The Braille Monitor _June 1997
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."