[nfb-talk] NY Times Article on Gov. Paterson and Braille

Sun Jan 2 09:00:16 UTC 2011

a school prohibiting a student from carrying a white cane would be a great 
law suit under the appropriate legislation.
Chuck
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Evans" <drevans at bellsouth.net>
To: <jsorozco at gmail.com>; "NFB Talk Mailing List" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 10:36 AM
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] NY Times Article on Gov. Paterson and Braille


>
> Dear Joe,
>
> The problem is one of multiple entry points.
> People can become blind at any point in their lives, so there is no one 
> spot to catch them to introduce them to rehab training.
> We need to have strategies for all of these points and what works at one 
> point may not work for another.
> For young people, the schools would seem to be the logical place, but 
> schools don't very often cooperate with us and have conflicting 
> responsibilities.
> We have great trouble getting them to teach Braille in the main stream 
> school system, even when we can show that it is clearly needed and is in 
> the long term best interest of the child, such as a kid with RP.  You know 
> with RP that the child may have enough vision to read print, for a while, 
> but the long term situation is that by the time they are a young adult, 
> they will be Blind and unable to read normal print or maybe even see 
> anything at all.
> The greatest majority of Blind people are over the age of 65,(74.4%), and 
> that number is climbing.
> The number of Blind and Vision Impaired stands at about 34 million today 
> and will reach about 62 million in just ten years as the "baby boomers" 
> come into their retirement age.
> We are already feeling it here in Florida where, even in bad times, our 
> population has just grown by over 3 million since 2000.  We just got 2 
> more congressional seats in the Congress on top of the two we got in 2000.
> We have more retirees now than any other state.
>
> We passed a Braille Bill here some years back, but getting the schools to 
> cooperate and stop their foot dragging is still a big issue for parents to 
> deal with in advocating for their child.
> Mobility is another issue as the schools do not want to teach or permit a 
> child to carry or use a long white cane until they are in high school or 
> 16 years old.
> This is wrong in my opinion and clearly sends the wrong message to the 
> child that they should ,"be ashamed of being blind, They  should conceal 
> it and they will be treated differently because of it.
>  It is very hard to grow up with a good sense of self confidence and have 
> a positive image of your self, if you are always receiving messages that 
> tell you that you are inferior, not as good and need someone to watch out 
> for you.  You find it very hard to grow as a person when there is always 
> this shadow hanging over you.  Nothing grows in the shade as I recall
> We must, as leaders in the Blindness Movement, figure out how we can 
> change the dynamics and change the lot for all people with blindness.
>
> David Evans, NFBF and GD Jack..
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Joe Orozco" <jsorozco at gmail.com>
> To: "'NFB Talk Mailing List'" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 11:56 AM
> Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] NY Times Article on Gov. Paterson and Braille
>
>
>> Steve,
>>
>> Reaching out to the education and rehab establishments and influencing
>> parents is certainly the right idea.  What I'm interested to know is how 
>> we
>> as individuals go about doing this.  We can't count on all blind people
>> going into the fields to change the system, so how do chapters run
>> successful campaigns to change public perceptions?  How do affiliates
>> collaborate with the national office to make tangible differences in the
>> rehabilitation centers and school districts in their states?  It may 
>> appear
>> as though I am trying to beat blood out of a stone.  In reality, I hope 
>> to
>> shortly be working with various NFB groups on starting and funding 
>> community
>> projects through my company, and while I have my own notions of how this 
>> can
>> be accomplished, I am interested to hear some concrete examples from 
>> others
>> of what the average person can do to minimize the number of Patersons who
>> feel their lot in life is a dismal one.  I don't know if Braille penpals 
>> are
>> the answer.  I don't know if more mentorship is the ticket.  Perhaps 
>> better
>> public service announcements?  Maybe the first step is a national survey 
>> to
>> determine exactly what the issues are in the education system that later
>> roll over to rehabilitation that eventually translate to poor skills and
>> less job opportunities.  It seems the consumer groups are doing a lot to
>> improve access to resources, but I wonder how much is being done to meet 
>> the
>> fundamental issue of attitudes and proper training.  Or perhaps a better
>> question:  I wonder how much is feasibly doable?
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Joe
>>
>> "Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their 
>> sleeves,
>> some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all."--Sam Ewing
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Steve Jacobson [mailto:steve.jacobson at visi.com]
>> Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 11:18 AM
>> To: jsorozco at gmail.com; NFB Talk Mailing List
>> Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] NY Times Article on Gov. Paterson and Braille
>>
>> While there is certainly some blame that needs to be assigned
>> to the parents, I don't think that we can ignore the role
>> that our own rehabilitation and educational systems play.  I
>> have seen enough low vision people who benefit from
>> effectively using braille to believe that braille does provide
>> a useful option.  I have also seen people with a good bit of
>> remaining vision who can read print effectively but who still
>> could use alternative techniques to better handle other
>> aspects of their lives.  I don't think there has been adequate
>> research into when print is not effective as the primary
>> means of reading, and while we could do more with this than we
>> have, perhaps, the educational and rehabilitation
>> system doesn't want to look at this at all in my experience.
>> In most cases, it seems that those in special education
>> believe that if you can see shapes, you can read print, and it
>> is as simple as that.  Magnification technology and the
>> ability to enhance images has probably made this issue more
>> complicated, but there seems to me to be a point where
>> the eye strain and the amount of magnification becomes an issue
>> that should not be ignored but often is.
>>
>> Going beyond reading, when I was a child in the 1950's, my
>> parents expectations were tempered by the rehabilitation
>> establishment.  Frankly, the American Foundation for the Blind
>> played a role in this with some of what they published,
>> but they were not alone.  They were made to expect that I would
>> take longer to walk, that they were awful for thinking
>> they could rearrange furniture, and such.  Fortunately, my
>> parents tended not to believe what they were told.  The
>> Governor's parents would have been exposed to much of the same
>> thinking, and frankly, much of this thinking is still a
>> part of the establishment.
>>
>> Therefore, we do need to think about how to make the process of
>> learning alternative techniques more attractive, but
>> I think we need to be careful how much we beat up on ourselves
>> for this.  We are making progress, but we need the
>> education establishment to be more realistic in terms of how
>> kids balance the use of remaining vision and alternative
>> techniques including braille.  We need to continue trying to
>> reach out to parents to explain to them that one needs to
>> look at all of a child's abilities not just how much vision
>> they have.  We need to continue trying to influence the rehab
>> establishment to see that complete training in the use of
>> alternative techniques will increase the liklihood of successful
>> outcomes as some studies seem to indicate.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Steve Jacobson
>>
>> On Tue, 28 Dec 2010 09:18:37 -0500, Joe Orozco wrote:
>>
>>>Hi Alicia,
>>
>>>Agreed on all points.  I just don't know how to take what we know, and
>>>perhaps take for granted, and share this with the people that
>> need it.  I
>>>stop short of saying we should try to make Braille fun for
>> people to learn.
>>>After all, these are adults, and come on, do you want to be
>> independent or
>>>do you want to be reliant on other people to read/transcribe
>> your materials,
>>>but perhaps there is something to making Braille, orientation
>> and mobility,
>>>technology and basic independent living more appealing?  After
>> all, it's not
>>>enough to tell someone they need to do something.  The person
>> needs to want
>>>to do it for themselves, otherwise the training is for
>> nothing.  Anyway,
>>>more thoughts welcomed.
>>
>>>Joe
>>
>>>"Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up
>> their sleeves,
>>>some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all."--Sam Ewing
>>
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: Alicia Richards [mailto:alicianfb at gmail.com]
>>>Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 4:18 AM
>>>To: jsorozco at gmail.com; NFB Talk Mailing List
>>>Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] NY Times Article on Gov. Paterson and Braille
>>
>>>Joe, I do see the point you are driving at.  For a long time I
>> wouldn't
>>>have, but I do have more compassion for people with partial
>>>vision who are
>>>caught in the middle.  I'm not trying to jump on any bandwagon,
>>>but here are
>>>my thoughts.
>>
>>>One of my primary questions is this. If Paterson's parents were
>>>so worried
>>>about him standing out, or getting a stigma attached to him,
>>>carrying around
>>>big Braille books, etc, then why not think of the other
>> issues?  Did it
>>>never occur to them that large print books are pretty big,
>> too?  Did it
>>>never occur to them that he would not look normal, having to
>>>press his face
>>>so close to the page, when the other students did not have to
>>>do this?  Or
>>>standing by the board to read the print, when others did not
>>>have to?  At
>>>least when reading Braille, one can still look up at those
>> around them,
>>>which in my opinion, looks far more normal than the
>>>alternative.  The things
>>>parents will do, or worse, make their child do or sacrifice in
>>>the name of
>>>so-called normality are unbelievable to me sometimes. and just
>>>because he
>>>might have learned Braille does not mean he couldn't have been
>>>mainstreamed
>>>at the same time. Then again, I guess he grew up in a different
>>>era, when
>>>mainstreaming was far less common, and that must be taken into account.
>>
>>>It is true that Braille has limitations, but I feel he's using
>>>that as an
>>>excuse. With the advancement of technology, such as scanners,
>>>OCR software,
>>>and refreshable Braille displays, more is available in Braille
>>>than ever
>>>before, and it is more convenient to use than before. And don't
>>>even try to
>>>tell me that the man could not have afforded such technology.
>>>For exampel ,
>>>I imagine that  much of what Governor Paterson relied on his
>>>aides to read
>>>could have been scanned on a computer, to be read with a screen
>>>reader, or
>>>put into a Braille note-taker. Then, no reliance would have
>> been needed.
>>
>>>The part about where his mother told him he could not take
>>>risks like other
>>>boys infuriates me to no end!  What child should not take risks? I was
>>>allowed to take the same risks as my sighted sisters when I was
>>>a child,
>>>thank God, and would advocate that any other should do the same. Now,
>>>genuine risks to safety should not be taken by any child,
>> regardless of
>>>disability. But to say he shouldn't have as a result of blindness is
>>>appalling to me.
>>
>>>Just had to voice all that, for whatever it is worth.
>>
>>>Alicia
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
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