[Blindmath] braille code changes and nemeth

[Steve Jacobson]

Heidi and others,

First, I really do not think that you will find that your daughter's education or stress level will be significantly raised by this change.  I say that having been 
required in the 1950's and 1960's to switch from the Taylor Code for math, to the first version of Nemeth Code and then a second version of Nemeth and 
there were profound differences with each change.  I experienced some substantial changes to Grade Two braille as well, and there were a lot of texts that 
were written in 
what was called grade one-and-a-half then.  Would my life have been easier if that were not the case, probably, but we didn't think a lot about it.

More generally, your friend who said change was not inevitable may have been referring specifically to changing to UEB, I don't know, but I believe 
changes to the braille code in general are inevitable.  Either braill had to change or it was destined to become less relevant.  I believe this is the case Partly 
because print has changed dramatically during the past three or four decades.  Also, we, as blind people, are more affected by print presentation now than 
was the case before computers, optical character recognition, and electronic texts.

It has been more than twenty years now since serious discussions began as to how to make it possible for braille to better reflect changing print conventions 
and to make better use of our ability to get text electronically.  The debate has often been very emotional, and at times, there was considerable polarization.  
This means that even today, emotions run high regarding what should be done with braille.  Those of you who have read "War of the Dots" know this is 
nothing new.  I think it is safe to say that people tend to get emotional when discussing something that means a great deal to them.  What makes the issue 
even more complicated is that there is no perfect solution, including doing nothing at all.

Over time, Unified English Braille has emerged as the code that most of us have gotten behind as a path forward, but certainly not all of us.  In particular, 
some of UEB's 
detractors were very upset with the UEB's code of mathematics.  Ueb developers did a credible job of making it possible for math symbols and numbers to 
be written consistently whether in text or within mathematics, but there seemed to be a cost.  It was demonstrated by some that many mathematical 
expressions could take as many as twice 
as many symbols to write, and this raised concerns for many of us.  In addition, mathematical texts are still particularly dependent upon humans to accurately 
transcribe them, and changing to UEB for math would have required major retraining, much more than in the case of literary braille.  For that reason, a 
reasonable compromise seemed to be to stick with our current Nemeth Code for math rather than changing both literary and mathematical braille.  

If one reads the War of the Dots one learns that in the early part of the twentieth century, different schools for the blind in the united states taught different 
versions of braille.  New York Point was nothing like the braille we read today, even having a differently shaped cell, but it had a good deal of support a 
hundred years ago.  In addition, there were multiple versions of 6-dot braille that used different sets of contractions.  It took some time for 
a single system to evolve and to gain widespread use.  This experience makes it obvious to me that we need a group to set standards, even if voluntary.  
This is pretty much what BANA is.  They don't have, to my knowledge, any legal power as your friend said, but are made up of representatives of many 
diverse groups.  Your friend is right, people could ignore BANA, but where does that leave us?  Is this approach so bad that it is worth fragmenting braille 
when it is already under such pressure from other forces?  The current approach isn't perfect, but neither is any other system that has been examined.  
However, it does seem to me that the current approach of using UEB and Nemeth Code for math gives us the best approach to open up braille to 
accommodate changes in the future with the least disruption to braille readers, teachers and transcribers.  Work needs to be completed as to how to 
integrate Nemeth Code with UEB but a lot has already been accomplished.  There is now a symbol that indicates that Nemeth Code is starting, for example, 
that was not part of UEB even a few years ago.  The challenge of how to handle short mathematical passages has not been completely resolve yet but 
there is awareness of difficulties that can arise if there are a lot of indicators switching in and out of Nemeth code.  Interestingly, the math books I used some 
years ago used the literary braille numbers for page numbers and within the table of contents, and even to number word problems.  Some of these 
conventions changed over time, I understand that, but math books simply have not necessarily been all Nemeth Code as was suggested.  Science texts 
that are less mathematical have had to bounce between literary braille and Nemeth Code all along and some of this will remain and it isn't really new.  

Perhaps it is too strong a statement to say that the changes are a "done deal."  However, there does come a time when we need to move forward and 
think about the path that is ahead of us, how to make it better, how to make the transition as smooth as possible, and how to increase our rate of literacy.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

On Sat, 21 Mar 2015 18:51:39 -0400, HPS via Blindmath wrote:

>Yes to all Susan states, I'm a parent and my daughter is in 9th grade. I don't know how this will affect her right at a critical point in high school, and I'm not 
looking forward to dealing with all the extra stress this will bring. These are not simple changes as some have mentioned. 


>I like to know what to expect, and what to prepare her for. This is not just the job of her VI Teacher, who is still not sure what all the changes are either. 


>So, it seems that a lot was done and I had no idea about it til about 1 year ago. Seems that if you don't belong to some organization you are out. There 
was not a lot of talk about this in any list, that seems weird to me.


>I also since discovering this list have been interested in what all of your points of view are, specifically how these changes will impact any math and 
science students and professionals.


>As with any change there are good things and bad things that come with it. In this case I do not care for the bad that this will bring, and these are my 
daughters feelings, she is not happy with any of the changes with Nemeth. 


>I apologize for any grammar mistakes as English is not my first language.


>Thank you,


>Heidi



>-----Original Message-----
>From: Susan Jolly via Blindmath <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
>To: blindmath <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
>Sent: Sat, Mar 21, 2015 6:31 pm
>Subject: [Blindmath] braille code changes and nemeth


>I can't speak for others but here's why I'm still discussing it.

>1. A done
>deal doesn't always stay done.  I thought UEB was done with in the 
>US back
>when NFB passed Resolutions 2002-04 and 2002-05.
>2. I assume BANA is taking
>into consideration how the transition was and is 
>going to be implemented in
>other countries, especially in Australia and New 
>Zealand where the
>implementations are pretty much complete.  These two 
>countries took a phased
>approach so that older students weren't confronted 
>with a code change at
>critical points in their educational careers. 
>Hopefully the more that parents,
>teachers, and braille learners themselves 
>understand about the details, the
>better the individual decisions they can 
>make as to timing.
>3. To my
>knowledge no country other than the US has combined Nemeth math 
>with UEB text
>so my guess is that the exact rules for how this is going to 
>be implemented
>are still evolving and this is where the expertise of the 
>Blindmath community
>will be helpful.  For example, the person who started 
>this thread pointed out
>that there are questions about how best to integrate 
>the use of Nemeth for
>displayed math with associated inline math references 
>to that displayed
>math.

>Sincerely,
>Susan Jolly



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