
Dr Bates spent many years helping school children. He found that by simply hanging up an eyechart in the classrooms, along with giving some simple instructions, the necessity for glasses in the entire school, including the teachers, was decimated.

A NEW BOOK !
If you are interested in helping the children's vision in your school, then our new book 'Eye Education in our Schools' has the information you need to get started.  This excellent book has, for the first time ever, brought together specific information regarding use of the Bates Method of eye education in schools.   At the end of the book I have added a practical overview of the advice given by Dr. Bates to schoolteachers and children.

I believe that with just this book, an eye-chart (free here), and possibly Dr. Bates' original book (free here), any school can implement eye education with a minimum amount of time and effort required from the teachers, and they can begin reaping the results of improved vision for their students.  This method has been successfully used in various schools in the past, and deserves to be widespread knowledge once again.

Having personally experienced the immense joy of regaining clear vision, I trust that anyone who reads and studies this book will also benefit greatly from this knowledge.  I sincerely hope that you will contribute to returning the Bates Method of eye education into the schools, where it belongs and where it can be of greatest benefit.

To obtain a copy of 'Eye Education In Our Schools', make a donation of US$ 25 to Visions of Joy and send an email stating that you are ordering the 'Eye Education In Our Schools' book.  Within a day or two of receipt of your payment you will receive an email with the PDF file of this book attached.  

Below is an example of one of the many articles in the book 'Eye Education In Our Schools'.

An Opportunity for Teachers, by W.H. Bates, MD
(taken from Better Eyesight Magazine, Vol VII, No 10, April 1923)

The future of this country is in the hands of the children. The children are in the hands of the teachers.
Parents spend relatively very little or no time with their children while the teachers supervise the lives of the children for at least six hours a day. The duties of teachers have been increased very much in recent years. There was a time when the child got all the possible education from the home, but now some children do not even get enough to eat at home and the teachers have supplied food, heat, warm clothing, fresh air, exercise and games. We ought to be very grateful to the teachers because they not only supply the necessities but also the pleasures which children need.

I am interested in the eyes of the schoolchildren. It seems to me a crime that young children should have to wear glasses; even children before they enter school, nursing babies, have occasionally been compelled to wear glasses. There was a time when I prided myself on my ability to prescribe glasses, even taught other doctors how to do it, but I never fitted young children with glasses because it was very rare to find children under six years old who could be manifestly benefited by wearing glasses. One teacher told me that the Board of Health of the City of New York not so very long ago sent a doctor to examine the eyes of her pupils. He prescribed glasses for every one of these children and even insisted that she should wear glasses. I told the teacher what to do and she very promptly became able to use her eyes without glasses and without any discomfort.

As one child after another lost their glasses, the teacher told each child who was not wearing glasses what to do to improve his sight and finally every child in her class obtained perfect sight without glasses after they stopped wearing them. Furthermore, the scholarship of her pupils improved immensely. By practicing central fixation her children had no more headaches when they looked at the blackboard or when they read their books. Surely what that teacher did was not a crime and what she did other teachers can do all over the United States. The number of children wearing glasses is steadily increasing. I have many schoolchildren brought to me wearing glasses, to be cured of their symptoms without them and I find that in a very large percentage of these cases the glasses prescribed were very weak and entirely unnecessary. By a little rest, palming and swinging, the vision became normal and the eyes perfectly comfortable without glasses.

Here is a great opportunity for all the teachers in the public and private schools to come forward and do the common sense thing for their pupils. Of the hundred and ten million people in the Unites States when we average five children to a family, the number of children is approximately eighty million. Of course these figures are not at all accurate but even if there were only one million schoolchildren in the United States it would be worthwhile to preserve their eyesight. The majority of people are poor; they can not afford to pay for eyeglasses or to pay the doctor for his examination. The teachers have aided materially in supplying glasses to their pupils because they thought the glasses were necessary. Every teacher cured of imperfect sight by reading my book or practicing my treatment is able to cure every one of her pupils. There may be some exceptions to this but I have found out that so long as the child is able to see to come to school, the child can be benefited by the teacher.

From time to time I have published articles on the prevention of imperfect sight in schoolchildren. From time to time I have cured teachers so that their sight became normal without glasses. Always I have urged them to do something for their pupils and many of them have, but there is a certain proportion of teachers who lack the courage of their convictions and neglect to do what they are able to do. I wish I could say something that would encourage such teachers to go ahead and benefit their pupils. They cannot do any harm to a child suffering from headaches; the child can be relieved of a headache by closing the eyes and palming. No eye specialist, no person of average intelligence would object to a child resting his eyes. Taking a rest from his studies is not a crime and most teachers can tell better than anybody else how much rest a child ought to have. Every day schoolchildren come to my office and I tell them to take off their glasses. When the children are allowed to practice my treatment they get well without glasses. I think that is much better than to condemn them to the use of glasses for the rest of their lives. My discoveries in physiological optics have demonstrated that all children wearing glasses can be cured without them.