[nabs-l] Braille Vs Technology: is there room for only one in town?
Joe Orozco
jsorozco at gmail.com
Thu Jan 7 03:53:50 UTC 2010
Joseph,
Relax a little. There's no need for scaring people into thinking that if
they never learn Braille, they have little hope of getting a good job. I am
especially thinking about people who lose their sight later in life who find
the prospect of learning Braille a daunting task.
Technology is advancing at a rate where the printed word is giving way to
screens on mobile devices. It's no wonder newspapers are pulling their hard
copies in acknowledgement of the Internet era. Sighted people are becoming
more technologically inclined, and as Marc said, much as it pains me to
agree with him for the first time, terrible writing is just as prevalent in
sighted public forums as it can be on this list.
I do not discount the use of Braille. Yet, I do not think anyone else has
either. People have a problem with the superior attitude taken with those
who do not possess the skills. Me, I say let them be and figure out for
themselves whether it is true that Braille opens more doors. After all, we
do not have documented evidence that Braille means better employment, but
that is me speaking as an individual. Falling down is a far better teacher
than guiding, and for people like Governor Paterson who rose to his
position, well, who really has the last laugh?
As an organization, I feel the NFB could find a better means of
communicating its message. Braille Readers Are Leaders is, I am sure,
nothing more than a nifty little marketing slogan that happens to rhyme.
Like most of its marketing, it is rather silly, something on par with
calling the annual walk at the national convention a March for Independence.
Nevertheless, it is all merely words and taglines.
What matters is who is providing for their family and who is not. There are
as many methods of earning money as there are occupations, but for an
organization that is working with a small community, it is not in our best
interest to piss people off over something as individual as how you digest
and reproduce words. Traveling, cooking, computer literacy, home
economics...all very important for blind people, but you know the real
kicker? Some sighted people are doing just fine and would never earn a gold
star in any of those areas.
Joe Orozco
"A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the
crowd."--Max Lucado
-----Original Message-----
From: nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org
[mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of T. Joseph Carter
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 4:53 PM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Braille Vs Technology: is there room for
only one in town?
Darian,
You can argue the maybes and possible futures. TODAY, Braille is the
difference between high employment and extremely low.
I'm going to be more harsh than even Jedi was and say that this list
often demonstrates just how completely pathetic the language skills
of those who communicate using primarily speech alone actually are.
There are people on this list who cannot spell words at even the
second grade level. Some have no concept of even a sentence, let
alone a paragraph. As far as the world is concerned, they are
illiterate.
Few indeed are the jobs for which complete illiteracy is not a
factor. Not only that, if you demonstrate the level of literacy
sometimes evidenced on this list, you could be an absolute genius and
the average ignorant sighted person is going to assume you're at the
very least cognitively deficient.
At this time, we have a whole generation of blind people who have in
large part grown up functionally illiterate. They are suffering the
consequences in that most are unemployed and beginning to come to the
conclusion that they may in fact be unemployable. The education
system has completely failed these people, and it ought to inspire
nothing short of rage at the notion that it should be allowed to
continue.
Joseph
On Wed, Jan 06, 2010 at 10:07:31AM -0800, Darian Smith wrote:
>Joseph,
>
> With the advant of and advances in digital technologies would one
>not argue that people are actually more likely to be employed because
>access to information is better than it was even five years ago?
> can it be said that the blind who knnow braille are superior to the
>blind who arn't? if so, who makes this determination?
> Respectfully,
> Darian
>
>
>On 1/6/10, T. Joseph Carter <carter.tjoseph at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Darian,
>>
>> What it makes them is statistically far less likely to be employed,
>> for one thing. That alone should convince parents and teachers the
>> importance of Braille education.
>>
>> Joseph
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 04, 2010 at 07:40:41PM -0800, Darian Smith wrote:
>>>I hope individuals don't mind my playing devil's advocate focused
>>>upon the statement "braille readers are leaders".
>>> What does this make those who arn't very good braille readers,
>>>don't want to know, or don't know braille?
>>>
>>> Do you feel the Organization (the nfb) frowns upon
non-braille readers?
>>> respectfullly,
>>> Darian
>>>
>>>On 1/4/10, Kerri Kosten <kerrik2006 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Hi:
>>>>
>>>> Just thought I'd share my opinions for what it's worth.
>>>>
>>>> I was taught braille, and am very good at reading it.
>>>> However, I admit with devices like the Victor Reader
Stream, I really
>>>> don't read in braille much. I have a Pacmate notetaker
with a braille
>>>> display, so I could and probably should download more
books and read
>>>> them digitally, but just listening to a book on the tiny stream is
>>>> much easier than lugging around a note taker and reading
on a braille
>>>> display.
>>>> So, I admit even as a great braille reader I don't use
braille as much
>>>> as I should.
>>>>
>>>> I do use it at my work though, for when I write previews I take my
>>>> notes in braille and that helps tremendously...so it definitely has
>>>> it's uses and children should definitely be taught it.
>>>>
>>>> Braille readers are leaders!
>>>>
>>>> Kerri+
>>>>
>>>> On 1/4/10, Beth <thebluesisloose at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Wow. I admit to having been taught Braille as a child
and my vision
>>>>> teacher was wonderful, but it doesn't surprise me that a lot of
>>>>> today's children are not taught that way. Braille readers are
>>>>> leaders, they say.
>>>>> Beth
>>>>>
>>>>> On 1/4/10, Darian Smith <dsmithnfb at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> This
>>>>>> Listening to Braille
>>>>>>
>>>>>> By RACHEL AVIV
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Published: December 30, 2009
>>>>>>
>>>>>> AT 4 O'CLOCK each morning, Laura J. Sloate begins her
daily reading.
>>>>>> She calls a phone service that reads newspapers aloud in
a synthetic
>>>>>> voice, and she
>>>>>> listens to The Wall Street Journal at 300 words a
minute, which is
>>>>>> nearly twice the average pace of speech. Later, an
assistant reads The
>>>>>> Financial Times
>>>>>> to her while she uses her computer's text-to-speech
system to play The
>>>>>> Economist aloud. She devotes one ear to the paper and
the other to the
>>>>>> magazine.
>>>>>> The managing director of a Wall Street investment
management firm,
>>>>>> Sloate has been blind since age 6, and although she
reads constantly,
>>>>>> poring over the
>>>>>> news and the economic reports for several hours every
morning, she
>>>>>> does not use Braille. "Knowledge goes from my ears to my
brain, not
>>>>>> from my finger to
>>>>>> my brain," she says. As a child she learned how the
letters of the
>>>>>> alphabet sounded, not how they appeared or felt on the page. She
>>>>>> doesn't think of a
>>>>>> comma in terms of its written form but rather as "a stop
on the way
>>>>>> before continuing." This, she says, is the future of
reading for the
>>>>>> blind. "Literacy
>>>>>> evolves," she told me. "When Braille was invented, in the 19th
>>>>>> century, we had nothing else. We didn't even have radio.
At that time,
>>>>>> blindness
>>>>>> was a disability. Now it's just a minor, minor impairment."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A few decades ago, commentators predicted that the electronic age
>>>>>> would create a postliterate generation as new forms of
media eclipsed
>>>>>> the written word.
>>>>>> Marshall McLuhan claimed that Western culture would return to the
>>>>>> "tribal and oral pattern." But the decline of written
language has
>>>>>> become a reality for
>>>>>> only the blind. Although Sloate does regret not spending
more time
>>>>>> learning to spell in her youth - she writes by dictation
- she says
>>>>>> she thinks that
>>>>>> using Braille would have only isolated her from her
sighted peers.
>>>>>> "It's an arcane means of communication, which for the
most part should
>>>>>> be abolished,"
>>>>>> she told me. "It's just not needed today."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Braille books are expensive and cumbersome, requiring
reams of thick,
>>>>>> oversize paper. The National Braille Press, an
83-year-old publishing
>>>>>> house in Boston,
>>>>>> printed the
>>>>>> Harry Potter
>>>>>> series on its Heidelberg cylinder; the final product
was 56 volumes,
>>>>>> each nearly a foot tall. Because a single textbook can
cost more than
>>>>>> $1,000 and there's
>>>>>> a shortage of Braille teachers in public schools,
visually impaired
>>>>>> students often read using MP3 players, audiobooks and
>>>>>> computer-screen-reading software.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A report released last year by the National Federation
of the Blind,
>>>>>> an advocacy group with 50,000 members, said that less
than 10 percent
>>>>>> of the 1.3 million
>>>>>> legally blind Americans read Braille. Whereas roughly half of all
>>>>>> blind children learned Braille in the 1950s, today that
number is as
>>>>>> low as 1 in 10,
>>>>>> according to the report. The figures are controversial
because there
>>>>>> is debate about when a child with residual vision has
"too much sight"
>>>>>> for Braille
>>>>>> and because the causes of blindness have changed over
the decades - in
>>>>>> recent years more blind children have multiple
disabilities, because
>>>>>> of premature
>>>>>> births. It is clear, though, that Braille literacy has
been waning for
>>>>>> some time, even among the most intellectually capable,
and the report
>>>>>> has inspired
>>>>>> a fervent movement to change the way blind people read.
"What we're
>>>>>> finding are students who are very smart, very verbally able - and
>>>>>> illiterate," Jim
>>>>>> Marks, a board member for the past five years of the
Association on
>>>>>> Higher Education and Disability, told me. "We stopped
teaching our
>>>>>> nation's blind children
>>>>>> how to read and write. We put a tape player, then a
computer, on their
>>>>>> desks. Now their writing is phonetic and butchered. They
never got to
>>>>>> learn the
>>>>>> beauty and shape and structure of language."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> For much of the past century, blind children attended residential
>>>>>> institutions where they learned to read by touching the
words. Today,
>>>>>> visually impaired
>>>>>> children can be well versed in literature without
knowing how to read;
>>>>>> computer-screen-reading software will even break down
each word and
>>>>>> read the individual
>>>>>> letters aloud. Literacy has become much harder to
define, even for
>>>>>> educators.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "If all you have in the world is what you hear people
say, then your
>>>>>> mind is limited," Darrell Shandrow, who runs a blog called Blind
>>>>>> Access Journal, told
>>>>>> me. "You need written symbols to organize your mind. If
you can't feel
>>>>>> or see the word, what does it mean? The substance is
gone." Like many
>>>>>> Braille readers,
>>>>>> Shandrow says that new computers, which form a single
line of Braille
>>>>>> cells at a time, will revive the code of bumps, but
these devices are
>>>>>> still extremely
>>>>>> costly and not yet widely used. Shandrow views the
decline in Braille
>>>>>> literacy as a sign of regression, not progress: "This is
like going
>>>>>> back to the 1400s,
>>>>>> before Gutenberg's printing press came on the scene," he
said. "Only
>>>>>> the scholars and monks knew how to read and write. And
then there were
>>>>>> the illiterate
>>>>>> masses, the peasants."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> UNTIL THE 19TH CENTURY, blind people were confined to an
oral culture.
>>>>>> Some tried to read letters carved in wood or wax, formed
by wire or
>>>>>> outlined in felt
>>>>>> with pins. Dissatisfied with such makeshift methods,
Louis Braille, a
>>>>>> student at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris, began
>>>>>> studying a cipher
>>>>>> language of bumps, called night writing, developed by a
French Army
>>>>>> officer so soldiers could send messages in the dark.
Braille modified
>>>>>> the code so that
>>>>>> it could be read more efficiently - each letter or
punctuation symbol
>>>>>> is represented by a pattern of one to six dots on a
matrix of three
>>>>>> rows and two
>>>>>> columns - and added abbreviations for commonly used words like
>>>>>> "knowledge," "people" and "Lord." Endowed with a
reliable method of
>>>>>> written communication
>>>>>> for the first time in history, blind people had a
significant rise in
>>>>>> social status, and Louis Braille was embraced as a kind
of liberator
>>>>>> and spiritual
>>>>>> savior. With his "godlike courage," Helen Keller wrote,
Braille built
>>>>>> a "firm stairway for millions of sense-crippled human
beings to climb
>>>>>> from hopeless
>>>>>> darkness to the Mind Eternal."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> At the time, blindness was viewed not just as the
absence of sight but
>>>>>> also as a condition that created a separate kind of species, more
>>>>>> innocent and malleable,
>>>>>> not fully formed. Some scholars said that blind people spoke a
>>>>>> different sort of language, disconnected from visual
experience. In
>>>>>> his 1933 book, "The
>>>>>> Blind in School and Society," the psychologist Thomas
Cutsforth, who
>>>>>> lost his sight at age 11, warned that students who were
too rapidly
>>>>>> assimilated into
>>>>>> the sighted world would become lost in "verbal
unreality." At some
>>>>>> residential schools, teachers avoided words that
referenced color or
>>>>>> light because,
>>>>>> they said, students might stretch the meanings beyond
sense. These
>>>>>> theories have since been discredited, and studies have shown that
>>>>>> blind children as
>>>>>> young as 4 understand the difference in meaning between
words like
>>>>>> "look," "touch" and "see." And yet Cutsforth was not entirely
>>>>>> misguided in his argument
>>>>>> that sensory deprivation restructures the mind. In the
1990s, a series
>>>>>> of brain-imaging studies revealed that the visual cortices of the
>>>>>> blind are not
>>>>>> rendered useless, as previously assumed. When test subjects swept
>>>>>> their fingers over a line of Braille, they showed
intense activation
>>>>>> in the parts of
>>>>>> the brain that typically process visual input.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> These imaging studies have been cited by some educators
as proof that
>>>>>> Braille is essential for blind children's cognitive
development, as
>>>>>> the visual cortex
>>>>>> takes more than 20 percent of the brain. Given the
brain's plasticity,
>>>>>> it is difficult to make the argument that one kind of reading -
>>>>>> whether the information
>>>>>> is absorbed by ear, finger or retina - is inherently better than
>>>>>> another, at least with regard to cognitive function. The
architecture
>>>>>> of the brain is
>>>>>> not fixed, and without images to process, the visual cortex can
>>>>>> reorganize for new functions. A 2003 study in Nature Neuroscience
>>>>>> found that blind subjects
>>>>>> consistently surpassed sighted ones on tests of verbal
>>>>>> memory
>>>>>> , and their superior performance was caused, the authors
suggested, by
>>>>>> the extra processing that took place in the visual
regions of their
>>>>>> brains.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Learning to read is so entwined in the normal course of child
>>>>>> development that it is easy to assume that our brains
are naturally
>>>>>> wired for print literacy.
>>>>>> But humans have been reading for fewer than 6,000 years
(and literacy
>>>>>> has been widespread for no more than a century and a half). The
>>>>>> activity of reading
>>>>>> itself alters the anatomy of the brain. In a report
released in 2009
>>>>>> in the journal Nature, the neuroscientist Manuel
Carreiras studies
>>>>>> illiterate former
>>>>>> guerrillas in Colombia who, after years of combat, had
abandoned their
>>>>>> weapons, left the jungle and rejoined civilization.
Carreiras compares
>>>>>> 20 adults
>>>>>> who had recently completed a literacy program with 22
people who had
>>>>>> not yet begun it. In
>>>>>> M.R.I.
>>>>>> scans of their brains, the newly literate subjects
showed more gray
>>>>>> matter in their angular gyri, an area crucial for
language processing,
>>>>>> and more white
>>>>>> matter in part of the corpus callosum, which links the two
>>>>>> hemispheres. Deficiencies in these regions were
previously observed in
>>>>>> dyslexics, and the study
>>>>>> suggests that those brain patterns weren't the cause of their
>>>>>> illiteracy, as had been hypothesized, but a result.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There is no doubt that literacy changes brain circuitry,
but how this
>>>>>> reorganization affects our capacity for language is
still a matter of
>>>>>> debate. In moving
>>>>>> from written to spoken language, the greatest
consequences for blind
>>>>>> people may not be cognitive but cultural - a loss much harder to
>>>>>> avoid. In one of
>>>>>> the few studies of blind people's prose, Doug Brent, a
professor of
>>>>>> communication at the University of Calgary, and his
wife, Diana Brent,
>>>>>> a teacher of
>>>>>> visually impaired students, analyzed stories by students
who didn't
>>>>>> use Braille but rather composed on a regular keyboard
and edited by
>>>>>> listening to their
>>>>>> words played aloud. One 16-year-old wrote a fictional
story about a
>>>>>> character named Mark who had "sleep bombs":
>>>>>>
>>>>>> He looked in the house windo that was his da windo his
dad was walking
>>>>>> around with a mask on he took it off he opend the windo
and fell on
>>>>>> his bed sleeping
>>>>>> mark took two bombs and tosed them in the windo the popt
his dad lept
>>>>>> up but before he could grab the mask it explodedhe fell
down asleep.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In describing this story and others like it, the Brents
invoked the
>>>>>> literary scholar Walter Ong, who argued that members of literate
>>>>>> societies think differently
>>>>>> than members of oral societies. The act of writing, Ong
said - the
>>>>>> ability to revisit your ideas and, in the process, refine them -
>>>>>> transformed the shape
>>>>>> of thought. The Brents characterized the writing of many
audio-only
>>>>>> readers as disorganized, "as if all of their ideas are
crammed into a
>>>>>> container, shaken
>>>>>> and thrown randomly onto a sheet of paper like dice onto
a table." The
>>>>>> beginnings and endings of sentences seem arbitrary, one thought
>>>>>> emerging in the
>>>>>> midst of another with a kind of breathless energy. The authors
>>>>>> concluded, "It just doesn't seem to reflect the
qualities of organized
>>>>>> sequence and complex
>>>>>> thought that we value in a literate society."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> OUR DEFINITION of a literate society inevitably shifts
as our tools
>>>>>> for reading and writing evolve, but the brief history of
literacy for
>>>>>> blind people makes
>>>>>> the prospect of change particularly fraught. Since the
1820s, when
>>>>>> Louis Braille invented his writing system - so that
blind people would
>>>>>> no longer be
>>>>>> "despised or patronized by condescending sighted
people," as he put it
>>>>>> - there has always been, among blind people, a political and even
>>>>>> moral dimension
>>>>>> to learning to read. Braille is viewed by many as a mark of
>>>>>> independence, a sign that blind people have moved away
from an oral
>>>>>> culture seen as primitive
>>>>>> and isolating. In recent years, however, this narrative has been
>>>>>> complicated. Schoolchildren in developed countries, like
the U.S. and
>>>>>> Britain, are now
>>>>>> thought to have lower Braille literacy than those in
developing ones,
>>>>>> like Indonesia and Botswana, where there are few alternatives to
>>>>>> Braille. Tim Connell,
>>>>>> the managing director of an assistive-technology company
in Australia,
>>>>>> told me that he has heard this described as "one of the
advantages of
>>>>>> being poor."
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Braille readers do not deny that new reading technology has been
>>>>>> transformative, but Braille looms so large in the mythology of
>>>>>> blindness that it has assumed
>>>>>> a kind of talismanic status. Those who have residual
vision and still
>>>>>> try to read print - very slowly or by holding the page
an inch or two
>>>>>> from their
>>>>>> faces - are generally frowned upon by the National
Federation of the
>>>>>> Blind, which fashions itself as the leader of a civil
rights movement
>>>>>> for the blind.
>>>>>> Its president, Marc Maurer, a voracious reader, compares
Louis Braille
>>>>>> to
>>>>>> Abraham Lincoln
>>>>>> . At the annual convention for the federation, held at a Detroit
>>>>>> Marriott last July, I heard the mantra "listening is not
literacy"
>>>>>> repeated everywhere,
>>>>>> from panels on the Braille crisis to conversations among
middle-school
>>>>>> girls. Horror stories circulating around the convention featured
>>>>>> children who don't
>>>>>> know what a paragraph is or why we capitalize letters or
that "happily
>>>>>> ever after" is made up of three separate words.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Declaring your own illiteracy seemed to be a rite of
passage. A vice
>>>>>> president of the federation, Fredric Schroeder, served
as commissioner
>>>>>> of the Rehabilitation
>>>>>> Services Administration under President Clinton and
relies primarily
>>>>>> on audio technologies. He was openly repentant about his lack of
>>>>>> reading skills. "I
>>>>>> am now over 50 years old, and it wasn't until two months
ago that I
>>>>>> realized that 'dissent,' to disagree, is different than
'descent,' to
>>>>>> lower something,"
>>>>>> he told me. "I'm functionally illiterate. People say,
'Oh, no, you're
>>>>>> not.' Yes, I am. I'm sorry about it, but I'm not
embarrassed to admit
>>>>>> it."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> While people like Laura Sloate or the governor of New York,
>>>>>> David A. Paterson
>>>>>> , who also reads by listening, may be able to achieve
without the help
>>>>>> of Braille, their success requires accommodations that
many cannot
>>>>>> afford. Like Sloate,
>>>>>> Paterson dictates his memos, and his staff members
select pertinent
>>>>>> newspaper articles for him and read them aloud on his
voice mail every
>>>>>> morning. (He
>>>>>> calls himself "overassimilated" and told me that as a
child he was
>>>>>> "mainstreamed so much that I psychologically got the
message that I'm
>>>>>> not really supposed
>>>>>> to be blind.") Among people with fewer resources,
Braille-readers tend
>>>>>> to form the blind elite, in part because it is more
plausible for a
>>>>>> blind person
>>>>>> to find work doing intellectual rather than manual labor.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A 1996 study showed that of a sample of visually impaired adults,
>>>>>> those who learned Braille as children were more than
twice as likely
>>>>>> to be employed as
>>>>>> those who had not. At the convention this statistic was
frequently
>>>>>> cited with pride, so much so that those who didn't know
Braille were
>>>>>> sometimes made
>>>>>> to feel like outsiders. "There is definitely a sense of
peer pressure
>>>>>> from the older guard," James Brown, a 35-year-old who reads using
>>>>>> text-to-speech
>>>>>> software, told me. "If we could live in our own little
Braille world,
>>>>>> then that'd be perfect," he added. "But we live in a
visual world."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> When deaf people began getting
>>>>>> cochlear implants
>>>>>> in the late 1980s, many in the deaf community felt
betrayed. The new
>>>>>> technology pushed people to think of the disability in a
new way - as
>>>>>> an identity
>>>>>> and a culture. Technology has changed the nature of many
disabilities,
>>>>>> lifting the burdens but also complicating people's sense
of what is
>>>>>> physically natural,
>>>>>> because bodies can so often be tweaked until "fixed." Arielle
>>>>>> Silverman, a graduate student at the convention who has
been blind
>>>>>> since birth, told me that
>>>>>> if she had the choice to have vision, she was not sure
she would take
>>>>>> it. Recently she purchased a pocket-size reading machine
that takes
>>>>>> photographs of
>>>>>> text and then reads the words aloud, and she said she thought of
>>>>>> vision like that, as "just another piece of technology."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The modern history of blind people is in many ways a history of
>>>>>> reading, with the scope of the disability - the extent
to which you
>>>>>> are viewed as ignorant
>>>>>> or civilized, helpless or independent - determined
largely by your
>>>>>> ability to access the printed word. For 150 years,
Braille books were
>>>>>> designed to function
>>>>>> as much as possible like print books. But now the computer has
>>>>>> essentially done away with the limits of form, because
information,
>>>>>> once it has been digitized,
>>>>>> can be conveyed through sound or touch. For sighted people, the
>>>>>> transition from print to digital text has been
relatively subtle, but
>>>>>> for many blind people
>>>>>> the shift to computerized speech is an unwelcome and uncharted
>>>>>> experiment. In grappling with what has been lost,
several federation
>>>>>> members recited to
>>>>>> me various takes on the classic expression Scripta manent, verba
>>>>>> volant: What is written remains, what is spoken vanishes
into air.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Rachel Aviv is a Rosalynn Carter fellow for
mental-health journalism
>>>>>> with the Carter Center and writes frequently on education for The
>>>>>> Times.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> The National Federation of the Blind has launched a
nationwide teacher
>>>>>> recruitment campaign to help attract energetic and passionate
>>>>>> individuals into the field of blindness education, and
we need your
>>>>>> help! To Get Involved go to:
>>>>>> www.TeachBlindStudents.org
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "And if you will join me in this improbable quest, if
you feel destiny
>>>>>> calling, and see as I see, a future of endless
possibility stretching
>>>>>> before us;
>>>>>> if you sense, as I sense, that the time is now to shake off our
>>>>>> slumber, and slough off our fear, and make good on the
debt we owe
>>>>>> past and future generations,
>>>>>> then I'm ready to take up the cause, and march with you,
and work with
>>>>>> you. Together, starting today, let us finish the work
that needs to be
>>>>>> done, and
>>>>>> usher in a new birth of freedom on this Earth."- Baraq Obama
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> nabs-l mailing list
>>>>>> nabs-l at nfbnet.org
>>>>>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
>>>>>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your
account info for
>>>>>> nabs-l:
>>>>>>
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/theblues
isloose%40gmail.com
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> nabs-l mailing list
>>>>> nabs-l at nfbnet.org
>>>>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
>>>>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your
account info for
>>>>> nabs-l:
>>>>>
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/kerrik20
06%40gmail.com
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> nabs-l mailing list
>>>> nabs-l at nfbnet.org
>>>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
>>>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your
account info for
>>>> nabs-l:
>>>>
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/dsmithnf
b%40gmail.com
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>--
>>>The National Federation of the Blind has launched a
nationwide teacher
>>>recruitment campaign to help attract energetic and passionate
>>>individuals into the field of blindness education, and we need your
>>>help! To Get Involved go to:
>>>www.TeachBlindStudents.org
>>>
>>>
>>>"And if you will join me in this improbable quest, if you
feel destiny
>>>calling, and see as I see, a future of endless possibility stretching
>>>before us;
>>>if you sense, as I sense, that the time is now to shake off our
>>>slumber, and slough off our fear, and make good on the debt we owe
>>>past and future generations,
>>>then I'm ready to take up the cause, and march with you, and
work with
>>>you. Together, starting today, let us finish the work that
needs to be
>>>done, and
>>>usher in a new birth of freedom on this Earth."- Baraq Obama
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>nabs-l mailing list
>>>nabs-l at nfbnet.org
>>>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
>>>To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>>> nabs-l:
>>>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/carte
r.tjoseph%40gmail.com
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> nabs-l mailing list
>> nabs-l at nfbnet.org
>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>> nabs-l:
>>
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/dsmithnf
b%40gmail.com
>>
>
>
>--
>The National Federation of the Blind has launched a nationwide teacher
>recruitment campaign to help attract energetic and passionate
>individuals into the field of blindness education, and we need your
>help! To Get Involved go to:
>www.TeachBlindStudents.org
>
>
>"And if you will join me in this improbable quest, if you feel destiny
>calling, and see as I see, a future of endless possibility stretching
>before us;
>if you sense, as I sense, that the time is now to shake off our
>slumber, and slough off our fear, and make good on the debt we owe
>past and future generations,
>then I'm ready to take up the cause, and march with you, and work with
>you. Together, starting today, let us finish the work that needs to be
>done, and
>usher in a new birth of freedom on this Earth."- Baraq Obama
>
>_______________________________________________
>nabs-l mailing list
>nabs-l at nfbnet.org
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
>To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account
info for nabs-l:
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/carter.
tjoseph%40gmail.com
_______________________________________________
nabs-l mailing list
nabs-l at nfbnet.org
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account
info for nabs-l:
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/jsorozco
%40gmail.com
__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of
virus signature database 4749 (20100106) __________
The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.
http://www.eset.com
__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature
database 4749 (20100106) __________
The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.
http://www.eset.com
More information about the NABS-L
mailing list