[NFBNJ] NFB: [Brl-monitor] Braille Monitor, October 2018
Brian Mackey
bmackey88 at gmail.com
Wed Oct 3 19:46:59 UTC 2018
>From the desk of NFBNJ President Joe Ruffalo.
Received from Brian Burrow, NFB of California.
Greetings to all,
Please read and share the October 2018 issue of the Braille Monitor, which
contains articles discussing how blind people are working to raise
expectations.
The publication follows.
BRAILLE MONITOR
Vol. 61, No. 9 October 2018
Gary Wunder, Editor
Distributed by email, in inkprint, in Braille, and on USB flash
drive, by the
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
Mark Riccobono, President
telephone: 410-659-9314
email address: nfb at nfb.org
website address: http://www.nfb.org
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Monitor subscriptions cost the Federation about forty dollars per year.
Members are invited, and nonmembers are requested, to cover the
subscription cost. Donations should be made payable to National Federation
of the Blind and sent to:
National Federation of the Blind
200 East Wells Street at Jernigan Place
Baltimore, Maryland 21230-4998
THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND KNOWS THAT BLINDNESS IS NOT THE
CHARACTERISTIC THAT DEFINES YOU OR YOUR FUTURE. EVERY DAY WE RAISE THE
EXPECTATIONS OF BLIND PEOPLE, BECAUSE LOW EXPECTATIONS CREATE OBSTACLES
BETWEEN BLIND PEOPLE AND OUR DREAMS. YOU CAN LIVE THE LIFE YOU WANT;
BLINDNESS IS NOT WHAT HOLDS YOU BACK. THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION SPEAKING FOR THE BLIND-IT IS THE BLIND SPEAKING FOR
OURSELVES.
ISSN 0006-8829
) 2018 by the National Federation of the Blind
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Vol. 61, No. 9 October 2018
Contents
Illustration: Strengthening the Team Who Works for You: Comradery and
Challenge for our NFB Staff
Blending Assertiveness, Principle, Confrontation, and Collaboration: The
NFB Carries out an AER Strike
by Everette Bacon
Honesty and Telling It Like It Is
by Gary Wunder
>From My Blind Child to Our Blind Children-Why the National Federation of
the Blind Is the Answer
by Carlton Walker
Overcoming Obstacles and Recognizing Opportunities: A Blind Entrepreneur
Breaks through Barriers Everywhere He Builds
by Isaac Lidsky
The Senate Must Act on Legislation So Americans can Reap the Benefits of
Autonomous Vehicles
by Mark Riccobono
No Borders to the World's Knowledge: A Commitment to Accessibility for the
Blind
by Francis Gurry
Equal Access in Air Travel for the Blind: Raising Expectations from the
United States Department of Transportation
by Blane Workie
Networking that Empowers Innovation: Accessibility for the Blind through
Facebook
by Monica Desai
Tommy Craig
Dies........................................................................
......................
by Zena Pearcy
Announcing New Accessibility Resources for Consumers and Industry
by Anil Lewis
Recipes
Monitor Miniatures
[PHOTO CAPTION: Team spirit and cooperation got a boost from a friendly
game of cards. Patti Chang and Kimie Eacobacci can be seen in the
foreground.]
[PHOTO CAPTION: (Left to right) Karen Anderson, Rachel Olivero, Sophia
Connell (behind Rachel), and Amy Mason enjoy the water at Sandy Point State
Park.]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Gabe Cazares climbs the rope ladder to the tower as Sonia
Little watches]
[PHOTO CAPTION: A group of NFB staff stands on the platform preparing to
cross the stepping stones portion of the Aerial Teams Course.]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Gabe Cazares, Jimmy McCurley, and Candiss Kiah stand on the
platform of the Aerial Teams Course.]
[PHOTO CAPTION: (Almost) the entire staff of the National Center pose
together after a great day of teambuilding at Outward Bound.]
Strengthening the Team Who Works for You:
Comradery and Challenge for our NFB Staff
Interacting as Federationists we often find ourselves giving and
receiving praise, suggestions, and sometimes tough love. Never do we want
to push people beyond where they can go, but neither do we want to
encourage them to shy away from going beyond their comfort zone and pushing
themselves just a bit beyond where they think they can. As it is for our
members, so it is for our staff-a real-life demonstration for those who
work for us a bit of what it is like to be one of us, to encounter an
obstacle and then to work around it.
On September 6 and 7, 2018, the NFB Jernigan Institute was closed for
two days of staff development and appreciation. One day was for celebrating
and saying thank you for a year of hard work. The second day was for team
building in which the staff experienced the kind of adventure activities
that our students and members get through many of our programs. Some of the
activities took place on the ground: stand in a circle, hold the hands of
people on your left and right, but not the people next to you. Then
untangle the crisscross of hands and still remain in a circle. In a
different circle pass a hula hoop from one person to the next without ever
breaking contact.
One staff member said, "I really liked the five-finger bio activity
and think chapters might find it fun and useful. We had to pair up and
interview each other, getting the answers to five questions; the questions
were represented by the fingers of one hand, which I guess is a memory aid.
They were: Thumb: Name something you are good at; Index: A goal that you
have; Middle: Something that frustrates you; Ring: Something you're
committed to (e.g. religion, family, Federation); and Pinky: Something few
people know about you."
Another said, "We had an activity where our group was divided into
twos; a kind of obstacle course was set up with various shaped objects on
the ground in a square-roped box. One teammate was blindfolded, and the
other teammate had to direct them through the obstacle course without
stepping on any of the objects. If you stepped on one, you would pretend
there was an explosion, sound effects included. The first attempt we could
say left, right, etc. The next time we were told to direct without saying
left or right. Our teams came up with other directions. My partner and I
used vegetables: radish-right; lettuce-left; spinach-straight. At the same
time, our group leader would loudly drop objects within our path; you could
hear them as they hit the ground. This would force you to stop, hesitate,
then alter your route, but we were successful in making it through the
activity. It was a lot of fun."
"We were asked to do an activity where we had to line up by certain
criteria, but we were not permitted to talk. We did fairly well with lining
up by height-easily measured by touch-and by birth month, although we had a
couple of issues with dates within the same month. Then we were asked to
think of an animal, and then line up by size of animal from smallest to
largest. Two in our group of seven were blind, and I started thinking about
how I was going to communicate what I had in mind. One of my colleagues
took my arms and began to demonstrate relative dimensions to me which I
took to be the size of his/her animal. I then turned to the other blind
person who was next to me and used the same technique. I had been spending
all of my energy thinking about how I was going to communicate my animal to
the sighted that I had given no consideration to how I was going to receive
information-conditioning from society? I do not consider myself a sit and
wait sort of person, but the experience surprised me because of my own
thought process and, pleasantly, because my colleagues quickly created a
nonvisual means of communication."
My favorite quotation is taken from a person who is normally very
quiet, but it is clear that when he speaks, he has much to say: "The course
activities were a great learning experience for me, and I will share it
with others. The high wire proved that any person or people, when
confronted with adversity at the same time, can overcome the odds if they
pull and stick together. The most outstanding thing for me was the two
trees; it proved to me, as God said, He would use the foolish thing to
shame the wise. He used the very nature that He created. The trees were
different in shape and size. They were different in name, but could
compromise their shape in order to grow together. In our group there were
people of four or five different races, so what I am trying to say is: for
me, God showed that no matter what else, just like the trees are all trees,
there is one race, the human race. Just do it." In this paragraph, our
quiet friend has said a mouthfull, and we are all blessed by his words.
Activities like this are designed to test a group's physical
abilities, communication skills, and most of all its trust and cohesiveness
as a group. While climbing the rope ladder or strapping into a harness to
walk across a single-strand rope bridge high above the ground are more
blatantly physical and difficult, the challenge of maneuvering adult bodies
through the gaps created in the space of clasped hands carries its own
difficulties and risks for participants. But no matter which activities our
staff members chose to participate in or sit out of during this day, they
put their whole heart and effort into that, just as they do daily in their
work to help the blind of America live the lives they want.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Everette Bacon]
Blending Assertiveness, Principle, Confrontation, and Collaboration:
The NFB Carries out an AER Strike
by Everette Bacon
From the Editor: The National Federation of the Blind was created
because a few blind people believed that only if they spoke for themselves
could they create and shape the programs that would best serve them. We
believe this as much today as we did in 1940. Unfortunately too many people
still take literally the parable that says when the blind lead the blind,
both will fall into the ditch. In 1940 our hope said that a literal
interpretation was wrong, and our experience now confirms it day after day,
year after year, decade after decade.
But parables, stereotypes, and legal beliefs do not easily give way
even in the face of evidence refuting them. Many professionals once built
their identity not only on helping the blind but in speaking for us, making
all important decisions for us, and being the interpreters through which
America would hear from its blind unfortunates. Thanks to innate ability
and a country that encourages us to reach for our day in the sun as we
pursue the American dream, the blind now speak for ourselves, direct the
programs that serve us, and tell our communities what we need and which
service providers are delivering it. We still need professionals who learn
to teach the alternative skills we need and to develop ever-more-helpful
equipment, but we do not need these men and women to speak for us but with
us, sharing in the collaboration that creates, maintains, and evaluates
quality services.
In the article that follows, Everette describes the ongoing struggle
between blind people who will speak through their elected leaders and a
group of professionals who believe that because of their education and
experience they are entitled to speak for us and to set the standards that
will be used in evaluating the programs created to serve us. Here is what
he says:
Some organizations are associated with honor, credibility, and trust.
Others are not. Sometimes an organization's reputation is so tarnished or
even toxic that it is better to let it pass into history and have another
organization do the work the previous one was unable or unwilling to do.
This article is to update and continue the narrative begun in the January
2018 Braille Monitor by our President, Mark Riccobono. That article can be
found at
https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm18/bm1801/bm180102.htm.
In President Riccobono's call to action, members were asked to
blanket the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and
Visually Impaired (AER) with social media and emails calling for AER to
hear the widely accepted message "nothing about us without us" and to once
and for all end the National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the
Blind and Visually Handicapped (NAC) program. President Riccobono had also
invited the outgoing AER executive director, Louis Tutt, to come to our
national headquarters for a meeting to further the discussion that had
started back in October 2017. AER had promised to follow up in January 2018
to schedule the in-person meeting. In March our President called Lou Tutt
to inquire about the status, and he was told that the AER Accreditation
Council (AER's new designation for what was previously the National
Accreditation Council) would be meeting in late March to discuss the
National Federation of the Blind. March came in like a lamb and went out
the same way. So too did April with no word from AER. On May 14, 2018,
President Riccobono received a phone call from Lou Tutt asking if a letter
had been received on April 4, 2018. Our President informed Mr. Tutt that no
letter had been received, and this was verified after another check of the
Federation's email server. Keep in mind that by this time it is the middle
of May, and AER promised a follow-up meeting in January. If a letter was
sent on April 4, why was there no follow-up until May 14? As you will find
below, there was an expectation by AER that the Federation would
participate in a meeting on April 26, so why did it take better than two
weeks to follow-up from that meeting to inquire about the Federation's
response to a letter supposedly sent on April 4?
AER went forward with its plans to revamp the NAC program, and in a
letter dated either April 4 or May 14 (we are unsure because the letter was
not received by the office of the President until May 14), Dr. Tutt
notified President Riccobono that an accreditation council was being formed
by AER and that President Riccobono could assign a member of the NFB to it.
Dr. Tutt's letter read as follows:
Dear President Riccobono:
Thanks for taking my call this morning, Monday, May 14, 2018; I am
forwarding you the email I sent to the Office Of The President
(OfficeOfThePresident at nfb.org) on April 4, 2018 (reprinted below),
along with the attached letter (which has the same content as the
email below). Since I had not heard from you, I called to ascertain if
you had received the email and letter to which you said you had not.
Therefore, I am resending the email to you and Ms. Beth Braun at the
email addresses you gave me this morning.
Sincerely,
Lou
Louis M. Tutt Executive Director
Here was the letter Dr. Tutt said had been sent earlier:
Dear Mark Riccobono,
On behalf of the AER Accreditation Council, I am extending a formal
invitation to NFB to appoint an individual to represent NFB on the AER
Accreditation Council. Since our inception, we have been dedicated to
giving voice to our members and those who are served by our members by
having our work reflect a representation of the field and the needs of
the field. To this end, we hope that you will accept this opportunity.
The new AER Accreditation Program is outcomes-based; and seeks to
ensure continuous improvements and optimal gains. We believe that
accreditation is instrumental in helping entities to deliver quality
services, under the best conditions that lead to consumers gaining
what is needed to live more independently. Our approach is
progressive, embodies the collection of qualitative and quantitative
data; and culminates with a strict evaluation. Only entities that meet
or exceed the standards will be granted accreditation. The Council
will convene April 26, 2018 via conference call. Let me know prior to
that date the name of the individual that you would like to have
seated on the Council. Should you have any questions, please do not
hesitate to contact me. This new Accreditation Program has tremendous
merit; it offers a systemic and consistent approach to ensuring
quality, safety, and sound outcomes. We hope that you will join our
efforts.
Sincerely,
Louis M. Tutt, AER Accreditation Council Chair
It is impossible to convey just how underwhelming was Dr. Tutt's
letter. He tells us nothing about the Council. We have had no opportunity
to participate in evaluating the need it would meet or to be a part of its
conception and planning. Nothing is clear about its criteria for
accreditation, what standards if any it has, how those standards will be
administered, or on what kind of board we are being invited to participate.
All of this together makes the letter of invitation insulting and
condescending. The fundamental concept of nothing about us without us is
clearly lacking in all that has been done, and no offer of one seat on an
undefined board with an undefined purpose and an undefined set of standards
will change this irrevocable fact. AER cannot make the rules, make the
game, and only after all of this invite us to be a player; the blind will
not settle for such an insubstantial role.
After consulting with the National Federation of the Blind Board of
Directors, President Riccobono responded to Dr. Tutt with the following
letter:
May 17, 2018
Dear Mr. Tutt:
I am in receipt of your letter dated April 4, 2018, which first
arrived in my office after a phone call from you on May 14, 2018. When
we began this dialogue six months ago, a dialogue that I initiated, I
was optimistic that history really could not repeat itself and that
particularly you-a professional with many decades in the field-would
not be interested in tearing down the gains that have been made in the
collaborative work between blind consumers and blindness
professionals. I regret that I was wrong. Of the many sayings about
the lessons of history, the one that best applies to your letter of
April 4 (or May 14) is from Karl Marx: "History repeats itself, first
as tragedy, second as farce." Your letter is offensive to the blind of
this nation, and it is not an accurate reflection of the tremendous
professionals I know in the blindness field who honor, through their
words and actions, the value of consumer-driven services. This letter
makes a final attempt to create understanding with you and invites you
to bring your perspective to the convention of the National Federation
of the Blind.
As we discussed on November 9, 2017, this conversation is not
about the relative value of accreditation, and we will not accept your
efforts to ignore our concerns about real consumer-driven approaches
by hiding behind the generic value of accreditation. This conversation
is about the desire of blind people to be the authentic authority for
determining quality services for the blind. Under your leadership and
direction, the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the
Blind and Visually Impaired has made a conscious decision to revive a
failed accreditation system that had the token inclusion of blind
consumers as a core value. We are told that among AER's values is
integrity, described as "AER adheres to the highest ethical standards
and promotes an environment complete with honesty and transparency."
Yet the transparency has not existed for blind consumers. We were
told-
four months after you publicly announced the plans to revive a
controversial and divisive accreditation body-that it was your
intention to reach out to the National Federation of the Blind. Then
it took an additional five months-with a sixth thrown in because of a
follow-up phone call that took six weeks to arrange and conduct-to
make a formal invitation to have one seat on this mysterious
accreditation body without any other details. We are expected to
believe that this is "progressive," but the most successful
professionals in the field know that transparency means including
consumers from the beginning, not as an afterthought. As I think about
it, your intention is fairly transparent, but I do not think it is an
accurate reflection of the average committed professional in the
field. Fortunately, many blindness professionals, even members of AER,
have found the value of associating with the National Federation of
the Blind and actively participating in the organized blind movement.
If only you would follow their example.
Let us cut right to the point. Great services for the blind have
thrived without an accreditation process driven solely by the
professionals. This has happened, in part, because they have had
substantive, consistent, and respectful engagement from blind
consumers and individuals elected by the organized blind movement. On
the flip side, agencies for the blind that have done real harm to
blind people were permitted to parade under a banner of accreditation
because that accreditation did not have significant influence by the
elected leaders of the blind. You have made a choice to return to the
past, and we have urged you not to do so. Your five-month silence, as
much as your choice to repeat history, demonstrates your intentions. I
am deeply disappointed that you wish to create disruption in the field
of blindness where so much collaboration has been built.
Your letter of April 4 states, "On behalf of the AER
Accreditation Council, I am extending a formal invitation to NFB to
appoint an individual to represent NFB on the AER Accreditation
Council. Since our inception, we have been dedicated to giving voice
to our members and those who are served by our members by having our
work reflect a representation of the field and the needs of the
field." Let the record show that the National Federation of the Blind
declines your token offer because it represents neither the field of
blindness nor the needs of the field. Your offer represents a return
to a time when consumers and professionals stand on opposite sides of
a line, when authenticity is argued to be about how much a person can
see rather than their effectiveness in teaching, and when the measure
of quality is deemed to be a professional duty rather than a
collaborative process with equal participation from consumers. We
refuse to go back in time because blind people have worked too hard to
achieve our status in society, and so many great professionals have
committed themselves to the value of partnership with us.
The time has come for a new approach in the blindness field, and
I invite you to come be part of that conversation. In your letter you
end with, "We hope that you will join our efforts." We say that your
efforts are the wrong ones to be taken. Thus, we, the blind, invite
you to join us in moving real collaboration between consumers and
professionals forward. Come to the convention of the National
Federation of the Blind. Although the agenda is nearly finalized, I
will make time for you on July 7 to talk with the blind of America
about AER's direction and future. We will want to hear about AER's
commitment to an equal voice from the organized blind movement. This
will also be an opportunity for you to present a new forward-looking
proposal-one that does not include a previously contentious
battleground. I will offer an opportunity for members of the
Federation to ask you questions about the future direction of AER and
the role of blind people in that future. If you truly want the
National Federation of the Blind to be a significant part of the "new"
efforts you are undertaking, then come tell us about it and address
the questions that the blind have about AER's direction. Our
invitation is open, and it is up to you to accept or reject it. I hope
to hear from you within a week regarding this offer.
I regret that you continue to choose the past over the future
and that you wish to pit professional against consumer. That is not
the future we seek, and my experience in the field tells me it is not
the future that our best professionals want. The commitment of the
blind of this nation to raising expectations in service delivery is
unwavering. Our work to build understanding with professionals will
not be undermined. Continued attacks on the blind of America and our
priorities veiled in the generic language of accreditation and
professional standards will not alter the course of the field. We will
not return to a time when the leaders of professional organizations
force us to fight for equality in the field. We, the blind and those
professionals committed to equality, will continue to set the
standards. The only question that remains is whether you will lead AER
into that future with us or against us.
Our convention's agenda is going to press shortly. The delays in
your letter mean that we must have your response within a week, or we
will conclude that you have declined the invitation.
Sincerely,
Mark A. Riccobono, President
National Federation of the Blind
Dr. Tutt rejected the invitation and offered no alternative meeting
or time for collaboration. Here is what he said:
May 23, 2018
Dear President Riccobono:
Thank you for letting me know that the National Federation of
the Blind (NFB) is unable to be a part of AER's accreditation program.
Hopefully, we will have an opportunity to work together in the future.
On another note, I want to let you know that I am unable to attend
your upcoming July 2018 NFB Convention. I have plans that were
confirmed over a year ago, and I am unable to reschedule.
Sincerely,
Louis M. Tutt, Executive Director
It is worth noting that the correspondence between President
Riccobono and Dr. Tutt was copied to members of the Board of Directors of
AER, including the current and incoming presidents, but none of them
accepted the Federation's invitation to the convention.
Upon receiving the letter on May 14, President Riccobono continued to
talk with the NFB National Board of Directors in a dialogue about how the
organized blind wished to respond and which of the options available would
help advance the conversation on behalf of blind consumers. As a result, an
AER Strike committee was formed, and I was assigned by our President to
chair it. Members were appointed from diverse backgrounds. Some came from
members of the national board, some were professionals in the field, some
came from within AER, and some were rank and file members whose knowledge
of service has come from their authentic experience as recipients of good
and bad services. We were also helped by members of our exceptional staff.
Together the committee and our leaders arrived at a plan to visit AER's
international conference held in Reno, Nevada, from July 25 to 28, 2018.
Unlike the meetings we came to have with the previous National
Accreditation Council, we did not come with picket signs and chants as I am
sure members of AER expected. Instead we approached the AER conference
demonstrating our willingness to engage in collaboration, our goal being to
say to members of AER that authentic accreditation must begin on an equal
playing field shared by the professionals and the consumers represented by
the elected members of the blind.
Much planning went into attending the AER International Conference.
It has been almost twenty years since the NFB last held a protest against
the practices of NAC. Many professionals from that time have moved on to
other careers or have retired. The Federation's leadership realizes that
there are many new faces in the teaching and rehabilitation field and that
many of them have not had an opportunity to be exposed to the NFB and the
organized blind's perspective on accreditation. We decided to pay AER's fee
and become an exhibitor during the conference. Members of the NFB would
manage the table in AER's exhibit hall, reach out to AER members, and try
to establish relationships. It was exciting to see NFB members like Carla
McQuillan, Terri Rupp, Jennifer Kennedy, and so many more cover the tables,
greeting and then meeting with many educators of the blind. Our NFB
contingent commented on how well we were being received by conference
participants.
The AER Strike Committee and the national board of directors also
thought it would be a demonstration of Federation spirit and pride to host
a reception and invite as many attendees and members of AER as possible. We
planned this reception in the evening, and we were promised by AER that our
reception would not conflict with other conference activities. This turned
out not to be true-whether on purpose or by poor management we do not know.
The NFB reception overlapped with a reception hosted by the American
Printing House for the Blind (APH). Holding a meeting at the same time as
APH was certainly not our preference; we have a strong and friendly
relationship with the leadership of APH and would not have chosen to
interfere with its outreach to AER. Despite the conflict, we had over 150
people attend our reception, including the president of the American
Printing House for the Blind, Craig Meador, who enjoyed our reception once
his had concluded. There were about thirty leaders of the NFB who came from
all over to participate in the reception. These included national board
members like Denise Avant, some of the directors of our NFB training
centers like Julie Deden and Dan Wenzel, and our members who are also
active in AER like Eric Guillory and Brent Batron who were able to mingle
with the many AER attendees and talk about what accreditation should really
look like and why it is imperative that the consumers and the professionals
collaborate together.
During the reception, a short program was held. President Riccobono
set the tone by sharing his lifelong experience with blind educators: first
as a client, then as a professional, and now as a father of two blind
children. He spoke about the imperative for AER members to reach out to the
leadership and implore them to collaborate with blind consumers. Brent
Batron, immediate past president of the Colorado chapter of AER, spoke
about the positive outcomes for students when consumers and professionals
are working together. He emphasized that accreditation needs to involve all
players in the blindness field. Dr. Schroeder spoke about his own history
with the NFB, AER, and NAC. He reiterated the fundamental principle
"nothing about us without us," and the way accreditation can have value,
but only if consumers are included.
Dr. Edward Bell closed with more personal experiences in working
closely with AER members, but he cautioned that the organized blind's
opposition to an accreditation process that does not include us would
continue with a loud voice and collective action.
During the AER conference President Riccobono and Eric Guillory (AER
member and director of youth services at the Louisiana Center for the
Blind) met with AER's outgoing president, Joseph Catavero, and AER's
incoming president, Janie Blome, to discuss the issues surrounding
authentic accreditation. The meeting was cordial and honest. It was clear
that the AER leadership was somewhat disconnected from the concerns being
brought forward by the Federation. In our organization the elected leaders-
not the paid staff-run the organization and control the policy discussions.
Apparently in AER that is not the case. At the meeting we expressed real
concerns about the hostility being directed at the NFB for raising the
issue of continuing to perpetuate an outdated accreditation process. Of the
meeting, President Riccobono says, "We conveyed the message that
accreditation is not the most pressing issue in the blindness field and
that building accreditation without substantive involvement by the blind
from the beginning will never be a priority in the field."
The meeting did not provide any clarity on what AER's goals are with
respect to taking over the National Accreditation Council or how they
intend to engage elected leaders of the organized blind movement going
forward. All participants left the meeting with a hope that follow-up
meetings between the leadership of the respective organizations would,
however, create opportunities for the Federation's perspective to be
understood.
An important priority that came out of the AER Strike Committee was
to have a resolution passed at the NFB annual convention and a companion
resolution introduced by an NFB/AER member at the AER conference. The NFB
resolution was passed unanimously, and here is what it says:
Resolution 2018-02
Regarding the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and
Visually Impaired and the AER Accreditation Council
WHEREAS, beginning in 1967 and for approximately thirty-five years
thereafter, an organization known as the National Accreditation Council for
Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped (NAC) sought to control
education and rehabilitation services provided to the blind by means of so-
called standards leading to so-called accreditation; and
WHEREAS, NAC was the offspring of the American Foundation for the Blind
(AFB), created by AFB in direct response to the growing effectiveness of
the organized blind movement; and
WHEREAS, as opposition to NAC by the National Federation of the Blind and
others gained strength, the federal government, state agencies, schools for
the blind, and even the AFB itself withdrew their former support, financial
and otherwise, leading the AFB executive director to exclaim in speaking to
the NAC board in 2002 "What part of no more NAC don't you understand?"; and
WHEREAS, although the dreams of NAC to hold dominance over the blind have
lived on into the present decade, the independent voice of the blind has
been heard and respected and has prevailed; and
WHEREAS, NAC died, and on June 30, 2017, transferred all of its remaining
assets-$85,554-to AER; and
WHEREAS, AER has recently offered NFB a single seat on its National
Accreditation Council, only after repeated attempts by NFB to communicate
with AER about NAC; and
WHEREAS, this half-hearted offer of a single seat is the kind of tokenism
that doomed the original NAC to utter and complete failure and which,
unless altered, will eventually threaten the viability and very existence
of AER itself: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this seventh day of July, 2018, in the City of Orlando, Florida,
that this organization condemn and deplore AER'S insulting gesture of
tokenism toward the blind in the formation of its National Accreditation
Council; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that, as stated in our convention resolution 71-03
and repeated on many occasions since, it be made clear that: we do not
oppose proper accreditation properly done; we will be happy to participate
in and cooperate with any appropriately organized and democratically
constituted accrediting activity; and if the time should come that a
genuine accreditation system is created along democratic lines and blind
people have more than token representation in the governance of the
accreditation system and throughout the accreditation process, the National
Federation of the Blind pledges its willingness to work with AER and other
organizations truly to make services for the blind more relevant and
responsive to the needs of the blind than ever before.
The resolution submitted to AER was authored by Brent Batron of
Colorado and Michelle Chacon of New Mexico. The resolution was submitted to
the AER resolutions committee on time and in proper form. Here is what it
says:
Resolution of the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind
and Visually Impaired, July 2018
Accreditation of Blind and Low-vision Services
Resolution Number 2018 - XX
Authors: Brent Batron and Michelle Chacon
Whereas, the AER board of directors adopted the accreditation program of
the National Accreditation Council for Blind and Low Vision Services (NAC),
now under the executive management of AER, effective July 1, 2017;
Whereas, an announcement of this action was distributed to AER members and
others by AERBVI Member Services on August 31, 2017, noting AER'S new
mission statement: "The mission of AER is to serve and empower
professionals to deliver standards-based practices that lead to improved
educational and rehabilitative outcomes for individuals with visual
impairment and blindness;
Whereas, during its entire history as a free-standing organization devoted
to standards and accreditation of blind and low vision services, NAC was
unable to achieve widespread acceptance by agencies and schools in the
field of blindness and visual impairment, due largely to organized and
persistent opposition of blind consumers, especially opposition of the
National Federation of the Blind (NFB);
Whereas, for many years, as the battle between NFB and NAC intensified, the
conflict between these organizations came to symbolize a broader struggle
for control between agencies and professionals on the one hand and
organized blind consumers on the other;
Whereas, according to its official statements, NFB's opposition to NAC is
based on disagreements over the founding and structure of NAC as an
organization and does not reflect opposition by NFB to accreditation,
provided the accreditation is conducted in a fair and open manner with
equal opportunity for consumers and providers to engage with one another
and collaborate in meaningful ways throughout the accreditation process;
Whereas, in adopting executive management of the NAC accreditation program
it is the policy of AER to respect the independent voice of blind
consumers, the right of the blind to organize for self-expression,
collective action, and the right of the blind to meaningful participation
in design and implementation of accreditation of programs affecting their
lives; now, therefore, be it
Resolved, by the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind
and Visually Impaired (AER), on this twenty-eighth day of July, 2018, in
the city of Reno, Nevada, that:
this organization, through its President and Executive Director, shall
invite the NFB to establish and carry out a joint project to be known as
"Vision 2020: A New Accreditation Program for Blind and Low Vision
Services"; that this project so created shall consist of a joint
consumer/provider Committee on Accreditation of Blind and Low Vision
Services, with the goal of balanced (equal) opportunities for consumer and
provider representation on the Committee; and the charge of the Committee
so created shall be:
1) to identify goals and objectives of mutual interest which could be met
by means of a joint consumer/provider accreditation process;
2) to develop a conceptual outline describing how a proposed joint
consumer/provider accreditation process would work, including
organization, membership, governance, structure, duties, and funding;
and
3) to report its findings and recommendations to the governing boards of
both AER and NFB on or before January 1, 2020 in order for each
organization to plan and take appropriate action in response to the
report at its next regularly scheduled national conference to be held
during that year;
Nothing in this resolution shall affect current implementation plans of the
AER Accreditation Program as announced on August 31, 2017, unless otherwise
determined by further action of the AER Board of Directors.
This was the resolution submitted to AER under its rules. Brent
Batron and Eric Guillory attended the business meeting at the AER
International Conference; only AER members were allowed in the room. This
was because the AER leadership feared, without cause, that the NFB was
planning on a hostile takeover of its meeting. Of course this was never the
case. The NFB members who attended the AER Conference conducted themselves
as the professionals they are.
When the Batron/Chacon resolution was introduced, Kathryn Botsford
called for the floor to offer a substitute resolution. The substitute
resolution took most of what was offered in the original except it inserted
the term visually impaired in a number of places and it changed the intent
of the resolution, watering down the specific olive branch from AER to NFB
which was the call to action of the original resolution. Even though this
was a resolution that specifically involved AER, NFB, and the accreditation
process, some mysterious faction wanted other organizations to be the focus
not the National Federation of the Blind. The opposition to NAC and its
fraudulent practices were led by members of the NFB. Other groups may have
agreed with us, but none stepped up to speak or rally their forces against
NAC. When the substitute resolution was offered, it was done as a so-called
"friendly amendment" to the original resolution. Brent Batron explained
that the friendly amendment was not accepted because it changed the intent
of the resolution in building a bridge between AER and the powerful
consumer voice represented through the National Federation of the Blind.
Chaos ensued as the meeting became a discussion about the proper
procedure for dealing with the situation. During the period of uncertainty
it became clear that the Batron/Chacon resolution and the spirit with which
it was offered was favored by a number of long-time AER members in the
room. Rather than taking a straight up or down vote on the Batron/Chacon
resolution, the AER membership had no direction until out of nowhere came
Mark Richert, director, public policy for the American Foundation for the
Blind and former executive director of AER, who moved adoption of the
substitute resolution and, in effect proposed to burn the bridge that was
being offered between the organizations. It is my understanding that AER
has specific policies regarding when a resolution must be submitted, and
nowhere is there any provision for inserting a substitute resolution or
denying a straight up-and-down vote on one that has been submitted
according to AER rules. Bypassing protocol, fairness, and openness in favor
of control, the AER leadership presented and voted on a substitute
resolution without addressing the real concerns of its members as offered
in the original Batron/Chacon resolution. While the substitute resolution
passed, it had the lowest support of any of the resolutions considered
during the meeting. Thus, AER has once again made a positive decision not
to strengthen the relationship with the organized blind movement. Here is
the resolution that was placed on the floor in violation of AER policy and
considered instead of the Batron/Chacon resolution:
Proposed Resolution of the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of
the
Blind and Visually Impaired: July 2018
Accreditation of Blind and Low-vision Services
Resolution Number 2018 - 4
Authors: Brent Batron and Michelle Chacon
Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute
Whereas the AER board of directors adopted the accreditation program of the
National Accreditation Council for Blind and Low Vision Services (NAC), now
under the executive management of AER, effective July 1, 2017;
Whereas an announcement of this action was distributed to AER members and
others by AERBVI Member Services on August 31, 2017, noting AER'S new
mission statement: "The mission of AER is to serve and empower
professionals to deliver standards-based practices that lead to improved
educational and rehabilitative outcomes for individuals with visual
impairment and blindness;
Whereas during its entire history as a free-standing organization devoted
to standards and accreditation of services for people with blindness and
low vision, NAC was unable to achieve widespread acceptance by agencies and
schools in the field of blindness and visual impairment, due largely to
organized and persistent opposition of consumers with visual impairments,
especially opposition of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB);
Whereas according to its official statements, NFB's opposition to NAC is
based on disagreements over the founding and structure of NAC as an
organization and does not reflect opposition by NFB to accreditation,
provided the accreditation is conducted in a fair and open manner with
equal opportunity for consumers and providers to engage with one another
and collaborate in meaningful ways throughout the accreditation process;
and
Whereas, in adopting executive management of the NAC accreditation program
it is the policy of AER to respect the independent voice of consumers who
are blind or visually impaired, the right of people who are blind or
visually impaired to organize for self-expression, collective action, and
the right of people who are blind or visually impaired to meaningful
participation in design and implementation of accreditation of programs
affecting their lives; now, therefore,
Be It Resolved, by the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the
Blind and Visually Impaired (AER), on this twenty-eighth day of July 2018,
in the city of Reno, Nevada, that this organization, through its Board of
Directors:
1. shall invite the NFB, the American Council of the Blind (ACB), and
other such national organizations of consumers who are blind or
visually impaired and their families as the board may identify to
establish and carry out a collaborative project to be known as "Vision
2020: A New Accreditation Program for Blind and Low Vision Services";
this project so created shall consist of a consumer/provider Committee
on Accreditation of Blind and Low Vision Services, with the goal of
balanced (equal) opportunities for consumer and provider
representation on the Committee; and
2. shall give the following charge to the Committee, so created:
a) to identify goals and objectives of mutual interest which could
be met by means of a consumer/provider accreditation process;
b) to develop a conceptual outline describing how a proposed
consumer/provider accreditation process would work, including
organization, membership, governance, structure, duties, and
funding; and
c) to report its findings and recommendations to the AER Board of
Directors which shall communicate such findings to the governing
boards of collaborating organizations and to the AER membership
on or before January 1, 2020, in order for each organization to
plan and take appropriate action in response to the report at
its next regularly scheduled national conference to be held
during that year; and
3. affirms that nothing in this resolution shall affect current
implementation plans of the AER Accreditation Program as announced on
August 31, 2017, unless otherwise determined by further action of the
AER Board of Directors.
There you have the resolution that was submitted, denying an up or
down vote on the Batron/Chacon resolution. Throughout sessions held during
the conference, Dr. Tutt kept proclaiming that NAC is dead. With this
sentiment we most readily agree, but so too is the newly named effort if it
fails to deal with the foundational problems that haunted NAC from its very
beginnings. Cooperation and collaboration should be the spirit of the day,
but nothing to this point suggests that AER wishes to make a clean break
with the past and embrace the voice of consumers. Because we have the most
to gain, the most to lose, and are the direct recipients of services funded
by governmental and private entities, we intend to have a voice in which
agencies get the stamp of approval by the blind and which do not. The days
of accreditation without meaningful standards are dead; the days of
accreditation based on the mere payment of dues are over; the days of
accreditation without meaningful representation by elected blind leaders of
the blind are over. The only question is whether major players in the field
can come together to work out a process or whether this conflict will have
a more public face because the public, the state legislatures, the federal
regulators, and even the United States Congress will become involved if
blind people are not meaningfully included.
Overall, the work of the AER Strike Committee and the NFB members who
attended the AER Conference was effective. It truly feels like progress has
been made toward bridging what gaps exist between educators of the blind
and the consumers they serve. This progress is being made because of the
leaders of the National Federation of the Blind and despite the lack of
real action by leaders of the Association for the Education and
Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired. Let no one be deceived:
There is still much work to be done.
On a positive note, AER has a new president and will soon have a new
executive director. On the other hand, the AER Accreditation Council goes
on, and the word at the AER Conference was that none other than Lou Tutt
will manage that work once he leaves his post as executive director of AER.
How will this new leadership respond to the call for collaboration by many
of its members at the AER Conference? We already know what Lou Tutt will do
at the helm of the AER Accreditation Council. According to AER's website,
https://aerbvi.org/the-national-accreditation-council/ "The standards for
accreditation are set by a peer Council whose members include professionals
who are skilled and experienced with program administration, systems,
educational and rehabilitation protocols and service delivery." Where are
consumers and the elected representatives of consumers in this process?
They are not reflected in this mission statement. This does not appear to
be a collaborative process AER is embarking on, but where there is change,
there is hope!
Where once blind people were only the recipients of service, today we
are also the providers. We have agency administrators who are blind, and
they oversee some of the most well-run programs that provide the best
services in the country. To new people in the field, this kind of consumer
involvement in the provision of service and staff will seem normal, nothing
about us without us being the creed they've adopted in their careers. But
the history of work with the blind shows that the concept is relatively new
and not beyond the traditional powers to test, to question, and to work
against. We will meet that test; we will not let NAC or its successor
organization run our lives or the agencies that exist to help us make our
lives better. We have the most to win or lose, we hold the power, and we
intend to exercise it on behalf of blind people!
As President Riccobono says, "The AER Strike revealed that
accreditation of programs in the blindness field is not the most pressing
concern of the professionals in the trenches. We have successfully guarded
the field from takeover by a problematic accreditation system which is now
dead, but we must not get so comfortable that we fail to guard against
future threats. More importantly, we need to build for the future. We
intend to link arms with those highly committed and open-minded
professionals that we encountered in Reno, and together we will set the
standard of excellence in services for the blind.
----------
Honesty and Telling It Like It Is
by Gary Wunder
In the Braille Monitor for June 2018, we ran an article by Rocky Hart.
It was entitled "My First Day at the State Capitol." On reflection, Rocky
remembers that this was his first day at the capitol on behalf of the
National Federation of the Blind but that in fact he had been to the
capitol on several occasions. Here is what he says to clarify:
Hello Mr. Wunder:
This past June, the Monitor ran an article about my most recent trip
to the Minnesota state capitol. The article and the introduction which
accompanied it stated that this was my first visit to the capitol. I would
like to clarify that this was not, in fact, my first visit, but the first
day I participated in any direct educating on behalf of the NFB of
Minnesota. I had visited the capitol twice prior to this, once for lobbying
for budgetary requests for the Minnesota State Academy for the Blind, and
second in observance of White Cane Safety Awareness Day in October of last
year.
In the first draft of the article, the phrase "Day at the Capitol"
was listed in quotations. I would like to offer my sincere apology to the
readers of the Monitor for misleading them in believing that this was my
first visit. I would appreciate having this published if at all possible
since I highly value honesty and accuracy. Thank you, once again, for
publishing the article, and I look forward to hearing from you.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Carlton Walker]
From My Blind Child to Our Blind Children-
Why the National Federation of the Blind Is the Answer
by Carlton Walker
From the Editor: Carlton Walker is one of the most interesting people
you are likely to meet. When it comes to brains, she has an abundance of
them. When it comes to motivation, she has more than her share. When it
comes to education, she absorbs knowledge like a sponge, and she is not
intimidated by the need to get more of it. When it comes to passion and
love for her blind child, there is no calibrated scale that can measure
that which is infinite.
We work hard to get our children the education they deserve, and we
know that environmental integration is not the same as educational
integration. When Carlton learned this, she threw herself into doing
something about it. Here is the speech she gave at the 2018 NFB National
Convention on Sunday, July 8:
Good morning, my friends. I thank the National Federation of the
Blind and our President, Mark Riccobono, for inviting me to speak with you
today. I also thank you for being here. Each of us has the power to change
the world every day; today, you are taking the opportunity to do so.
Since I was in eighth grade, I have wanted to be an attorney. I
started my own law firm in 1997, and I still continue to serve clients in
my solo practice. In 2008, I returned to school and earned a master's
degree in education and Pennsylvania certification in teaching students
with visual and multiple impairments. I taught students in South Central
Pennsylvania for more than six years, and I then moved to the National
Federation of the Blind, where I served as the manager of Braille education
programs for almost two years.
Like many parents of blind children, blindness and blindness
education became part of my life because of my child, Anna Catherine. Early
on, blindness was not a factor in her life or in ours. Soon after she was
born, she had many health issues, underwent many tests and surgeries, and
spent way too much of the first year of her life in hospital beds.
In mid-December 2001, Anna Catherine was not yet nine months old, but
she was hospitalized again. When we took her home, she was on twenty-four-
hour oxygen, on continuous feeds with a feeding tube, and on a heart-lung
monitor at night. Before we left the hospital, the doctors told us that the
upcoming Christmas would likely be our last with her. We were devastated.
In the spring of 2002, after a change in hospitals and doctors, Anna
Catherine gradually began to improve. Anna Catherine was still very delayed
physically, and she received services under Part C of the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act (which refers to services for children who are
not yet school age). She also had privately-provided weekly physical
therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, oral-motor therapy, and
aquatherapy; we were on the road a lot and were very, very busy. In her
second year of life, with all these supports, Anna Catherine started to
make those first-year milestones. Things were looking up.
In June of 2003 (after we had celebrated TWO Christmases with her),
Anna Catherine finally began to eat and drink by mouth as a result of a
month of an in-patient feeding therapy program, and we got rid of the
feeding tube. We believed that her struggles would soon be over.
I knew that lazy eye (amblyopia) runs in my family, and Anna
Catherine's eyes never acted like most children's, so I took her to a
pediatric ophthalmologist-to wrap up that loose end.
After testing, the doctor came into the examining room ashen-faced.
He was unable to make eye contact or even speak. I was terrified. After
about a minute of silence, I asked fearfully, "Is she going to die?"
He quickly said, "No" and launched into a bunch of medical jargon. I
was still reeling from his earlier behavior, so I didn't exactly catch what
he was saying. From my point of view, Anna Catherine was doing well and
starting to eat and drink by mouth-for the first time in two years. Though
her vision did not seem to be affecting her life, her father and I delved
into the world of pediatric ophthalmology.
As months passed, we had more visits and tests with ophthalmologists,
including the wonderful ERG (electroretinogram). My little girl had no
central vision, only spotty peripheral vision, and her visual acuity was
20/400. My sweet toddler was legally blind.
In the ensuing years, my husband, Anna Catherine, and I learned A LOT
about visual impairment and blindness. Anna Catherine already had been
receiving terrific services from physical, occupational, and speech
therapists. We assumed that services related to her blindness would be
similar. Well, you know what they say about assuming ...
Even though I asked, the school would not assess for services related
to her blindness. I was told that those services are really more school-
oriented and that I should wait for her transition to an IEP-in six months.
I didn't know better, so I accepted what they said. When Anna Catherine was
finally assessed, I was told that she would be a large print reader. After
all, she could read seventy-two-point font text at four to six inches.
This didn't sound right, but what did I know? I was a mother, an
attorney-not an "educational professional." I did do some research of my
own into non-school services. Through a series of fortunate accidents, I
learned about an upcoming conference in Baltimore, Maryland, the
"Beginnings and Blueprints" Early Childhood Conference sponsored by a group
called the National Federation of the Blind. At the time, I wasn't sure how
much help it would provide-after all, Anna Catherine could see things.
Nevertheless, my husband, Stephen, Anna Catherine, and I left home on the
evening of May 5 in 2005 headed toward Baltimore. Little did we know how
much our lives would change-for the better-as a result of that weekend.
At the NFB Jernigan Institute in Baltimore, we learned about the
importance of Braille, cane travel, and nonvisual skills-even for our
daughter, who could still see some. We learned that our daughter's future
success would not be measured by her remaining vision; it would be measured
by her facility with blindness skills. But, most importantly, we met
competent, confident blind adults-and these blind adults cared about all of
us and wanted to provide us the knowledge, skills, tools, support, and love
needed to help Anna Catherine grow into the independent, confident young
woman she has the right to be.
Truly, it was a transformative weekend. However, when we returned
home, nothing at school had changed. We understood that Anna Catherine
needed blindness skills, but her "teacher of the visually impaired"
disagreed. So began the IEP Wars. Like the Clone Wars from Star Wars, the
IEP Wars involved multiple battles against powerful antagonists.
There were the Braille battles. It took months of emails, telephone
calls, meetings, and an Independent Educational Evaluation to get Braille
instruction started. Once instruction started, it was slow. The teacher
told Anna Catherine that Braille was hard-not a particularly successful
educational strategy. She told me that Anna Catherine was "too tactually
defensive" to learn Braille-not a particularly effective means of
encouraging parental involvement. During those months, I was on the phone
with the mentors I had met at NFB. They were my Yoda-highly intelligent
voices of calm and reason to guide me through these battles.
Later we engaged in the O&M (orientation and mobility) battles.
Ridiculous "assessments" supposedly indicated that Anna Catherine did not
need orientation and mobility instruction. I challenged them with the
knowledge my NFB mentors taught me. We lost the O&M Battle, but guess what?
We didn't really lose. NFB resources taught us how to be our child's first
O&M instructors and to teach her to use the NFB long white cane.
In elementary school, there were the Cane Battles. When we demanded
that Anna Catherine be allowed to bring her NFB-provided long white cane to
school, the teacher told the IEP team that long canes are dangerous-because
little boys running in the hall could trip over them. Thanks to my NFB
mentors, I was prepared for this foolish statement: I asked the principal
if little boys were allowed to run in the halls of her school. We won this
battle, but there were others-about cane storage, cane technique, canes on
the playground, forced sighted guide during emergency drills, etc.
Truly, a show entitled "IEP Wars" could yield many seasons of
episodes for the viewer. Unlike the Clone Wars, however, IEP Wars are not
science fiction; they are the reality for thousands of blind children, and
IEP Wars continue to be fought every day across this nation. None of these
fights are necessary. Students, families, teachers, schools, communities,
and future employers would be far better off if we could end IEP Wars and
provide blind children the educational services and tools which will
provide the free appropriate public education to which they are legally
entitled.
So why was there so much fighting? The simple and sad reason is this:
school officials did not treat Anna Catherine as a full-fledged student who
belonged in their school. I am sad to report that Anna Catherine is not the
only blind student who has lived through these battles. After years of
needless conflict, I have determined that these battles result from schools
taking three unfortunate stances in relation to our children's and
student's education:
First, many teachers and administrators treat our students as
"special" cases and throw out the educational principles they apply to
every other student in the school. Too many teachers' expectations of our
students plummet the moment they learn that the child is blind/visually-
impaired/has low vision. Instead of providing students the instruction and
tools they need to engage as full-fledged students, these kindly teachers
and administrators try to remove the need in various ways:
. They offer to provide audio books and human scribes
instead of teaching students to read and write
Braille.
. They offer to provide human guides or allow students
to leave class early to get through empty halls
instead of teaching independent cane travel.
. They offer to "excuse" students from "visual"
assignments instead of making the assignment
accessible and meaningful.
Their motives may be pure, but they are killing our students with
their "kindness."
Second, many teachers assume that, if a student can see some things,
the student is not really blind. Sadly, this is especially a problem among
teachers of students with blindness/visual impairment and orientation and
mobility specialists- educators of blind students, the very educators who
should know better. Even today, a great number of "professional educators"
strive to "maximize" the student's vision, despite the fact that vision is
not effective, efficient, or reliable for many, or most, academic and
functional tasks.
. Far too many educators of blind students encourage
the use of digital video magnifiers (CCTVs) even in
early grades-when print is already very enlarged.
This is very inefficient in terms of mechanically
moving through print which shows only a few words at
a time AND in terms of sustainability: eye strain,
headaches, and spine curvature are so common that
they are considered by some to be acceptable "side
effects," but Braille instruction is considered
unnecessary.
. Far too many educators of blind students bend over
backward to avoid long white canes. They put
reflective tape on floors and stairs and paint on
curbs throughout the school and home. Some will even
lobby local businesses to do the same-so that
students can get out into the community. They make
certain that there is a human guide on any school
field trip. But they continue to report that the
student "is not in need of" cane travel instruction.
. Far too many educators of blind students encourage
the use of magnification software, computer mice,
enlarged-letter keyboards, and other vision-dependent
technologies and withhold instruction in touch-typing
and accessible software. This is despite years of
research which show that touch-typing is much, much
more efficient for all individuals-regardless of
vision.
In other words, in all areas of a blind student's educational life,
far too many educators of blind students focus on maximizing vision use-
instead of maximizing the student and student's capabilities.
Third, many people believe that "technology has made Braille
obsolete," and there is an unfortunately high number of educators in the
blindness field who perpetuate this fallacy.
. Can any of us imagine a regular education teacher
refusing to teach reading and writing because,
"technology has made print obsolete?"
. How quickly do you think that such a teacher would be
fired or at least put on administrative leave on the
way out the door?
. And yet, these lies, and yes: they are lies, are
being spread about Braille-and our students are left
illiterate.
So why is this the case, and what can we do about it?
Well, after just a few years of IEP Wars in Anna Catherine's early
elementary education, Stephen and I realized that we could not rely on her
teachers to provide the education our daughter needed. Though my law
practice was now growing, I cut back on work and started taking classes to
become a teacher in the blindness field. At that time the excellent program
at Louisiana Tech did not offer online options (it does now), and I lived
in very rural South-Central Pennsylvania. A Pennsylvania institution
offered online classes, so I chose to get my certification there.
What an experience. My program required six semesters of learning
about "visual efficiency" and "low vision" devices, but there was only one
class for learning Braille. We also had three whole days of summer
instruction in Nemeth Code and abacus. That's right, the entire class
lasted only three days. And guess what? The program I went through had more
Braille than many other programs which purport to train teachers to teach
blind students.
Is it any wonder that so many graduates of these programs gravitate
toward vision and away from the Braille and Nemeth Code their students need
for success?
In my orientation and mobility class, we met in-person on six
separate evenings. We were exposed to and got to touch and use canes on
only one of those evenings, and, out of the two dozen canes we could use
for "practice," only two were long white canes. Is it any wonder that so
many graduates of these programs gravitate toward protection and guide
techniques, "pre-canes" and "identification canes" and away from the long
white canes that can allow their students to achieve independent travel
skills?
Our Independent Living Skills course consisted of online coursework
and one day of on-campus activity. We used sleep shades during those on-
campus activities (such as spreading peanut butter on bread and folding
money for identification), and we spent the afternoon eating a meal under
sleep shades. While these were good activities, they were rushed, and we
did not have time to practice them and become comfortable with them.
Is it any wonder that so many graduates of these programs remain
uncomfortable with nonvisual techniques-even when those techniques would
allow their students to perform tasks more efficiently and effectively?
As you can see, many programs which prepare men and women to teach
blind students focus on vision and give short shrift to nonvisual tools and
techniques. However, this is not the greatest weakness of those programs.
The greatest weakness, by far, is the lack of interaction with competent
blind adults. Truly, it is startling. Every one of my professors was
typically-sighted, like I am. While we sighted people are nice enough, we
are not experts on blindness. How can any teacher prepare students to be
competent blind adults when that instructor has little to no interaction
with competent blind adults, much less authentic and meaningful
relationships with the blind adults who daily use the skills our students
need to succeed?
Obviously, traditional programs are not adequately preparing teachers
of blind students, so now we know the answer to why so many school
officials resist and even fight teaching our students blindness skills.
Now, what can we do about it?
The title of this presentation tells us: the National Federation of
the Blind is the answer. The National Federation of the Blind provides the
knowledge, resources, and, most importantly, the blind adults who can
change the trajectory of the lives of blind children.
The NFB offers 24/7/365 mentorship for blind individuals and their
families, tools (like free white canes, and free slates and styluses, and
free Braille books from the American Action Fund), and resources (like
Future Reflections magazine, the Braille Monitor, the NFB BELL Academy, and
our STEM programs).
Why does NFB offer mentorship, tools, and resources?
We offer mentorship, tools, and resources because the National
Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the characteristic that
defines you or your future. Every day we raise the expectations of blind
people, because low expectations create obstacles between blind people and
our dreams. You can live the life you want; blindness is not what holds you
back.
My fellow Federationists, we can and we must share the truth: blind
children can have the lives they want, and we will not allow any low
expectations of "professionals" to hold them back. We will share with them
everything the National Federation of the Blind and our members have to
offer, and we will do this through another N-F-B: Nurture, Formulate, and
Believe.
N-Nurture: We will Nurture our blind children and their families. We
will get to know them and invite them to know us. We will share meals,
events, laughter, and tears. We will foster meaningful, long-lasting
relationships with them, and they will become members of our Federation
Family.
F-Formulate: We will Formulate plans to help our blind children gain
the skills they need in school, in their communities, and in life. We will
help them bring these formulations to schools, and we will demand that the
schools teach our children. Teach our children Braille (including Nemeth
Code and Music Braille). Teach our children cane travel and orientation
skills. Teach our children nonvisual skills, both high-tech and low-tech.
In other words, provide our children the free appropriate public education
to which they are entitled and which has been the law of our land for more
than four decades.
B-Believe: We will Believe in our blind children, no matter what
obstacles come up. We will remind them to Believe in themselves. We will
model Believing in them for all the world to see. We will show them that
they are not impaired, no matter what their vision is or is not. Visual
function does not define a person any more than does height, race, or a
multitude of other characteristics. Do these characteristics affect how the
child develops? Probably, but they do not define the child. We will make
certain that they know that our children are far, far more important than
what they can or cannot see.
My Federation family, please join me. Join me in proclaiming to blind
children and adults across this great nation-the National Federation of the
Blind is the answer, and we are with you every step of the way.
----------
Leave a Legacy
For more than seventy-five years the National Federation of the Blind
has worked to transform the dreams of hundreds of thousands of blind people
into reality, and with your support we will continue to do so for decades
to come. We sincerely hope you will plan to be a part of our enduring
movement by adding the National Federation of the Blind as a partial
beneficiary in your will. A gift to the National Federation of the Blind in
your will is more than just a charitable, tax-deductible donation. It is a
way to join in the work to help blind people live the lives they want that
leaves a lasting imprint on the lives of thousands of blind children and
adults.
With your help, the NFB will continue to:
. Give blind children the gift of literacy through Braille;
. Promote the independent travel of the blind by providing free, long
white canes to blind people in need;
. Develop dynamic educational projects and programs that show blind
youth that science and math are within their reach;
. Deliver hundreds of accessible newspapers and magazines to provide
blind people the essential information necessary to be actively
involved in their communities;
. Offer aids and appliances that help seniors losing vision maintain
their independence; and
. Fund scholarship programs so that blind people can achieve their
dreams.
Plan to Leave a Legacy
Creating a will gives you the final say in what happens to your
possessions and is the only way to be sure that your remaining assets are
distributed according to your passions and beliefs. Many people fear
creating a will or believe it's not necessary until they are much older.
Others think that it's expensive and confusing. However, it is one of the
most important things you will do, and with new online legal programs it is
easier and cheaper than ever before. If you do decide to create or revise
your will, consider the National Federation of the Blind as a partial
beneficiary. Visit www.nfb.org/planned-giving or call 410-659-9314,
extension 2422, for more information. Together with love, hope,
determination, and your support, we will continue to transform dreams into
reality.
Invest in Opportunity
The National Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the
characteristic that defines you or your future. You can live the life you
want; blindness is not what holds you back. A donation to the National
Federation of the Blind allows you to invest in a movement that removes the
fear from blindness. Your investment is your vote of confidence in the
value and capacity of blind people and reflects the high expectations we
have for all blind Americans, combating the low expectations that create
obstacles between blind people and our dreams.
In 2017 the NFB:
. Distributed over seven thousand canes to blind people across the
United States, empowering them to travel safely and independently
throughout their communities.
. Hosted forty-eight NFB BELL Academy programs, which served more than
three hundred and fifty blind students throughout the United States.
. Provided over one hundred thousand dollars in scholarships to blind
students, making a post-secondary education affordable and attainable.
. Delivered audio newspaper and magazine services to 118,900
subscribers, providing free access to over five hundred local,
national, and international publications.
. In the third year of the program, over three hundred fifty Braille-
writing slates and styluses were given free of charge to blind users.
Just imagine what we'll do next year, and, with your help, what can
be accomplished for years to come. Below are just a few of the many
diverse, tax-deductible ways you can lend your support to the National
Federation of the Blind.
Vehicle Donation Program
The NFB now accepts donated vehicles, including cars, trucks, boats,
motorcycles, or recreational vehicles. Just call 855-659-9314 toll-free,
and a representative can make arrangements to pick up your donation-it
doesn't have to be working. We can also answer any questions you have.
General Donation
General donations help support the ongoing programs of the NFB and
the work to help blind people live the lives they want. Donate online with
a credit card or through the mail with check or money order. Visit
www.nfb.org/make-gift for more information.
Bequests
Even if you can't afford a gift right now, including the National
Federation of the Blind in your will enables you to contribute by
expressing your commitment to the organization and promises support for
future generations of blind people across the country. Visit
www.nfb.org/planned-giving or call 410-659-9314, extension 2422, for more
information.
Pre-Authorized Contribution
Through the Pre-Authorized Contribution (PAC) program, supporters
sustain the efforts of the National Federation of the Blind by making
recurring monthly donations by direct withdraw of funds from a checking
account or a charge to a credit card. To enroll, visit www.nfb.org/make-
gift, and complete the Pre-Authorized Contribution form, and return it to
the address listed on the form.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Isaac Lidsky]
Overcoming Obstacles and Recognizing Opportunities:
A Blind Entrepreneur Breaks through Barriers Everywhere He Builds
by Isaac Lidsky
From the Editor: This presentation was made late on the morning of
July 7, 2018, and, as President Riccobono noted, it stood between us and
lunch but was well worth staying to hear. In his introduction he related
the long list of accomplishments by Mr. Lidsky, including his start out as
a childhood actor, graduating from Harvard at the age of nineteen with two
degrees (one in mathematics and the other in computer science), becoming a
lawyer, working as a clerk for two Supreme Court justices, cofounding an
internet startup, and now working as an entrepreneur in central Florida
running a company that does $250 million in business every year.
In this article we find not only the celebration of accomplishment
but the misunderstandings about blindness that can come between us and our
dreams. What Mr. Lidsky has been able to do is remember his own
misconceptions about blindness and treat others with gentleness and
compassion when they manifest the same. He makes a case both for empathy
and education, and his strategies for breaking through obstacles and
converting them into opportunities are well worth noting and incorporating
into our own lives. Here is what he said:
When Dorothy was a little girl, she was fascinated by her pet
goldfish. Her father explained to her that fish swim by quickly wagging
their tails to propel themselves through the water. Well, without any
hesitation or doubt, little Dorothy responded: "Yes, daddy, and fish swim
backward by wagging their heads." Now in her young mind this was a fact as
true as any other fact. Fish swim backward by wagging their heads. She
believed it.
Our lives are full of fish swimming backward. We make assumptions and
faulty leaps of logic. We harbor biases; we know that we're right and
they're wrong; we fear the worst, we strive for unattainable perfection, we
perpetuate our insecurities and vanities, we struggle to listen to each
other and to our own hearts, we tell ourselves what we can and cannot do.
In our minds fish swim by in reverse, frantically wagging their heads, and
we don't notice them. Now these pesky, unnoticed fish can be particularly
problematic when it comes to so-called disabilities. People make all sorts
of assumptions about disabilities. That's not news to anyone here, right?
We are all pretty familiar with that idea. The thing is, we are wired to do
it. Our brains build up a vast database of experiences, and we reason from
those experiences. We are wired in our brains to predict, to infer, to
assume. We take that which we understand, that which is familiar to us, and
we try to apply or extend it to the new circumstances we confront.
So what happens when we confront that which is entirely unfamiliar?
What happens when our mental database has no relevant or useful
information? What happens when we have no basis to understand what we're
confronting? Well, often, fear happens, and anxiety, and self-doubt, and
awfulizing.
My childhood was a Hollywood fairytale. I was born into a middle-
class family in America to parents who loved me and nurtured me. I never
had to worry about food, shelter, clothing, education, healthcare. Blessed
with a powerful intellect, school came easy to me, and I really enjoyed it.
As you heard earlier, the Hollywood part-I mean literally. I grew up
acting: I did somewhere between 100 and 150 commercials, got some small
parts in some big things, some big parts in some small things, and then I
got that lucky break: Weasel Wyzell on NBC's Saved by the Bell-that dorky,
nerdy character. I'll tell you that as a young boy, it was really an acting
challenge for me to get inside the mind of a young dorky boy-it took a lot
of acting.
So I grew up with the world in my hands, and then, at age thirteen,
I'm diagnosed with this rare disease called retinitis pigmentosa or RP. Now
I was unaware of any symptoms at the time. In fact, I would've sworn that
my eyes were perfectly healthy. Still, the expert told me that I had this
disease, and it would cause my sight to fade to blindness. I was thirteen
and going blind.
Now I didn't know the first thing about blindness, right? So what
happens? Well, fear, and anxiety, and self-doubt, and awfulizing-that's
what happened. They did their work, and with a bunch of lies they made
blindness familiar to me. They told me "You understand blindness just fine
enough-thank you very much." I believed them, and so I adopted their story
about blindness.
Here's what I thought I knew about blindness when I was thirteen,
having just been diagnosed. Blindness will ruin my life. Blindness is a
death sentence for my independence. Blindness is the end of achievement for
me. Blindness means that I'm going to live a wholly unremarkable life,
likely alone. No one is going to love or respect me; I'm not going to love
or respect myself. I'll probably never be a father, which is probably for
the better. On and on and on it went, and that's what I knew about
blindness when I was thirteen years old and diagnosed.
Now, of course, none of that happened. Of course, that awful reality
was a lie; it was fiction [applause]. I was eventually able to see that, to
move through it, to choose who I wanted to be and how I wanted to live my
life. I broke fear's spell, and I built a very blessed life for myself-with
plenty of children by the way. I have three children who will turn eight in
September-that's a phenomenon doctors call triplets, incidentally-so the
tripskies, Lily Louise, Phineas, and Thaddeus will be eight in September,
and sweet baby Clementine is two-and-a-half. I am immensely grateful.
So why am I prattling on and telling you all of this? Well I'd like
to leave you with two points, if I may. First point: If I had not learned
to see through the reality of my fears, eyes wide open, the awful life
those fears foretold could have become my reality. I would've lived that
life. I'm absolutely certain of that fact, and it's such an important point
that I want to say it again. If I hadn't figured out for myself how to
discover my own truth about blindness, I would've lived the truth of my
fears. I'll ask you what you fear and how your fears might shape the
reality you're creating for yourself?
Second point: Whether we like it or not, when it comes to blindness,
many sighted people and others-many people-live in that world of fear. They
don't understand it, they're afraid of it, and they assume that blindness
essentially ruins your life. They think a blind life is a sad life, a
partial life, a pity. Now that is an extremely painful fact, and I wish it
weren't true. I deeply, deeply wish it weren't true. But I know it's true
because I grew up as such a person. I can remember what I first thought
about blindness when I was first diagnosed. I remember it as if it were
yesterday. I cringe when I remember it. I'm embarrassed, I feel guilty. How
could I, of all people, have harbored such awful and erroneous thoughts
about blindness? How could I have been so biased? The answer is simple: I
was wired that way. Until I was forced to learn more about it, forced to
really understand it, forced to confront it, my default assumption was that
blindness was pure terror for me. If I'm honest, it wasn't just blindness.
I made all sorts of baseless assumptions about other people and their lives
and their abilities. I still do, though now I'm far more aware of it.
So, was I a bad person as a kid? Did I knowingly discriminate? Did I
intentionally behave in ways that excluded some and stacked the deck
against others? No. I was human, still am. Looking back at my young self,
I'm not angry; I'm sad. I'm sad at how little I understood; I'm sad that I
wasted so much time and energy and thought tormenting myself with dark
imaginings. I'm sad that my unenlightened perspectives about life and
disability may have disadvantaged others and certainly disadvantaged me. I
want to go back and hug that young boy, I want to reassure him that he's
going to live a beautiful life, I want to teach him the true meaning of
ability and disability. [applause] I want to teach him the true meaning of
success and value and joy.
As a blind man I confront other people's incorrect assumptions about
my life and my ability every day. Are those assumptions frustrating? Almost
always. Do they feel demeaning to me? Often. Do they make me angry?
Sometimes. But then I remember that young boy who knew about blindness and
how it would destroy his life. I remind myself that, like that young boy,
those who make assumptions about me and my blindness-they have their own
fears and their own anxieties and their own self-doubts. I remind myself
that what I really want is for them to understand. If we want to be
understood, we must aim to help others understand. [applause] We must teach
not with anger or hate or bitterness or resentment. We must teach with
humanity. We are wired to do that too if we so choose. I think that's the
right choice. Thank you.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Mark Riccobono]
The Senate Must Act on Legislation So Americans can
Reap the Benefits of Autonomous Vehicles
by Mark Riccobono
From the Editor: This editorial is reprinted with permission of The
Hill. It originally appeared on July 31, 2018:
The myriad benefits of autonomous vehicles (AVs) are remarkable.
Beginning with greater independence and enhanced mobility options for those
who cannot or do not drive, to dramatically reduced road fatalities and
declines in traffic congestion, the autonomous vehicle revolution promises
many positive changes across the country and around the world.
The National Federation of the Blind, the country's largest
organization of blind people, has been especially enthusiastic about this
exciting innovation. While blind Americans are already mobile and regularly
use available transportation, we face challenges related to insufficient
public transportation networks, inadequate paratransit systems, and issues
of disconnectedness for those of us who may prefer to live in small towns
and rural areas. These challenges play a role in driving suboptimal
employment outcomes, a poverty rate that is double the national average,
and community disengagement among people with disabilities.
The AV START Act of 2017 (S. 1885) is a bipartisan bill that would
lay the groundwork for the safe and rapid deployment of AVs. This bill will
ensure a coherent federal framework for the proliferation of this life-
changing technology while also clarifying the vital role that states and
localities will play in their traditional jurisdictions.
Most importantly from our perspective, the bill would require that
accessibility be a key element of safety reporting and prohibit
discriminatory licensing practices that could exclude blind Americans from
full and equal access to AVs. The bill would also create a working group
specifically dedicated to helping craft recommendations on accessibility
and other issues related to people with disabilities. In short, the AV
START Act is an inclusive and pro-innovation approach to the safe and
expeditious rollout of autonomous vehicles, and we support it
wholeheartedly.
Skeptics of the AV START Act often cite the safety risks associated
with this new and disruptive technology. This critique is confusing given
that AVs have the potential to radically reduce road fatalities by removing
some of the dangerous human element from driving. To underscore this point,
note that 94 percent of the roughly 37,000 deaths on our roads and highways
last year were attributable to human error, which comes in the form of
drunk or impaired driving, distracted driving, and fatigued driving. An
autonomous vehicle will never be drunk, and it will never be fatigued. The
safety gains that could be brought about by the advent of AVs could quite
literally save thousands of lives every year.
Beyond the paradox of opposition based on safety concerns, it is also
confounding to observe this opposition from a historical perspective.
Critics also feared the automobile and thought that replacing the horse and
buggy would be far too dangerous and disruptive for America to handle.
Innovation skeptics also thought that airplanes represented too much of a
risk to public safety. Skepticism of autonomous vehicles can be placed in a
similar category-exaggerated fear of an exciting transportation innovation
that will bring innumerable societal benefits, not the least of which being
greater transportation independence for the blind and other people with
disabilities.
AVs, while not a silver bullet for any of the transportation-related
challenges we face, do represent a powerful new addition to the toolbox
that can help us live the lives we want. However, these benefits are in
jeopardy if the United States Senate does not act swiftly and concertedly.
Now is the time to guarantee that the United States will lead the world in
yet another technological paradigm shift. We cannot afford to wait any
longer-the rest of the world isn't waiting.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Francis Gurry]
No Borders to the World's Knowledge: A Commitment to Accessibility for the
Blind
by Francis Gurry
From the Editor: Scott LaBarre introduced the next speaker with these
words: "This next gentleman is somebody who has been critical in bringing
greater access to information to the blind and print-disabled of the world,
someone who was critical and key in helping us get the Marrakesh Treaty
first adopted and now further implemented throughout the world. He is a
high-level United Nations official, and for him to be with us here, not
only this afternoon but at our banquet, is indeed a privilege and a
distinction for our organization. He holds law degrees from the University
of Melbourne and a PhD from the University of Cambridge.
I also note that he has served as secretary general of the
International Union to Preserve New Species of Plants. He served as deputy
director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization [WIPO]
starting in 2003, and in 2008 assumed the title of director general. WIPO-
the United Nations agency that deals with intellectual property rights-
played a critical role in getting Marrakesh adopted, and it would not have
done that without this gentleman's leadership.
Second, since the adoption of the Marrakesh Treaty in 2013 he has
established programs for WIPO to lead implementation efforts all over the
world. And thirdly, through his leadership WIPO established the Accessible
Books Consortium, which is another vehicle to help implement the Marrakesh
Treaty. And more important, he's become a true friend of the National
Federation of the Blind. Join me in welcoming and giving a loud and warm
National Federation of the Blind welcome to Dr. Francis Gurry! [applause,
cheers]
Thank you very much, Scott. Dear friends, it really is a privilege to
be with you. It's a thrill to be at this national convention of the
National Federation of the Blind, and I'd say it's one of the highlights of
my career to be with you to jointly celebrate the conclusion of the
Marrakesh Treaty and the pending ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty by
the United States of America. [applause] I'd like to thank Mark Riccobono,
the President of the NFB; Fred Schroeder, vice president and president of
the World Blind Union; Scott LaBarre, your (I would say) indominable
negotiator who has-and I'll say a little more about this-really lead the
process of negotiation and compromise that resulted in the Marrakesh
Treaty.
Let me just start by saying a few brief words about the World
Intellectual Property Organization: we're a United Nation's agency, as
Scott has mentioned. We have 193 member-states, so it's the whole world,
really. We deliver a variety of services in the field of intellectual
property, and we are custodians of about twenty-six multilateral treaties
that establish rules worldwide in the field of intellectual property, of
which the Marrakesh Treaty is one.
Intellectual property-it's a bit of a special field, but really it is
about the creation of new knowledge: providing incentives to ensure that we
do get innovation, technology, literature, publications, music, all forms
of new knowledge. And as Francis Bacon said a little over 400 years ago,
"Knowledge is power." Knowledge is power collectively for countries, for
companies, and individually for individuals.
At World Intellectual Property Organization we are committed to an
effective and a balanced intellectual property system, one that ensures the
creation of new knowledge but also the sharing of the social benefit of the
new knowledge. And that balance and fairness and justice and human rights
were at the heart of the "Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to
Published Works for Persons Who are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise
Print Disabled." I would say that the conclusion of the Marrakesh Treaty in
2013 is one of the greatest achievements of the World Intellectual Property
Organization in its 130-year history. [applause]
What does it do? Very briefly, it creates a mandatory exception
worldwide to enable the copyright of a published work not to interfere
with, if you'd like, or to be broken, if you'd like, in order to create an
accessible format of the work for persons who are blind or visually
impaired. And most importantly it allows the cross-border exchange of any
work so created. So it creates a truly international forum for the exchange
of publications in accessible formats.
It was remarkable that this treaty was concluded for several reasons.
First of all, of course, unfortunately, as we all know, we live in a very
divided world, and the Marrakesh Treaty represented one of the few
occasions in the last several years in which the world has been able to
come together with a unity of purpose, that unity of purpose being to end
the book famine and to create the conditions for access worldwide to
publications and thus to knowledge for persons who are blind. A second
remarkable thing about the Marrakesh Treaty is that it was driven by civil
society and non-governmental organizations, and premier amongst those was
the National Federation of the Blind. [applause] I would like to
congratulate the NFB for this fantastic achievement. It was in 2009 that
the World Blind Union presented through the delegations of Brazil, Ecuador,
and Paraguay at the World Intellectual Property Organization a proposal for
the Marrakesh Treaty. It took four years to conclude-you might think that's
a long time, I can tell you it's a short time internationally. We've got
negotiations going on at the moment for a new treaty in the area of
broadcasting. They have been going on for twenty years, and we still don't
have agreement. You know we have negotiations for an international
instrument to protect traditional knowledge and traditional cultural
expressions, and they, too, have been going on for twenty years. So the
four years that it took from the start to the end of the Marrakesh Treaty
really was, in international terms, given that you have to establish a
comfort level for 193 states, was really quite rapid, and it shows the
expression of the solidarity of the whole world for the rights-the human
rights-of blind persons. That was 2013, and for the conclusion of the
proceedings let me say for those who don't know that we had Stevie Wonder
who came specially to Marrakesh to urge the delegates to really do the
deal, to conclude the deal, and then to present a concert with his friends
at the end to celebrate the conclusion of the Marrakesh Treaty.
We are now at forty countries that have ratified the Marrakesh
Treaty. [applause] We will not rest until the whole world has ratified the
Marrakesh Treaty.
Where do we go from here? The first thing is universality. Because of
this facility to exchange books that is established across borders, that is
established by the Marrakesh Treaty, this facility is a facility for
dealing with the enormous differences that exist in this world between
capacity and economic power of different countries. It creates the
possibility for rich countries like the United States of America or the
European Union to share the books that they have been able to establish in
accessible formats with the poorest countries of the world, and this is a
wonderful, wonderful thing. [applause] As you know, thanks to your efforts,
we are hoping that the United States of America will ratify very soon the
Marrakesh Treaty. We have a commitment from the European Union that it will
ratify it in October of this year. That'll bring us up to sixty-nine
countries, and we have a target of 100 countries by the end of 2019.
[applause]
Scott has mentioned the Accessible Books Consortium. Let me just say
a few brief words-because I know we're running out of time-about the
Accessible Books Consortium. It's a vehicle for really implementing the
Marrakesh Treaty, because what the Marrakesh Treaty does is it creates the
possibility of the exchange of books in accessible formats. The Accessible
Books Consortium actually does the exchanges. So we have a global book
service with an online catalog that now makes over 200,000 works in
accessible formats available. That collection exists in seventy-six
languages in Braille, DAISY text, MP3, humanly-created audio tapes, and
soon EPUB3. It also does capacity building, so 90 percent of the population
of blind persons in the world is to be found in the developing and least-
developed countries. We have projects in twelve developing and least-
developed countries: Argentina, Bangladesh, Botswana, Burkina Faso, India,
Indonesia, Mexico, Mongolia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Uruguay, and Vietnam. In
those twelve countries we are helping with the establishment of libraries
for the blind so that they can benefit from the Marrakesh Treaty. And
through donations from the Australian government we have created 4,500
texts and books and materials of an educational type for primary students,
secondary students, and tertiary students in developing countries in local
languages, and by the end of this year we'll get to 8,000. Finally, what it
does is it represents a commitment and an encouragement to accessible
publishing. Born accessible is what we want from publishing. We have an
international excellence award and a charter for accessible publishing
which is getting more and more adherences from the publishing community.
So finally, let me say about the Marrakesh Treaty you can be sure
that WIPO will renew and strengthen as much as possible its commitment to
the universality of this treaty and to the objectives of this treaty and to
ensuring practical ways of its implementation. We will also, since we are
an organization which deals with rights in relation to technology, be
starting a major focus next year on assistive technologies and how we can
ensure that assistive technologies are more evenly shared across the world
in the spirit of solidarity amongst the whole world. So, dear friends, it
really is a pleasure and a great privilege to have been with you this
afternoon. Thank you very much Mark. [applause]
----------
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Blane Workie]
Equal Access in Air Travel for the Blind:
Raising Expectations from the United States Department of Transportation
by Blane Workie
From the Editor: Air travel and the treatment of blind passengers by
the airlines are not new topics for the NFB and in the Braille Monitor. But
recent events have the topics squarely on the NFB Agenda as you will read
in this article covering the speech given on July 8. President Riccobono
introduced the following presentation like this:
"We have with us the assistant general counsel for the office of
aviation enforcement and proceedings. You know, treatment of passengers on
airlines has been on the news a lot lately, except for blind people this is
not news; we've known about this treatment for decades. Whether it's being
treated like an unaccompanied minor, or having our canes taken away, or
trying to fight with the in-flight entertainment system to get on the WiFi,
or knocking up against an inaccessible kiosk or website, we know about the
treatment from the airlines. We are very happy to have this next presenter
here to talk to us about the consumer protections and civil rights
enforcement efforts at the Department of Transportation. Here is Blane
Workie:"
Thank you for that introduction and good afternoon everybody. I am
very honored and delighted to be here with all of you today at this very
impressive gathering. Improving transportation for people with disabilities
is a high priority at the US Department of Transportation, and I am
personally committed to the goal of making accessible air transportation a
reality for all. [cheers] I appreciate your president, Mr. Mark Riccobono,
inviting me to the National Federation of the Blind's 2018 National
Convention. I have a great admiration for Mr. Riccobono's leadership and
the work that is done by the National Federation of the Blind to ensure
that blind people have access to goods and services. The NFB has been and
continues to be a champion for the rights of the blind and visually
impaired. The NFB actively engages with the US Department of Transportation
and in its advocacy makes clear NFB's philosophy that the blind are the
best qualified to lead the way in solving problems facing the blind.
[applause]
As the assistant general counsel in the US Department of
Transportation's Office of Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings, I have had
the great pleasure of working with NFB on a variety of issues affecting
blind air travelers such as the accessibility of airline websites and
airport kiosks, traveling by air with service animals, and in-flight
entertainment. I would be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity today to
recognize your colleagues in Washington DC: John Pari, who is the NFB's
executive director for advocacy and policy, [applause] and Parnell Diggs,
who was NFB's former director of government affairs. [applause] This is for
the work that they have done to raise awareness of and advocate for
accessible air transportation for blind and low vision Americans. Like
them, and all of you, we at DOT believe it is important that the
transportation system is accessible, as accessible transportation is vital
in maintaining independence.
Looking out at the crowd in front of me, the strength of the NFB and
the unity of purpose this convention brings to blind people is very clear.
I understand that there are approximately 3,000 delegates here [applause]
from every state in the country as well as some foreign countries. I know
that you have had a full day, actually a full schedule the last few days,
and I appreciate being given the opportunity to present on the Department
of Transportation's work to ensure equal access in air travel for the
blind.
Let me begin by briefly explaining to you the function of my office
and our involvement in aviation civil rights matters. My office, the Office
of Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings, is part of the US Department of
Transportation's Office of General Counsel. Among other things we are
responsible for enforcement and rule-making activities related to the Air
Carrier Access Act. The Air Carrier Access Act was passed by Congress with
bipartisan support, and President Reagan signed it into law on October 2,
1986. It initially applied only to US airlines, but was later amended so
that it also applies to foreign airlines. The act makes it unlawful for US
and foreign air carriers to discriminate against passengers with
disabilities in commercial air transportation. It struck a powerful blow
for equality.
Before the Air Carrier Access Act was enacted, the airlines'
treatment of blind passengers varied greatly as different airlines had
different procedures, and even a single airline might have its procedures
interpreted in different ways by its employees. This made travel
unpredictable for people with disabilities. Further, there were reports of
airline personnel making erroneous assumptions about the condition of
people with disabilities, some of which led to demeaning treatment. For
example, there was a time when blind persons and other people with
disabilities were required to sit on blankets. At that time, there were few
specific regulations regarding the treatment of air travelers with
disabilities that applied to commercial airlines.
We have made significant progress since then. Thanks to the Air
Carrier Access Act, we have established regulations that require commercial
airlines to provide guide assistance to blind persons at airports. It also
requires airlines to allow passengers with disabilities to transport canes
and other assistive devices in the passenger cabin close to their seat,
consistent with safety requirements. Airlines must also provide blind
passengers timely access to the same information given to other passengers
at the airport or the airline, such as flight delays or gate assignments.
Airlines may not charge for providing accommodations required by the Air
Carrier Access Act regulation such as both services I mentioned. Airlines
cannot count an assistive device against carry-on baggage totals allowed
for individuals. In addition, the regulations require training on the Air
Carrier Access Act for all public contact employees and contractors. And
carriers must make available what is called a complaint resolution official
or a CRO to respond to complaints from passengers with disabilities.
Further, today airlines' websites and airport kiosks must be accessible to
people with disabilities. [applause]
Now, these are good regulations. They make a difference. Still,
airlines receive thousands of disability-related air travel complaints each
year. In calendar year 2004, the first year for this required report, US
airlines reported receiving 10,193 disability-related air travel
complaints. The number of disability complaints that airlines receive each
year continues to increase. In calendar year 2016, the most recent year of
data that is publicly available, US airlines reported receiving 27,842 such
complaints. Now, if you're going to include foreign air carriers with that,
that would be over 32,000 complaints. The top disability complaint areas in
2016 were: 1) wheelchair and guide assistance issues; 2) stowage, loss,
damage, and delay of assistive devices; 3) seating accommodations; and 4)
service animal issues. This is consistent with what we have seen in prior
years.
Now the fact that airlines receive thousands of complaints each year,
or the increase in complaints year after year, may lead some to think that
the experience of air travelers with disabilities, including blind persons,
is as bad or worse than it was in the past. I don't believe that to be the
case. There are more individuals with disabilities flying today than ever
before. Also, individuals with disabilities have a better understanding of
their rights, which makes it more likely that complaints will be filed
against airlines when airlines fail to provide accessible air
transportation as required.
At DOT we place great emphasis on public education as a means of
ensuring passengers and carriers know their rights and responsibilities.
For example, we recently redesigned our website to allow air travelers to
quickly and easily access information about their rights as passengers. The
redesigned website highlights content on topics of greatest concern to
consumers, including flying with a disability. It also makes it easier to
file a complaint. In addition, in 2017 we were able to release a series of
informative training materials that target the top four disability
complaint areas. We worked with stakeholders from the disability community,
including the National Federation of the Blind, and the aviation industry
to develop interactive and informative training materials that target the
top four disability complaint areas. The informational materials that were
developed include videos, interactive guides, and downloadable brochures
that can be printed or viewed on a mobile device. These materials are also
available on our website and can be used to assist individuals with
disabilities and to supplement the training and education of airline
employees and contractors.
Although the increased complaints may not be indicative of a
worsening situation for air travelers with disabilities, the complaints do
tell us that our work is not yet done. There is more that needs to be done
to achieve our goal of accessible air transportation. This includes, when
appropriate, taking enforcement action against airlines. Generally
speaking, my office pursues enforcement action against airlines on the
basis of a number of complaints on which we may infer a pattern or practice
of discrimination, or where we find evidence of a particularly egregious
violation of the law. For instance, in 2017 we issued an order against a US
airline for a series of errors in the handling of seating arrangement for a
military veteran who attempted to travel on a flight with his service
animal. We found this series of errors reflected lapses in training and led
to significant travel complications and frustration for the passenger. We
directed the airline to provide supplemental training to its reservation
agents and gate agents about the proper handling of service animal
requests.
Over the past ten years DOT has issued more than thirty orders,
wholly or partially involving violations of the Air Carrier Access Act and
its implementing regulations and assessed over nine million dollars in
civil penalties against airlines for those violations. Because fines that
are assessed against airlines for consent orders are payable to the federal
government and not to consumers directly, when appropriate, we build into
the orders that we negotiate credits for compensation that the airline pays
directly to consumers who filed complaints. For example, in another case in
2017 where we assessed an airline $400,000 in civil penalties, the
department provided a $36,000 credit for compensation that the airline
agreed to provide to consumers who filed disability complaints with the
airline during the time period that was covered by the order. We also
sometimes include offsets for programs or technologies that airlines
implement to improve the air travel experience for passengers with
disabilities that go above and beyond the legal requirements. In addition,
as part of our enforcement approach, we look for other innovative ways to
increase accessibility for passengers with disabilities. For example, we've
recently entered into landmark voluntary agreements with various airlines
that self-disclosed to us their difficulties in complying with the
department's accessible kiosk rule. The department reached agreement with
these airlines to not take enforcement action against them for their
temporary non-compliance with the department's rule that any airport kiosk
that is installed be an accessible model until at least 25 percent of
kiosks are accessible. In return, the airlines agreed to undertake measures
to make air travel more accessible for persons with disabilities. This
includes agreements that the airline will only install accessible kiosks in
the future so that ultimately 100 percent of the airline's kiosks will be
accessible to passengers with disabilities. [applause] We have also entered
into an agreement with an airline that self-reported its temporary non-
compliance with the department's website accessibility rule to not take
action in return for the airline ensuring that its mobile website is also
accessible, which is not required by law.
But we still have some other big challenges to tackle in the future.
This includes addressing the inaccessibility of in-flight entertainment
systems and the use of service animals onboard aircraft. In 2016 an access
advisory committee was established to negotiate a proposed rule on several
issues, including these two issues. The committee included representatives
of airlines, persons with disabilities, and other interested parties. The
NFB's own Parnell Diggs was a very valuable member of that committee.
[applause] The good news is that after seven months of negotiations the
access advisory committee was able to reach consensus on accessibility of
in-flight entertainment, an issue that has been unresolved for decades. As
you know, airlines today generally do not provide in-flight entertainment
with captioning or audio descriptions. Under this agreement, movies
produced after a certain date and displayed on aircraft would be captioned
to provide access to deaf and hard-of-hearing passengers and audio
described to enable people who are blind to listen to a visual narration of
movies and shows. [applause] Airlines would be permitted to display content
that is not closed captioned or audio described only if uncaptioned or
described versions are not available from the airline's content provider.
The access committee also established deadlines for airlines to ensure that
any new seatback in-flight entertainment installed in new or existing
aircraft are accessible and reached agreement on addressing aircraft that
have inaccessible seatback IFE systems as well as installing software
upgrades needed to ensure that the user interface to connect to the
internet on aircraft is accessible. [applause]
The IFE agreement reached by the access advisory committee would need
to be incorporated into a future DOT rule for it to be law. The
department's 2018 Spring Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory
Actions identifies a notice of proposed rulemaking on in-flight
entertainment as a long-term action to be taken. DOT's significant
rulemaking report explains that the reason for the delay is related to the
need for regulatory evaluation.
With regard to service animals, another issue that the access
committee had been charged with negotiating, the committee was not able to
reach agreement. DOT had charged the access advisory committee with
determining the appropriate definition of a service animal and establishing
safeguards to reduce the likelihood that passengers wishing to travel with
their pets would be able to falsely claim that their pets are service
animals. Although the access committee was unable to reach agreement, the
committee has furnished helpful information to the department. After the
termination of the access committee the department continued to hear from
the transportation industry as well as individuals with disabilities that
the current air carrier access regulation could be improved to ensure
undiscriminatory access for individuals with disabilities while
simultaneously preventing instances of fraud and ensuring consistency with
other federal regulations.
In May 2018 the department issued an advanced notice of proposed
rulemaking [ANPRM] seeking comment on amending its Air Carrier Access Act
regulation on transportation of service animals. In the ANPRM the
department solicits comments on numerous issues including: should the
department continue to require the transport of emotional support animals,
should there be limitations on species that airlines are required to
transport, should there be limits on the number of service animals that
passengers can carry, should passengers be required to provide
documentation providing proof of vaccinations and/or attesting that the
animal is properly trained? The comment period on the ANPRM closes
tomorrow, Monday, July 9. I understand that the NFB has already submitted
comments.
Given that the service animal issue is currently the subject of an
open rulemaking, we had also issued an interim statement of enforcement
priorities to inform airlines and the public of our intended enforcement
focus with respect to the transportation of service animals in the cabin.
We explained that our focus will be on clear violations of the current rule
that have the potential to adversely impact the greatest number of persons.
The comment period on the interim statement of priorities has closed, and a
final statement of enforcement priorities will be issued in the near
future.
In conclusion, I'm proud of the progress that we have made, and I am
confident by continuing to work together with all of you that we can
accomplish even more. [applause]
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[PHOtO CAPTION: Monica Desai]
Networking that Empowers Innovation:
Accessibility for the Blind through Facebook
by Monica Desai
>From the Editor: President Riccobono introduced this presentation with
these words: "This next speaker represents an organization that has also
never appeared on this stage: Facebook. [cheers] Yeah, thumbs up to that.
Facebook has become more than just a platform for connecting people. It
also provides information of various sorts, businesses use it for
innovative approaches, people now stream everything from television to
Federation conventions on Facebook. And as blind people we have a deep
interest in working to make sure that when new features come out on the
Facebook platform that they're accessible. They've never appeared here
before, and we hope that by being here today it's the beginning of a long
relationship to make accessibility a priority and to bake it in to
everything that Facebook does. Here with us today we're happy to have the
director of public policy from Facebook, Monica Desai."
Thank you so much, President Riccobono, and to the National Federation
of the Blind for inviting me here to speak today. I really appreciate the
opportunity to speak with you about accessibility on Facebook, particularly
with respect to people who are blind or have low vision.
My name is Monica Desai, and as President Riccobono mentioned, I'm
director of global public policy at Facebook, where I focus on issues
involving online communication services-our video products and
accessibility in particular. Prior to joining Facebook I spent over a
decade in senior positions at the Federal Communications Commission,
including service as the chief of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs
Bureau which develops all policies and rules in connection with
accessibility issues, and as chief of the FCC's Media Bureau which has
oversight over broadcasters and cable companies and which oversees
captioning policies. I was previously a partner at the law firm of Squire
Patton Boggs, where my practice included counseling clients on
accessibility issues.
Though I became acquainted with the National Federation of the Blind
while I was at the FCC, I learned to really appreciate the National
Federation of the Blind when I began counseling clients on accessibility
issues. In particular, we did work with the National Federation of the
Blind when we did a consultation on a new product for a manufacturing
client who came from China, who sent engineers from China to work with the
NFB and others who worked with a prototype product. It was amazing to see
the impact of the input that was given by this organization in terms of the
comments and how they were reflected in the product. We really appreciated
that.
Today I want to speak with you about Facebook and about our
accessibility ethos, how we're using artificial intelligence and machine
learning to make the platform more accessible, about our navigation
assistant tool, our Teach Access Partnership to promote teaching
accessibility and best practices in higher education design and computer
science programs, and some of our initiatives to promote an inclusive
workforce.
With respect to our ethos, our mission is to bring the world closer
together, and that means everyone. Accessibility is a core part of that
mission. Consider, for example, that on Facebook one in ten people use the
zoom feature on the desktop browser, 20 percent of people increase the font
size on iOS, and over 100,000 use screen readers on mobile devices to view
Facebook. We want to make it possible for anyone, regardless of ability, to
access the information and connections that happen on Facebook. One of the
key ways we are promoting accessibility on the platform is by leveraging
artificial intelligence and machine learning services to power
accessibility technology for people who are blind or have low vision. In
2016 we launched automatic alt text or AAT [cheers], a feature that uses
object recognition to describe photos to people who use screen readers.
Thank you for the cheers; people worked really hard on that, so thank you.
[cheers, applause]
In December of 2017 we launched a face recognition tool that can tell
people using screen readers who appears in their photos in their newsfeed,
even if they aren't tagged. Every day people share over one billion photos
on Facebook, and through research we have done with the vision loss
community, we knew that users of screen readers engage with photo content
and that they desired more context for a photo's content. But the
traditional mechanism for describing photographs to people with vision loss
was the use of alt text, which typically requires that the content creator
supply a secondary description on a per-photo basis. This is both time
consuming as well as an uncommon user activity. To address this challenge
we built the AAT and face recognition accessibility tools. Our goal was to
greatly improve the experience that people with vision loss have with this
commonly shared media. AAT can currently detect more than 100 concepts,
such as the number of people in a photo; whether people are smiling;
physical objects like a car, a tree, a mountain, and other objects; and
today about 75 percent of photos on Facebook now have at least one image
identified by AAT.
We're honored that AAT was awarded the Federal Communications
Commission Chairman's Award for Advancement in Accessibility in 2017 and
the American Foundation for the Blind's Achievement Award for 2018.
[applause] Using this technology people who use screen readers will know
who appears in their photos and their newsfeed. As Facebook continues to
improve its object and face recognition services AAT and face recognition
will continue to provide more descriptive narratives for visual content.
I also want to call out how important feedback from our users was in
developing AAT. When building AAT, we ran multiple rounds of user research
to refine the experience. This included one-on-one interviews with users of
screen readers to test out early prototypes and a two-week experiment on
Facebook with follow-up surveys to users asking for feedback and sentiment.
We learned from survey results that people want to understand more about
what people are doing in photos, so we updated AAT to understand more about
people's action in photos. It's our hope that this deployed product
experience demonstrates the importance of AI for enabling better access to
content across the web for persons with disabilities.
We strongly believe that AI is the future of improving additional
interaction experiences at scale, whether they are visual in nature or
otherwise. As AI systems get better at understanding images-video, audio,
and other media- Facebook believes that more novel and robust innovations
in accessibility will follow.
I also want to spend a minute touching on Navigation Assistant. In
October of last year we introduced Navigation Assistant, a feature designed
to improve navigation for people who use a screen reader or keyboard
shortcuts on Facebook or on desktop web. When activated, the Navigation
Assistant can be used to jump to different sections of the current page,
jump to other pages, or jump to accessibility resources. For example, the
sections of the page in Navigation Assistant list the landmark regions that
are on the current page, and the screen reader user can move the keyboard
focus between the sections in the menu by pressing Enter or Return. The
Navigation Assistant can be activated from any page on Facebook. It's our
hope that Navigation Assistant will make navigating Facebook on the desktop
simpler and more predictable.
Next I want to touch on our participation in Teach Access. We want to
also try to drive innovation in accessibility that extends beyond Facebook.
That's why we are proud to be part of the Teach Access Initiative.
Announced on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Americans with
Disabilities Act in July of 2015, Teach Access brings industry, academia,
and advocacy together to create models for teaching and training students
of technology to create accessible experiences. This initiative includes
(among others) Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Stanford, MIT, and
Georgia Tech. The challenge we identified is that accessibility is not
often taught in computer science, design, and user experience degree
programs. So Teach Access launched an online tutorial covering best
practices for accessible software design in order to advance accessibility
training in higher education. And we're honored that Teach Access has won a
Heroes of Accessibility award from Knowbility and received an honorable
mention for the FCC Chairman's Award for Advancement in Accessibility.
[applause]
Finally I want to touch on our workforce and initiatives through our
workforce initiatives. Disability inclusion is critical to our mission.
Hiring a workforce that is diverse and inclusive is important in order to
build products that are diverse and inclusive. That's why we have a
dedicated program manager focused entirely on driving awareness and
engagement for our current and future employees with disabilities. We have
a dedicated recruiting team and a unique alias for receiving resumis via
our outreach efforts to resources and organizations that represent
candidates with disabilities. We have a robust accommodation process for
candidates and provide training to all recruiters in this process, and
Facebook has a formal accommodation program for employees who need any
accommodation of some type. We also have a dedicated group that is focused
on diversity programs, one of which is dedicated to disabilities. So for
people who have disabilities, who have family members with disabilities, or
are interested in the space of disability, this is a place for them to
collaborate and talk about their experiences.
So let me conclude by thanking you for inviting me here again to
speak, and I look forward to collaborating with you in the future.
[applause]
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[PHOTO/CAPTION: Tommy Craig]
Tommy Craig Dies
by Zena Pearcy
From the Editor: It is always hard when we lose a beloved
Federationist but even harder when the loss is unexpected. Tommy Craig was
a two-time state president in Texas. He was hit by a car, and although his
injuries were significant, they were not thought to be life-threatening.
Here is what Zena Pearcy has to say about the life of our former brother
and Federationist:
Thomas Edward Craig was born in Arkansas on January 12, 1955, but as
he would tell anyone who would listen, "There are two kinds of
people...Texans and people who want to be Texans." Tommy got to Texas as
soon as he could and never left. He had a passion for life and fierce
loyalty to people, animals, places, music, and technological products.
His father was a deputy sheriff in Ashdown, Arkansas. Tommy had fond
memories of riding in the patrol car and turning the siren on and off. His
dad died of brain cancer when Tommy was eight years old. His mother died
from a fall on a staircase when Tommy was eleven. He then moved to Houston
to live with an aunt, uncle, and cousin.
Tommy attended the Arkansas School for the Blind, the Texas School for
the Blind, and graduated high school in Houston at a public school. He
attended college classes at Stephen F. Austin and UT Austin. Forever
curious and always learning something new, Tommy enjoyed the Boy Scout
program for many years. He became an Advance Amateur Radio operator and
assisted many young people in getting licensed as HAM radio operators.
Tommy met his wife-to-be, Margaret "Cokie" Dennison, at a convention
of the National Federation of the Blind in the late 1970s. They married in
1986. Together Tommy and Cokie raised Siberian Huskies and adopted rescued
Greyhounds. They have been active delegates several times to the Democratic
conventions in Texas. Both have been leaders in the National Federation of
the Blind of Texas.
Fascinated by technology from the beginning, he recognized the
importance of home computers shortly after Apple invented its first
computer. Through the years he was fiercely loyal to the Apple brand. He
had almost every product they made and made sure friends had them, too. He
served on the board of the Austin Capitol Macintosh Users Group for several
years.
Tommy worked in the field of adaptive equipment for blind people. He
traveled the United States selling adaptive devices such as Braille
displays, speech-enabled computers, and Braille embossers. He trained many
people to use this equipment. Among his clients were people like Stevie
Wonder and Ray Charles.
His involvement with the National Federation of the Blind began in the
mid-1970s, when he joined the Austin Chapter. He soon became a leader in
both his local chapter and within the state affiliate. He served as a
member of the National Federation of the Blind of Texas Board of Directors
beginning in the late 1970s, and he became president of the affiliate in
1992. He served in that position until 2000, and he served again from 2002
to 2011.
During his tenure as a member of the board, he and Jeff Pearcy served
as the leaders of our legislative committee, and under his direction we
were able to pass powerful legislation regarding Braille, fair insurance
rates, and more. He was probably most proud of his efforts to pass our
landmark Braille bill, which was the first in the nation to require on-time
delivery of Braille textbooks for blind students, and his effort to secure
adequate funding for NFB-NEWSLINE. still makes it possible for us to carry
out programs for blind youth, blind seniors, and any Texan who loves to
access information.
Those of us left behind mourn the loss of our friend. His passing was
sudden and unexpected on August 24. He was planning his rehabilitation from
his many injuries from being struck by a car. In his usual "take charge"
attitude, Tommy was already setting goals for himself to beat the time
limits his doctors reported for normal recovery. He chose his
rehabilitation placement based on reports that he could have his dogs visit
him there at the facility and that there would be plenty of visits from
therapy dogs and horses! His zeal for life held out through his very last
moments! We might say "Rest in Peace," but Tommy probably has other ideas
for his future. He is probably romping with all his beloved animals and
visiting friends and family who went on before him!
Our dear friend truly lived the Federation philosophy. He was
independent, he worked hard, and he lived the life he wanted to live every
day.
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Anil Lewis]
Announcing New Accessibility Resources for Consumers and Industry
by Anil Lewis
From the Editor: When we see problems, we do more than talk and write
about them. When we can, we create programs to address them. Here is what
Anil Lewis, the executive director of the NFB Jernigan Institute, has to
say about one of our newest programs:
You may remember that in 2016, with support from the Maryland
Department of Disabilities, the National Federation of the Blind launched
an important initiative aimed at generating new resources for
accessibility. We named it the Accessibility Switchboard. At its core, it
is a dynamic online portal at AccessibilitySwitchboard.org that houses
guides, articles, and other resources that consumers, government, corporate
entities, and educational institutions can use to effectively address
various aspects of accessibility-from developing accessible websites to
procuring accessible technologies.
All of our resources are designed to be action-oriented and are
grounded in proven success stories and existing best practices graciously
shared with us by our Community of Practice members and member
organizations. We are continually updating and adding content to the portal
as we work to respond to current needs for specific information related to
accessibility.
Today, I'm excited to announce the addition of seven new QA articles
and six new guides. As a preview, these will include answers to critical
questions like, "How do I advocate for myself when my school has digital
accessibility problems?" and "How can I overcome resistance to change in an
organization-wide accessibility project?"
We will be rolling out this new content throughout the coming weeks,
and I invite you to actively join in on the discussion by following and
using the hashtag #A11ySwitchboard.
The key to creating a more accessible world is to ensure meaningful
participation and active communication between consumers and industry. The
Accessibility Switchboard brings consumers and industry together, providing
up-to-date information about accessible websites, emerging technology, as
well as frequently encountered accessibility problems and relevant
solutions. It also serves as a centralized point of contact for consumers
to voice concerns about barriers to nonvisual access.
By creating this dynamic accessibility information portal,
highlighting the organizations that are doing it correctly, and creating a
place where consumers can give real input, the Accessibility Switchboard
can shift organizational implementation of accessibility from second hand
to second nature.
I'm excited for you to be a part of and have the opportunity to help
shape this effort as we announce our latest content. Be sure to check
#A11ySwitchboard this week and beyond.
----------
Recipes
Recipes this month come from the National Federation of the Blind of
Maryland.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Debbie Brown]
Apricot Orange Jell-O Salad
by Debbie Brown
Debbie serves as first vice president of the NFB of Maryland. She is
also the president of the Sligo Creek chapter. She says, "This is a recipe
that is refreshing in summer and festive in winter."
Ingredients:
1 15-ounce can apricot halves, drained
1 15-ounce can mandarin orange segments, drained
1 15-ounce can pineapple chunks, drained
1 3-ounce package apricot or orange Jell-O
1 cup water
8 ounces sour cream
Method: Combine apricots, oranges, and pineapple in a large bowl. Mix
Jell-O with one cup boiling water and add to bowl. Mix in the sour cream.
Chill for several hours.
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Maryland Crab Cakes
by Darlene Barrett
Darlene Barrett is a member of the board of directors of the NFBMD.
She also serves as president of the Central Maryland chapter. No list of
Maryland recipes would be complete without crab cakes.
Ingredients
1 pound backfin crabmeat or any lump crabmeat
8 saltine crackers
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 teaspoon mustard
1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
Salt to taste
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Method: Place crabmeat in bowl and check for shells. In another bowl,
finely crush crackers and add remaining ingredients. Gently fold in
crabmeat, just enough to combine all ingredients. Shape into six crab cakes
and refrigerate for one hour. Heat two tablespoons of vegetable oil in
nonstick frying pan. Sauti crab cakes until golden brown.
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Ellen Ringlein]
Curried Sweet Potato Soup
by Ellen Ringlein
Ellen Ringlein is president of the Greater Baltimore Chapter. Ellen
also runs the NFB Independence Market.
Ingredients
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 medium or 2 small sweet potatoes, thinly sliced (2 to 3 cups)
1 or 2 carrots, thinly sliced
1 zucchini or yellow squash, thinly sliced
2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 cup Marsala cooking wine
Method: In a large sauce pan, heat oil over medium heat; add onion
and sauti until soft. Add sweet potato, carrots, zucchini, broth, and curry
powder. Cover and simmer until vegetables are very tender, stirring
occasionally. Add Marsala wine before vegetables are fully tender. Transfer
soup to blender and puree in batches. Gently reheat soup. Add salt and
pepper to taste.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Ronza Othman]
Upside-Down-Makluba
by Ronza Othman
Ronza is a member of the board of directors of the NFBMD. She also
serves as first vice president of the Greater Baltimore Chapter. This is a
traditional Palestinian dish-perhaps the most commonly served meal. Serve
it with a side of plain yogurt or a thinly sliced salad of tomatoes,
cucumber, lemon, and olive oil. It serves approximately six people.
Ingredients:
4 cups white rice
chicken (cut up whole chicken or chicken pieces depending on preference)
2 cauliflowers
4 potatoes
2 onions
oil
1 cup water
garlic powder
salt
pepper
cinnamon
cardamom
other preferred seasonings
Method: Peel the onions, cut them, and layer them at the bottom of a
large pot. Onions should be in strips or rounds and should fully cover the
bottom of the pot. Layer the chicken pieces over the onions. Add cinnamon,
cardamom, garlic powder, pepper, salt, and other preferred seasoning. Tip:
Seasoning blends work well, but there is no right or wrong seasoning. Add
one cup of water and turn the heat on under the pot with the chicken and
onions. Allow to cook for about twenty minutes until the onions are soft.
The chicken will not be fully cooked. Soak four cups of rice in very hot
water with salt. This will make the rice absorb other flavors. After twenty
minutes of soaking, drain and rinse the rice.
Cut up the cauliflower and potatoes so that they are small enough to
deep fry. The potatoes should be half an inch thick or thinner. Deep fry
the cauliflower and potatoes and set aside to drain. Cauliflower is done
when golden brown and crispy, and potatoes are done when golden brown and
soft inside. Tip: Vegetables can be baked instead of deep-fried if going
for a lower calorie option, but this takes longer-just spray them with
cooking spray prior to baking. Once onions are soft, layer the cauliflower
and potatoes over the chicken with the cauliflower on one side and the
potatoes on the other. Layer the rice over the cauliflower and potatoes.
Add hot water so that it comes up just over the level of the rice and cover
the pot. Turn on the heat under the pot on medium for about thirty minutes
or until the water evaporates and the rice is tender. You can test to see
if the water has evaporated by inserting a wooden spoon into the pot all
the way to the bottom. If it comes out wet, then there is still water that
needs to evaporate. As the water gets closer to fully evaporating, reduce
the heat to low.
Once the water has evaporated, turn off the heat. Remove the pot's
lid. Use a large pan-it must be significantly larger in width than the pot.
With both hands (and oven mitts), flip the pot over so it is upside-down
onto the pan, now with the onions and chicken on the bottom and the rice on
top. This lets the flavors reabsorb into the elements of the meal a second
time. Serve.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Melissa Riccobono]
Chocolate Chip Cookies
by Melissa Riccobono
In addition to being the First Lady of the Federation, Melissa is a
member of the board of directors of the NFBMD, and she is president of the
Maryland Parents of Blind Children Division. She says, "These cookies are a
bit famous around our kids' school; we have made them several times for
various teachers, and everyone who tries them loves them!"
Ingredients:
1 cup soft butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup boiling water
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups quick oats
1 12-ounce package chocolate chips
Method: Cream butter and sugar. Dissolve baking soda in boiling water
and stir into mixture. Add vanilla, then dry ingredients. Add chocolate
chips. Drop onto cookie sheet. (The recipe says ungreased, but I usually
grease just to be safe.) Bake at 350 degrees for ten to twelve minutes.
----------
No-Bake Pineapple Cheese Pie
by Ellen Ringlein
Ingredients:
1/2 cup boiling water
1 envelope unflavored Knox gelatin
One small can crushed pineapple, drained, reserve liquid
One small can of pineapple rings (8 rings), drained, reserve liquid
1/2 pineapple juice from reserve liquid
2 8-ounce bars cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 9-inch graham cracker pie crust
Method: Dissolve gelatin in boiling water. Add pineapple juice and
stir well. Combine this mixture with cream cheese and sugar. Blend with
hand mixer until smooth. Spoon half cream cheese mixture into pie crust.
Layer the crushed pineapple on top. Cover with remaining cheese mixture.
Garnish with pineapple rings. Cover with inverted plastic pie cover,
crimping the aluminum edges of the pie plate to hold the top securely.
Chill for several hours before serving.
----------
Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies
by Janice Toothman
Janice Toothman is a member of the board of directors of the Sligo
Creek Chapter of the NFBMD. She also chairs the NFBMD Deaf-Blind Committee.
Janice is a prolific baker at various auction fundraisers. Everyone wants
to buy her items, so she makes our events very successful.
Ingredients
1/2 cup softened butter
1 cup sugar
2 ounces unsweetened baker's chocolate
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup flour
1 1/2 cups oatmeal
Method: Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In large bowl, cream together
butter and sugar. Place chocolate in microwavable bowl, and microwave on
high for one minute. Stir. If chocolate is not all melted, microwave an
additional minute. Add creamed mixture to melted chocolate. Add beaten egg
to bowl after bowl is cool to the touch. Add baking powder and salt. Mix
well. Add flour and oatmeal. Stir well. Drop by teaspoon onto greased
baking sheet, twelve cookies to a sheet. Bake for twelve minutes. Yields
approximately three dozen cookies.
----------
Monitor Miniatures
News from the Federation Family
Message from Diane McGeorge regarding 2019 Washington Seminar Reservations:
This message is to advise you that Washington Seminar will be held
January 27 to January 31, with the Great Gathering-In taking place on
Monday, January 28.
You can now reserve a room at the Holiday Inn Capitol (550 C Street,
SW Washington, DC 20024) for Washington Seminar for check-in beginning
Friday, January 25, and check-out Friday, February 1. The rate is $196.00
per night. This rate does not include DC sales tax, currently 14.95
percent. You may begin booking reservations directly online by clicking on
the weblink below. You may also make reservations by calling 877-572-6951
and referencing booking code NB8. Credit card information is needed at
time of reservation. Individual cancellation policy is seventy-two hours
prior to date of arrival to avoid one night's room plus tax cancellation
charge on credit card provided. If your departure date changes, you must
inform the hotel seventy-two hours in advance of departure to avoid a $100
fee. Please call 877-572-6951 and reference your confirmation number.
Please obtain a cancellation number when cancelling a reservation. The
firm deadline date to make a reservation is Friday, December 28, 2018.
Reservation requests received after the deadline date will be subject to
availability and prevailing rate.
Following is the link to reserve your room:
http://ichotelsgroup.com/redirect?path=rates&brandCode=HI®ionCode=1&local
eCode=en&GPC=NB8&hotelCode=WASSM&_PMID=99801505
If you would like to hold a special meeting during the Washington
Seminar, please email Lisa Bonderson at lbonderson at cocenter.org just as you
have done in past years. She and I will work with the hotel on the
assignment of those meeting rooms. To ensure that you get the space you
need, please let us know of your meeting space needs by December 7, 2018.
Lisa and I will always be available to help you with any problems you
might experience with the booking of your hotel reservations. We have
worked closely with the hotel staff, and they are looking forward to
working with each affiliate or group wanting to make reservations.
See you in Washington!
The Ride to Vote: Use Lyft to Exercise Your Rights:
At Lyft we're working to improve lives by connecting people and their
communities through the world's best transportation. This election day
(Tuesday, November 6), we want to help people across America exercise their
right to vote.
It is estimated that over 15 million people were registered but didn't
vote in 2016 because of transportation issues. That's why we're committed
to providing 50 percent off rides across the country and free rides to
underserved communities that face significant obstacles to transportation.
More details on our plan:
Across the country, we'll give away 50 percent off promo codes with
our partners that encourage voter turnout. We're thrilled to be working
with Vote.org, Nonprofit VOTE, TurboVote, and more to help distribute codes
to those who need them. We'll also have a product integration to help
passengers find their polling location.
For underserved communities, we'll provide rides free of cost through
nonpartisan, nonprofit partners, including Voto Latino, local Urban League
affiliates, and the National Federation of the Blind.
We know that getting to the polls is only one part of the voting
process. We're also committed to making it easier to register to vote and
learn about important ballot initiatives. We're partnering with When We All
Vote and National Voter Registration Day to ensure Lyft's passengers,
drivers, and broader community are prepared for election day. We will:
. Remind Lyft passengers about voter registration deadlines using
various social media and platform tools (e.g. push notifications)
. Give drivers voter registration handouts and key voter information at
Hub locations
. Offer in-office voter registration for employees at our offices
. Offer comprehensive, online voter information through our partner
organizations
. Encourage our community to make a plan in advance for Election Day,
which has a proven impact on voter turnout rates
Your voice is important! We're excited to help make it heard in this
year's elections.
----------
NFB Pledge
I pledge to participate actively in the efforts of the National
Federation of the Blind to achieve equality, opportunity, and security for
the blind; to support the policies and programs of the Federation; and to
abide by its constitution.
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