[Blindmath] I'm Dying Here

Fri May 23 03:15:56 UTC 2014

I have tried to use this approach. Trust me, I would rather do anything then talk to the teacher about how their lectures aren't working for me. The problem is that a lot of textbooks present things spatially. I'm not just talking about how they present the concept spatially, which they did. I'm talking about how they layout examples on the page spatially so it's hard to keep track of each step. Also, they just throw a bunch of numbers on the page. They don't verbalize what they're doing, so that makes it hard as well. Were example, it would be much easier if the textbook wrote the words, switch the numerator and the denominator, and then did it numerically under that. With lower-level math, there are much fewer steps and they're much shorter, so it's easier, but with higher level math, there are lots more steps and the steps for longer, so clear verbal explanations are important and textbooks don't provide them. Also, for a totally blind person, getting the book in an accessible format is incredibly difficult. The only real way to do this right now is hardcopy brill, and in college, that's very hard to get. Audio is tedious and leads to a lot of ambiguities that can be cleared up by actually reading it. Electronic books don't have readable equations or are missing symbols because of the way there produced. Again, even when you worked really hard and finally do get in accessible book, the book isn't that helpful because you can't understand anything in it. Actually never had luck with any school text books, including English books, and I'm good at English. If I could have learned maths from the book, I would have done so in high school, taken the advanced placement exam, and gone straight to calculus two or three in college. Also, if there was some sort of program or some sort of way where I could know immediately when I completed a step incorrectly, that would be good. If I complete a whole problem incorrectly, it's hard for me to know where I went wrong. If I complete a whole set of problems incorrectly, that's even worse because even after the teacher tells me that I did it wrong, I have already trained my brain to do it that way. Also, they have things for sighted people where it will ask you questions like formulas and special angles, and then you type in the answer and it tells you if you got it right or not, but they don't have any accessible alternatives that I know of. There is even software where you can work problems, and it tells based on your answers where you are struggling and Taylor's the problems to your week areas, and that would really help me as well, but again, they don't have that for blind people. I don't think it's fair to say that you should go to a class and do work for a class without getting actual help from a teacher, but I don't know how I could be inside a math class and actually get something out of it. I've had the best luck with math forums and Yahoo answers, but if I could actually have a book that was written that way, that would be better so I didn't have to go hunting to find out how to do each thing in a way that I can understand.

> On May 22, 2014, at 9:36 PM, Suzanne Germano via Blindmath <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Reading ahead is how you should do it anyway sighted or not.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 5:43 PM, Mike Jolls via Blindmath <
> blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
>> This is in response to "I'm Dying" because of what the teacher is doing
>> ... or not.  I'll try to keep my response short.
>> 
>> Basically when I went back to college and had to take a lot of math
>> (Algebra, Trig, Calculus) I combatted the problem of not being able to see
>> the board by reading ahead in the class and studying the material ahead of
>> time ... before the class began.  That puts a lot of responsibility on you
>> the student to know what the teacher is going to talk about before class,
>> but it sure works wonders.  This is of course assuming the instructor is
>> going to go by the book and follow it, and assuming you can get your hands
>> on the book in the accessible format you need.
>> 
>> When I did that, not only did I read the book ahead, but I worked as many
>> problems ahead as I could.  That way, I had a very good idea of what I
>> didn't understand, and I didn't have to take notes off the board.  I didn't
>> have to struggle trying to read the book, or deal with a teacher that
>> couldn't explain things well.  I had already done the studying and could
>> just sit back and listen ... for the most part.  I should also say that I
>> had a hand-held telescope that I used to read the board when I needed to,
>> so this would be different for a totally blind person.  But reading the
>> book before class meant I had to do a lot less work in the class.  I'll
>> just mention that people noticed that I didn't take notes very often and
>> they noticed that I got straight A's.  That was due in major part to the
>> fact that I was prepared.  I didn't need the teacher nearly as much as if I
>> went into the classes cold with no knowledge.  Being prepared ahead really
>> helped a lot.
>> 
>> As I say, when you read ahead, you don't have to sink or swim depending on
>> the board.  And if you have a bad teacher, this is a great defense against
>> that as well.  You already know what you don't know and for the rest, you
>> can just listen.  It's a unique approach that a lot of kids don't do, but
>> it sure worked for me.  Maybe it could help you.
>> 
>> Anybody else take a lot of math and take this approach?  Did it work for
>> you?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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