[nfbcs] Fwd: Happy Birthday Mr.Braille

Gary Wunder gwunder at earthlink.net
Thu Jan 8 20:57:30 UTC 2009 

I took that post I congratulated you on and put a couple of lines of it in a 
keynote address - something like "Because each person is an individual, we 
can't take responsibility for their successes, but we can rejoice just a bit 
when we see them fly." Thanks.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Doug Lee" <dgl at dlee.org>
To: "NFBnet NFBCS Mailing List" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2009 12:42 PM
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Fwd: Happy Birthday Mr.Braille


> 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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>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>
>>>>
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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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