Blind ambition: Sightless teen has learned to count on herself.

Byline: Eric Adler

In a class at Central High School, 18-year-old Felicia Smith _ completely blind since age 9 _ sits quietly by herself, sounds of defiance ricocheting around the room.

Students, unprovoked, mouth off to the teacher. Kids gab over the lesson. Others walk in and out of class at will, slamming the door as they leave, pounding it to re-enter.

Meantime, Felicia sits at the periphery of the room bothering no one. She is a reserved girl with small shoulders on a round frame. She wears her hair short _ straight or in cornrows. When she speaks, her voice, like her features, are soft. But she is not speaking now.

She slips a pair of headphones over her ears, turns on her tape player and begins listening to a recorded textbook as she reads a lesson in Braille.

"She's fantastic," Spanish teacher Maya Gross later says about Felicia. "It's a shame she's in this class. It's my most disruptive. I think she could go so much further in a different school or class."

But judging distance is sometimes relative. What is unknown to all but a few of the teachers and this tough urban school is how very far Felicia has already come.

In January she was honored with a medal by the board of the Kansas City School District as its high school "Student of the Month," a distinction she flatly believes she does not merit.

"You've seen my grades," says Felicia, whose grades range from stellar to poor: A's in math. D's in English. "I don't deserve it."

But there are those who believe this private and polite girl, this young girl who chooses never to swear, who says "yes" instead of "yeah," and whose chemistry teacher describes her as a smiling "joy," is not the best one to judge.

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