[nabs-l] Importance of Using Braille

[Serena]

Great speech!

Serena

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Chelsea Cook" <astrochem119 at gmail.com>
To: <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 8:10 PM
Subject: [nabs-l] Importance of Using Braille


>I agree with Briley and Jedi on this matter.  I am not employed, but feel 
>as though Braille has been the one secret, or key, to my success as a 
>student.  I'm going to post below my signature a speech I delivered at the 
>2009 NFB of Virginia State Convention (sorry if I posted it before; can't 
>remember.) Please comment; I welcome feedback.  I like the comment about 
>the shoe fits and doing what you love no matter what.  Enjoy the speech. 
>As a final note: did anyone read the description of the tactile art in the 
>January Braille Monitor? That also captures the essence of what I am about 
>to say and has significant meaning for me.
> Thanks,
> Chelsea
> "I ask you to look both ways.  For the road to a knowledge of the stars 
> leads through the atom; and important knowledge of the atom has been 
> reached through the stars."
> Sir Arthur Eddington, British astrophysicist (1882-1944), Stars and Atoms 
> (1928), Lecture 1
>
> Literacy and Opportunity:
> Learning Braille, Using Braille
> by Chelsea Cook
>
>  Believe it or not, there was a time when I didn't want to learn Braille. 
> I vaguely remember my mother sitting me down in front of small alphabet 
> flash cards and forcing my fingers down upon those wretched dots which 
> felt so strange.  I was probably not even four, and did not yet know the 
> power this code brought: to me or to the rest of the blind.
>  Then I found it.  I don't know how and I don't know when, but somewhere 
> along the way, Braille clicked.  It was the catalyst that set off all my 
> other academic adventures.  Because of my early start and my parents' 
> persistence, I developed a love of reading that holds true to this day.  I 
> have pulled that trick many times over the years of staying up late into 
> the night with a book under the covers, as many Braille readers out there 
> can relate.  On a few such occasions, those books were textbooks: Noreen 
> Greice's Touch the Stars, for example, or a few sacred volumes of our 
> eighth-grade science book.  The school had switched the grade levels' 
> books when I was in seventh, but I didn't care.  I was reading physics and 
> chemistry a year ahead of the standard biology curriculum to satisfy what 
> I now know was the beginning of an unquenchable thirst for knowledge that 
> only understanding of the physical sciences could provide.  Even now, when 
> I do college-level physics, I can visualize the mathematical relationships 
> between quantities only by remembering their Nemeth symbols.  Last year, 
> going through a period of no physics at all, my vision teacher Brailled 
> out a twenty-one page formula sheet.  The equations under my fingertips 
> radiated a tangible energy; it was as though I were connecting with the 
> very scientists who had developed them.  They held the secrets of the 
> universe.  All I had to do was learn and follow.
>  I read extensively out of school as well.  By third grade, I had read all 
> the Braille books in my elementary school's library.  Bookshare and Web 
> Braille were far-distant dreams then, and even now it still awes me how 
> there are so many books being produced.  The Harry Potter series has 
> always been one of my favorites; I have bookcases filled with all seven. 
> The words of authors took me places.  Traveling through space and time 
> with Robert Hineline and Madeline L'Engle, I discovered the wonder of 
> science fiction and decided to write my own.  I compose novels and poetry 
> so that one day, readers will read my work and I can spread the message of 
> hope and literacy.  There is a special pleasure in reading poetry in 
> Braille, a suspense as to what the next line will invoke.  As far as 
> learning the "music" of the words, audio does not measure up.
>  I cannot imagine what it is like when other blind people tell me they 
> don't know or have never learned Braille.  Braille has given me every 
> opportunity in life: It allowed me to hold office in the NFB at the 
> national level; it allowed me to return home from Colorado with my plane 
> tickets properly labeled and identified; it brought amazement to my 
> classmates when they found out I don't have to abbreviate my notes. 
> Earlier this year, Dr.  Schroeder asked me if I was going into space with 
> the Louis Braille coins.  I told him I wished I could, and someday intend 
> to follow them to the final frontier.  As I was listening to the shuttle 
> launch, I smiled at all the familiar radio calls as everything was 
> reported to be nominal.  When they made it into orbit, I thought I was 
> there with them, circling the globe at 17500 miles per hour, looking 
> around at the stars and the small blue planet we call home, realizing my 
> dream of being an astronaut.  The symbolism of knowledge gained by blind 
> people and by astronomers studying the depths of the universe with the 
> Hubble Space Telescope was not lost on me; it was amplified.  Those coins 
> being launched were my two worlds coming together, and they were just 
> waiting for me to join them.
>  We must keep teaching Braille.  Those six dots unlock doors.  Those six 
> dots help solve the mysteries of the universe.  Those six dots give 
> freedom.  Braille makes dreams reality.  While important, it is not rocket 
> fuel, but Braille that will carry me to the stars.  Braille gives us 
> words; words give us knowledge; knowledge gives us power.
>
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