[nabs-l] Braille being placed on the back burnner

[Sophie Trist]

It is impossible for blind people as a whole to put braille on 
the back burner. I mean, sighties aren't saying, "OMG, who uses 
print anymore? That was so 2004." Without braille, we're 
illiterate. Braille provides us with more than just a reading 
medium. When we learn braille, we learn how to spell. We learn 
the proper usage of words. In short, we learn all the things that 
make us literate. I have a couple of friends who hate to use 
braille; they pretty much rely solely on screen readers. Whenever 
I read anything written by these friends, a little bit of my 
inner English nerd dies inside, but their spelling and use of 
language is ATROCIOUS! These kids are my age, seventeen, yet by 
their writing, you'd think they're elementary school students. I 
believe it is our duty as blind people to explain to both our own 
and the sighted that without braille, we are illiterate.

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Justin Salisbury via nabs-l <nabs-l at nfbnet.org
To: "blindcowgirl1993 at gmail.com" <blindcowgirl1993 at gmail.com>, 
"NationalAssociation of Blind Students mailing list" 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Mon, 23 Jun 2014 03:01:45 +0000
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Braille being placed on the back burnner

RJ, and everyone:

I do notice that many people involved in our accommodations 
processes try to argue that Braille is outdated and that we 
should depend on other means to perform academic work. Many 
service providers do not believe in our capacity to read Braille 
at useful speeds and also think of it as a daunting task to learn 
and produce Braille. I also often find that service providers 
have no understanding of the enhanced levels of reading 
comprehension that we can achieve from Braille versus speech. I 
think of this as a difference between active reading and passive 
reading. If I space out while reading Braille, my fingers stop. 
When I was sighted and reading something in print, my eyes would 
stop.  With speech, it just keeps going, and comprehension 
suffers.

I am really glad to see your passion for promoting the use of 
Braille, and, since you are going to the national convention, I 
want to encourage you to meet and mingle with some of the members 
of NAPUB, the National Association to Promote the Use of Braille 
(I hope I defined the acronym right-I know it's NAPUB). We 
pronounce the acronym "NAY-pub."

We, in the National Federation of the Blind, do not put Braille 
on the back burner at all, and this is only one of the reasons 
that our movement is so strong and so vital in society.

Yours,

Justin Salisbury
Board Member
National Association of Blind Students

-----Original Message-----
From: nabs-l [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of 
Aleeha Dudley via nabs-l
Sent: Sunday, June 22, 2014 8:56 PM
To: RJ Sandefur; National Association of Blind Students mailing 
list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Braille being placed on the back burnner

Hello RJ,
Not for a moment do I believe that Braille has ever been put on 
the back burner. What about all the Braille  displays that we 
use? Do I think that we might rely on our technology a little too 
much? Yes, but, doesn't the rest of society?

Sent from my iPhone

 On Jun 22, 2014, at 8:29 PM, RJ Sandefur via nabs-l 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:

 I feel that Braille is being This was back in 2004. I bring this 
up in
 order to pose this question. Aren't we as blind people depending 
on
 our techknollogy to much? What if your computer brakes down, and 
you
 have to use braille? If you don't know braille, then you can 
forget
 about even becoming employed! RJ
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