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

[Desiree Oudinot]

Hi,
While i, too, have seen quite a few atrocious spellers in my time,
let's not forget that sighted teenagers are just as guilty of this as
blind ones are. I do think that relying too heavily on speech
technology can be a contributing factor in whether or not a person
seems literate, but so, too, does the general push to cram as many
acronyms into one Facebook or Twitter status message, in order to seem
"cool." To me, that's not cool; it makes you look stupid. But, before
I rant too much on that subject, as it is off topic for this
discussion, I just wanted to point out that it truly is not a
"blindness-specific" problem.

On 6/23/14, Sophie Trist via nabs-l <nabs-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 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 processes try to argue that Braille is outdated and that we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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-- 
Desiree