[nabs-l] Importance of Using Braille

Thu Jan 7 04:55:14 UTC 2010

I like it!
Rania,
"For everyone who thought I couldn't do it.
For everyone who thought I shouldn't do it.
For everyone who said, 'It's impossible."
See you at the finish line."
~Christopher Reeve

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Serena" <serenacucco at verizon.net>
To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list" 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 9:17 PM
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Importance of Using Braille

> 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.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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/serenacucco%40verizon.net
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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/raniaismail04%40gmail.com
> 