Blueprint for Learning?

Blueprint for Learning?

Future Reflections Winter 1996, Vol. 15 No. 1
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BLUEPRINT FOR LEARNING?

by Stephen O. Benson
Editor's note: In many ways a great deal of progress has been made
by blind people in recent timesþmore jobs, better special tools and
equipment, increased understanding. But in at least one critical area
blind children growing up today are being badly shortchanged in a way
that was very nearly unheard of fifty years ago. In recent decades most
blind children have not routinely been taught how to read and write
Braille. Many of these children have now reached adulthood. I talk to
them by the hundreds. Almost without exception they feel they were
betrayed by their teachers and the other experts their parents trusted
to plan their education. We as blind people should not have to fight for
blind children to have the chance to learn to read and write Braille.
Parents expect schools to teach sighted children how to read and
write, and there are laws requiring that it be done. We want the laws to
protect blind children, too. But the experts often fight against such
laws. They seem to think deciding whether to teach a blind child to read
Braille is very complicated. The truth is that it is very simple. If a
child can't see well enough to read print easily, Braille should be
taught. But that is not what usually happens, and the blind child pays a
heavy price for the rest of his or her life.
Steve Benson does public relations and public education for the
Chicago Public Library. He was trained as a high school English teacher
and taught for a number of years before becoming a Braille instructor
and then an administrator of a private agency serving blind people. He
has much personal and professional experience with Braille. This is what
he has to say:
At one and a half years of age my eye condition was diagnosed as
retinitis pigmentosa, which often results in total blindness. As I
approached first grade, my doctors and teachers (the team of
professionals) asserted that I should use my limited vision to its
maximum for as long as possible. My family was directed to enroll me in
what was then called "sight saving." Print was to be the medium by which
I was to learn to read.
The sight saving classroom was equipped with the best technology
of the day (1948): dark green chalkboards with yellow chalk, yellow
paper with heavy green lines, indirect lighting, desks with adjustable
work surfaces that allowed the student to bring reading and writing
materials closer to the face, and typewriters with large print. Each
student wore prescription lenses and had access to hand-held magnifiers.
In addition we used large-print textbooks. In third grade we learned to
type by the touch typing method.
In my case and in countless others, neither equipment nor teaching
techniques would or could work. The techniques and the teachers' efforts
were misapplied. The prescription for sight saving class was in error.
From the first day of class my limited vision prevented me from reading
effectively. Over the course of the next four and a half years my visual
acuity decreased while the print I was expected to read became smaller.
I remember alternately gazing out the window and puzzling over a
printed page. By fourth grade my teachers had to print out my classwork
by hand, using large letters and india ink. With all of that I still
felt as though I was reading grey print on grey paper. Yet I remained in
sight saving class until the middle of fifth grade.
The toll I paid for the professionals' decisions was high. I
dreaded reading; my confidence eroded; I feared blindness; I acquired
bad reading habits that carried over into adulthood. I never checked a
book out of the library. Why should I? I couldn't read it.
During the summer of 1952 the professionals finally admitted that
print might not be the right way for me to be getting an education. In
September of that year I was transferred to what we referred to as the
blind school, where I began to learn Braille. It wasn't difficult. My
teacher was competent. She knew Braille. She gave me positive
encouragement. My reading and writing speeds were slow at first;
however, as I gained proficiency and confidence, speeds increased. In
January of 1953, at age eleven, I checked out and read a library book
for the first time in my life. It was in Braille.
Over the last forty years teams of professionals have continued to
make the same foolish and costly decisions, probably with greater
frequency as the years have passed. As a member of the National
Federation of the Blind Scholarship Committee, I have met an astounding
number of high school and college students who, because they had some
vision, were deprived of Braille or were discouraged from learning it
without regard to whether the student could read print well enough to
compete with sighted peers.
One scholarship applicant, not unusual, uses taped books and a
closed circuit television magnifier. Under the best conditions she is
able to read for only a minute at a time, and that with great
discomfort. She is enrolled as a part-time student in a community
college, partly because her vision doesn't allow her to meet the reading
and writing demands of full-time status. She has asked to be taught
Braille, but her family and the teams of professionals with whom she has
worked have actively discouraged it.
Too many parents assume that the experts must know what's best,
and will necessarily do what's best for the child. Those assumptions are
often wrong and prove to be quite costly to the blind child.
"What's best for the child" is a catch phrase that too often
translates into decisions that are convenient for the teacher, school,
or district and into efforts to make the blind child's educational needs
conform to budget priorities.
Were my experience forty years ago and that of the college student
I described mere coincidence? I don't believe they were. Nor do I
believe that de-emphasis on literacy (Braille) was or is accidental.
De-emphasis on Braille is disgraceful, just as de-emphasis on
print would be. People who have a good command of reading and writing
skills tend to do better in math, science, history, languages, music,
and all the rest. People who can read and write successfully have a
better chance at competitive employment and every other situation in
life, for that matter.
The anti-literacy/anti-Braille position taken by so many educators
of blind children and adults has had wider negative impact than they
might imagine. Several years ago I worked at an agency for the blind in
Chicago. In support of a program to teach Braille, I submitted a grant
request to the Chicago Tribune Foundation. The grant request was turned
down. The reasons, according to a foundation spokesman, were that
Braille has nothing to do with literacy, it is obsolete, and reading can
be done by recordings.
I was disappointed that the program did not receive that support.
I was disgusted by the ignorance of the foundation personnel, but I was
not surprised.
For fifteen years I taught Braille for the Veterans Administration
at Hines Hospital. One of my assigned duties was to supervise Western
Michigan University interns (student teachers) studying to become
rehabilitation teachers.
An alarming number of these interns didn't know Grade II Braille,
could not write with a slate and stylus, and had to be instructed in the
use of an ordinary Braille writer. One intern didn't know Grade I
Braille, though he had taken and passed a Braille course.
Though I wrote negative reports regarding their poor skills, all
of these interns passed the internship, and presumably all were
certified by the Association for the Education and Rehabilitation of the
Blind and Visually Impaired (AER).
If future generations of blind people, children and adults, are to
be literate, if future generations of blind people hope to be
competitive in society, they must have access to the printed word by a
method that will allow writing as well as reading. It is time for
educators to grit their teeth and admit that a colossal error has been
made.
Then they must bring themselves up to speed on Braille and all of
its tools, mechanical and electronic. It is time for educators to join
us in our effort to require that Braille be made available to any child
who wants it and to participate in making sure that sufficient funding
is available to make mandates and good intentions mean something.
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