Can Braille Change the Future?

Can Braille Change the Future?

The Braille Monitor

_June 1997

(next)

(contents)

Can

Braille Change the Future?

by Denise Staulter

From the Editor: The following article first appeared in the March, 1997,

Michigan Focus, a publication of the NFB of Michigan. Denise Staulter

is an experienced teacher of blind students. She has received and read NFB publications

for some time now, but the Michigan affiliate's fall convention last year was

her first actual contact with members of the organization. It is obvious from

the following article, however, that, like many others of us, she was a Federationist

long before she joined the organization. This is what she says:

As an itinerant teacher of the visually impaired, I often teach my students

for many years. More than four years ago, I met a lovely little girl in her

second year of school who had very little usable sight for reading. Before she

came to me, she had the use of a closed circuit television (CCTV) and other

magnifying equipment but was not doing well in school because of her lack of

sight and inefficient skills for coping with this visual impairment. The first

six months we worked together she constantly talked about quitting school as

soon as she turned sixteen. She hated school so much because she couldn't do

anything.

I started teaching her Braille as intensely as I thought she could handle. I

knew that, when she had something she could actually use in school, she would

begin to enjoy academics like her classmates. After a year and a half and the

acquisition of a great deal of Braille knowledge, she was able to read books

like the rest of her peers. She finally began to enjoy school. She was still

behind academically and struggled with school but insisted every time the class

had a particular book that she also have it in Braille so she could "read

it like them." She now delights in showing sighted peers how to read Braille

in her books and write Braille words on her Brailler. This has also become quite

a self-esteem builder.

She is also a very accomplished typist for her age. Typing is a skill she needs

right along with her Braille, so she can produce work for her regular education

teacher and turn it in along with her peers. When her regular teacher asks her

to write something, she does not hesitate to go to her computer and generate

her work, knowing she can do the work as her sighted counterparts do.

This student has progressed from constantly talking about quitting school to

chatting about going on to college, just because she knows she can get the material

she needs and do the work like others. I often wonder, if she and other students

like her had begun Braille when their sighted peers learned their letters at

age three or four, how much more successful might she and they have been?"

Would she have suffered constant struggle and hatred of school for two to three

years because of her lack of the essential skills needed by a visually impaired

student? Such speculation is fruitless. We must not look back; we must look

forward in order to help other pupils.

As teachers we must constantly look into the future of our students to make

sure they will have the skills they need to be successful people. Our ultimate

goal is, "...The success of all children through appropriate educational

practices, equipment, and technology."