[nfb-talk] A Comment On Braille

[Mike Freeman]

Amen.

However, the old saw about the harmfulness of texting to spelling is
interesting. David Crystal (a linguist) in his book "A Little Book of
Language", available from BARD, maintains that in order to text well, one
has to know how to spell well first, else much of the humor of texting goes
unrecognized.

That doesn't take away from Buddy's message, however.

Mike


-----Original Message-----
From: nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Chris Nusbaum
Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 11:24 AM
To: NFB Talk Mailing List
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] A Comment On Braille

Very well stated. Thank you, Buddy, for a great defense of Braille!

Chris Nusbaum

Sent from my iPod

On Jun 20, 2012, at 1:50 PM, Buddy Brannan <buddy at brannan.name> wrote:

> Perkins just asked in an Email they sent out if braille is still relent in
a high tech world. They said the answer was a resounding yes, as it should
be, but here's my response, which i sent to perkins and posted to my blog:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> First, do I love my Perkins brailler? Of course I do.
> 
> I don't really want to talk about that, though. Rather, I want to address
the question you ask: is braille still relevant in a technological world? Of
course you got the answer, and, in my view, the correct one, but what
disturbs me is that the question was even asked in thee first place. It is,
I think, the wrong question. In short, what happens if you replace the word
"Braille" with the word "Print"? Does the question change? Does the
relevance of the medium change? Does the answer change? What about the
perceptions of the question--do those change? 
> 
> A couple weeks ago, I was a fill-in host on the Serotek podcast, where we
discussed an article about the decline in spelling skills among today's
youth. However, I didn't take away what was probably the intended message of
the article. I took away a double standard. Now that it's sighted children
who use print and are losing the ability to spell, form proper sentences,
and so on, we have a tragedy, and our electronics-centric lifestyle is to
blame. Think of texting as the most often blamed culprit. Yet, where was
this outcry for our blind kids 20 years ago, when, as now, we are told that
talking computers and recorded textbooks are good enough? Double standard
much? Why is it, do you suppose, that learning to read print and having
access to print is essential to teach sighted children the fundamentals of
grammar, spelling, and punctuation, but such skills are adequately taught to
our blind kids with talking computers and recorded textbooks? Or, is it that
our blind kids and
  their skills and abilities in these areas just aren't important enough to
give the same amount of attention or priority? Why is, pulling a number out
of the air here, a 10% illiteracy rate among the sighted a national tragedy,
yet a 10% literacy rate among the blind acceptable? 
> 
> If you get that I'm angry, you're right. I am absolutely livid. This is
only one example of this double standard where blind and sighted people are
concerned. The thing is, it's a huge example, and it doesn't even seem as
though we ourselves always recognize it for what it is, because we ask
things like, "Is braille still relevant". So long as literacy is relevant to
gainful employment, career advancement, educational opportunities, and all
the other things life has to offer, the answer should be obvious.
> 
> So, as I said, you're asking the wrong question. There are probably a lot
of "right" questions, but the one that comes to my mind, putting aside the
"Why is this double standard acceptable" question, is, "How do we get
braille into the hands of more kids and get more of our kids learning it,
and more of our teachers teaching it"? Let's start there; there's much, much
more that we should be asking as follow-ups to that.
> 
> Parenthetically, I note that the word "brailler" was flagged by my spell
checker. Moreover, it was autocorrected to "broiler". That speaks volumes.
> --
> Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV - Erie, PA
> Phone: (814) 860-3194 or 888-75-BUDDY
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> nfb-talk mailing list
> nfb-talk at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfb-talk_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
nfb-talk:
>
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfb-talk_nfbnet.org/dotkid.nusbaum%40gmail
.com

_______________________________________________
nfb-talk mailing list
nfb-talk at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfb-talk_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
nfb-talk:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfb-talk_nfbnet.org/k7uij%40panix.com