Vision is priceless. As it usually happens, we take this gift for granted. On the other hand, Roger Alcala sees the world differently because he’s been blind his whole life.
Mr. Alcala is a Physics teacher at Samuel Clemens High School in San Antonio. His students had no idea that their favorite teacher could not distinguish color until noticing it in his behavior.
We bring you a heartwarming story of a group of students who decided to raise enough money to give their teacher a priceless gift. Students bought Alcala glasses and gave him colors. As expected, Roger couldn’t hold back his tears. Neither could we.
Piper Smith, one of Alcala’s students, recorded the touching moment when Roger put on glasses for the first time, and the video soon went viral.
More than two million people have already seen the video on YouTube. Thousands of beautiful comments only confirm that we should be more grateful for being healthy and well.
At first, the student knew nothing about Roger being colorblind. Alcala was just a fantastic teacher for kids at school who had a way of putting physics into an understandable perspective.
However, they soon picked up on something strange.
“We have red and green markers, and we were drawing graphs, and he was like with this marker…” Smith explains. “And we were like, ‘that one is green, you already used green for the last one.'” It was clear that Alcala could not see the difference between red and green.
After that, Roger confessed to his students that he was colorblind.
No one wanted to believe it because none of the students had ever met a colorblind person before.
Roger explained:
“My eyes and brain can’t tell the difference, sometimes depending on the hue.”
Yes, we completely understand it, but it’s hard to imagine having such a problem.
The students raised $400 glasses to buy Alcala special, custom-made glasses.
Roger Alcala’s first reaction was: “Wow, I really am colorblind.” When the teacher saw all the colors around him, he became aware of how much he was missing. The moment Roger put on the glasses for the first time was special for children. Alcala began to cry.
Now, he could also see the colors on his kids’ artwork.
The special glasses changed his life forever. Imagine not seeing the difference between red and green. Those two colors are highly different, but to Roger, they look the same.
He later said:
“It just made such a big impact on my life.”
The best thing about the story is the glasses’ working principle is based on the laws of Physics, and that’s what Roger’s been teaching the kids all along.
Amazingly, Mr. Alcala’s students thought of wearing bright-colored shirts on the day they gave him glasses.
We imagine just how much all those colors boosted the effect of the glasses. Isn’t it lovely to see such a wholesome example of students who respect their teacher? Roger Alcala must have made quite an impression on those kiddos who agree on one thing: “Alcala enjoys teaching, and he’s great at it.”
This incredible act of kindness was also recounted by KENS 5 News.
How do glasses for colorblind people work?
Our eyes have photoreceptors sensitive to different parts of the visible spectrum: blue, green, and red. When red and green color cones in the eye overlap, the distinct hues become indistinguishable.
Glasses for colorblind people have unique lens technology that filters wavelengths of light where the overlapping occurs. That way, the contrast between red and green color signals is increased.
We are thankful to Alcala’s students for giving him the rainbow. Great job!
Watch the video below to see Mr Alcala be surprised for yourself!
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