[nfbcs] Fwd: Happy Birthday Mr.Braille

Doug Lee dgl at dlee.org
Thu Jan 8 18:42:39 UTC 2009 

Gary, you once congratulated me for an excellent post.  It's now my
turn to congratulate you for one.  I could not have said that better
myself!

On Thu, Jan 08, 2009 at 10:33:29AM -0600, Gary Wunder wrote:
> In some ways this discussion is unfortunate because we are talking about
> definitions and connotations. Literate has a specific meaning in many
> dictionaries and a more general one in others, but to say that someone is
> illiterate connotes inferiority. If I tell a man in a wheelchair he cannot
> walk to the grocery store, my statement is true. If the connotation is that
> he is confined to his house and he cannot get to the grocery store or see to
> his own shopping, this is not true.
>
> We have no business saying or believing that a person who can't learn
> Braille because of diabetes is inferior. We have no business saying or
> believing that a person who goes blind later in life has something wrong
> with him because he lacks the proficiency in Braille which some of us enjoy.
> Similarly, we need to understand that many blind students have public school
> placements where they have no teacher of Braille and they will not learn it
> in the way many of us who are older learned it as a matter of course.
>
> At the same time, we should not refrane from saying that Braille, like
> print, has tremendous value in physically observing how things are written,
> in being able to follow an outline, in effortlessly seeing the difference in
> the words hear, here, their, there, wear, where, bare, bear, etc.
>
> We have to get to the place where we can, without apology, say that Braille
> is a skill blind people should have, without implying to those who cannot or
> have not, that they are somehow inferior or are to blame for some
> shortcoming in themselves. We need to address the system which shortchanges
> so many without making those who have been short-changed feel they are at
> fault and that they have no alternatives. Mostly there are always
> alternatives, but the more of these we make available to our blind brothers
> and sisters, , the easier we will find it to compete for available jobs and
> resources.
>
> I doubt that anyone who uses the words literate or illiterate really means
> one lacks the ability to communicate. What they are trying to get at has
> more to do with whether people understand the construction of language, and
> making the point that the chances of successfully learning to do this is
> increased with print or Braille and is made more difficult using only audio
> for presentation. Technology changes things at some level. I can dictate 
> and correctly write words whose spellings I cannot begin to write, and 
> similarly I can hear and understand words I might not recognize were I to 
> see them written letter for letter. Who could ever, using audio, come up 
> with the spelling of ennui or detente? It is funny in hindsight how, as a 
> college freshman, I took a course in educational psychology using two 
> different audio textbooks, and believed we were studying two different 
> theorists, one named Gonyea, and the other named gagney. The comparisons 
> were easy, but the contrasts were more difficult.
>
> As a final chuckle, think about the difference between the meaning of the
> word ignorant and the connotation. The true meaning says I do not know. The
> connotation says I am foolish not to know or that learning is beyond me. The
> definition alerts me to a gap in knowledge I can do something about. The
> connotation says I am intellectually or culturally doomed.
>
>
>
> Gary
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bryan Schulz" 
> <b.schulz at sbcglobal.net>
> To: "NFBnet NFBCS Mailing List" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2009 9:42 AM
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Fwd: Happy Birthday Mr.Braille!-$200discount
> onourBraille products
>
>
>> liz,
>>
>> what do you say to someone who can't read print due to vision loss and
>> can't read braille due to diabetes or a brain injury?
>> Are you going to be ignorant and tell them they are illiterate?
>> Bryan Schulz
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gary Wunder" 
>> <gwunder at earthlink.net>
>> To: "NFBnet NFBCS Mailing List" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2009 7:43 AM
>> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Fwd: Happy Birthday Mr. Braille!-$200discount
>> onourBraille products
>>
>>
>>> Hi Chris. I do not know in which state you live, but most rehab agencies
>>> are willing, as part of post-employment services, to invest in equipment.
>>> This is especially so if your jobs requires you to sometimes work from
>>> home.
>>>
>>> Warmest regards,
>>>
>>> Gary
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Westbrook" 
>>> <westbchris at gmail.com>
>>> To: "NFBnet NFBCS Mailing List" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
>>> Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2009 6:01 AM
>>> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Fwd: Happy Birthday Mr. Braille! -$200discount
>>> onourBraille products
>>>
>>>
>>>> As much as I like braille and am a proponent of it, I've always thought
>>>> the argument below was not valid.  Why?  Because braille is so much less
>>>> available than print.  I think this is the big elephant in the room that
>>>> no one wants to talk about.  I would love to have a braille display for
>>>> home, but I just can't afford it.  I can't gedt state help either
>>>> because I am already employed.  I don't understand why twenty years
>>>> later braille displays are still just as much out of reach of the
>>>> average blind person as they were when they were first made.  Yes there
>>>> is hard copy braille, but it is huge and bulky compared to print.
>>>> Braille cannot really be compared to print because it is so much more
>>>> costly to produce on a mass scale.
>>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "slery" 
>>>> <slerythema at insightbb.com>
>>>> To: "'NFBnet NFBCS Mailing List'" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
>>>> Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2009 2:34 AM
>>>> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Fwd: Happy Birthday Mr. Braille! - $200discount
>>>> onourBraille products
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> One question, Dean.
>>>>>
>>>>> Can we tell public schools that they no longer need to waste a
>>>>> teacher's
>>>>> time on reading because most of the kids have been auditorilly reading
>>>>> for
>>>>> years by the time they get to school and that is perfectly acceptable
>>>>> for
>>>>> them to succeed?
>>>>>
>>>>> Cindy
>>>>>
>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>> From: nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org
>>>>>> [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Dean Martineau
>>>>>> Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 3:25 PM
>>>>>> To: 'NFBnet NFBCS Mailing List'
>>>>>> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Fwd: Happy Birthday Mr. Braille! - $200
>>>>>> discount onourBraille products
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I have to say that I agree with Everett, but at the same
>>>>>> time, the conversation isn't too useful and can take away
>>>>>> from the essential point.  I am a very literate person, using
>>>>>> both Braille and audio reading techniques quite effectively.
>>>>>> Nobody will tell me that I am not reading, processing
>>>>>> information, when I read auditorially.  At the same time, the
>>>>>> real point is that for a blind person to succeed in the world
>>>>>> of work and independent living, competency in Braille is
>>>>>> somewhere between highly beneficial and essential.  A blind
>>>>>> person without high Braille competence has many more
>>>>>> opportunities than one who does not.  So yes, non-braille
>>>>>> readers can be literate, but the more Braille one has, the better.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Dean
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>> From: nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org
>>>>>> [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of E.J. Zufelt
>>>>>> Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 11:36 AM
>>>>>> To: NFBnet NFBCS Mailing List
>>>>>> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Fwd: Happy Birthday Mr. Braille! - $200
>>>>>> discount on ourBraille products
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Good afternoon Liz,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What does literacy mean to you?  I would say that the least
>>>>>> important part
>>>>>> of litercy is the medium by which the symbols are acquired,
>>>>>> but is the
>>>>>> synthesis of the symbols into meaningful propositions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In other words, literacy is about successful communication,
>>>>>> not about the
>>>>>> means of communication, be it dots, ink or sound.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>> Everett
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Liz Bottner" 
>>>>>> <liz.bottner at gmail.com>
>>>>>> To: "'NFBnet NFBCS Mailing List'" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
>>>>>> Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 3:23 PM
>>>>>> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Fwd: Happy Birthday Mr. Braille! - $200
>>>>>> discount on
>>>>>> ourBraille products
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I don't mean to offend or start any major heated discussion,
>>>>>> but my own personal view is that if someone cannot read print
>>>>>> and doesn't know Braille, then they are, by all means,
>>>>>> illiterate. Just listening to audio or reading via a
>>>>>> screenreader on the computer, in my view, isn't actually
>>>>>> reading; that's having things reed to you. I'd be interested
>>>>>> in others' thoughts on this matter.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Just my thoughts, for what they're worth,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Liz
>>>>>>
>>>>>> email:
>>>>>> liz.bottner at gmail.com
>>>>>> Visit my livejournal:
>>>>>> http://unsilenceddream.livejournal.com
>>>>>> Follow me on Twitter:
>>>>>> http://twitter.com/lizbot
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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>>>>> %40zufelt.ca
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>
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-- 
Doug Lee                 dgl at dlee.org                http://www.dlee.org
SSB BART Group           doug.lee at ssbbartgroup.com   http://www.ssbbartgroup.com
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's
character, give him power." -Abraham Lincoln

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