[nfbwatlk] The Importance of Braille

[Alco Canfield]

I thought you might all enjoy this "blast from the past" written by Carl
Jarvis.

June 30, 1995

 

 

 

 

 

Judith Billings, Superintendent of Public Instruction

PO Box 47200 

Olympia, WA 98504-7200  

 

Dear Ms. Billings,

 

A retired Washington State employee, Don Crawford, sent you a letter from
Salt Lake City dated April 26, 1995, in which he congratulated OSPI on
preventing the passage of the Braille Bill.  A copy of this letter has just
come to my attention.

 

I am also a retired state employee.  I too, am blind.    Unlike Mr.
Crawford, I am a strong advocate of Braille instruction for blind and
severely visually impaired children, and newly blinded adults.  

I do not believe Braille has outlived its usefulness, but, on the other
hand,  I'm not a fanatic worshiping at the feet of some Braille Idol.
Braille is a communications tool, nothing more-nothing less.  Like print,
Braille has its limitations.  Both are extremely bulky and cumbersome
compared to the storage and recovery capabilities of today's technology;
both are limited 

in adapting to the fast changing communications needs of the modern world.
Nonetheless both continue to be necessary tools.  So long as sighted
children are taught to read and write, blind children need a comparable
skill.  Perhaps a day will come when all children are handed some wonderful
little box into which they speak their commands and the little box answers
them in like manner.  

Until then, a scrap of paper and a stub of a pencil are the most convenient
and cheapest means of storing information, unless you are blind.  Then, the
slate, stylus and a piece of Braille paper are your most inexpensive option.


 

The "Doom-and-Gloom" folks have been predicting the death of Braille for
many years.  When I became blind in 1965, I was told--by my Vocational
Rehabilitation Counselor--not to worry about learning Braille.  The modern
tape recorder would soon make it a lost art.  I chose to learn Braille, not
an easy task at the age of thirty.  It turned out to be a wise choice, the
tape recorder did not replace Braille, nor will the computer.  Certainly not
in the lifetime of blind children entering school this Fall.  

 

Here, in my office, I sit at a keyboard.  My computer is 

speech adapted, and beside it is my Braille 'N' Speak.  At the back of my
desk is a Braille Writer  and in the top drawer are a collection of slates
and stylus' and note cards.  What would I do without Braille?  How would I
label my computer disks and tapes?  Just in case one of my marvelous gadgets
crash, I keep backup files, such as telephone numbers and address', in
Braille file boxes.

 

Imagine, Ms. Billings, you enter your office one morning and find you cannot
read print.  All pens, pencils and paper are gone.  "Don't worry," someone
tells you, "you don't need print any longer.  Here, take this computer.  It
talks to you".  

You're handed a stack of computer disks and a bundle of audio tapes
containing everything you've been working on this past year.  How will you
quickly identify them?  

 

As a person who has retired from state employment but not from the world of
work, I use every tool available to me.  I need Braille as surely as I need
the fax machine--which does not replace the Post Office--or the telephone or
the computer or my wife's visual assistance.  I wish I could afford a
scanner and some of the newer, more sophisticated equipment, but I can't.
What does surprise me is that just because Mr. Crawford can afford such
equipment and enjoys spending his days strolling to and from the Public
Library, he now proclaims Braille to be a useless, archaic form of
communication.  It's certainly his right to declare this true for himself,
but not for me--not for all the children who want the opportunity to earn
the kind of life that Mr. Crawford earned for himself.  But the playing
field is not level for blind children.  In order to achieve success.  they
need every tool available--especially one as basic as Braille.  

 

I am a strong supporter of public education.  It is one of the basic
building blocks that has made us such a strong, free nation.  When I was a
child, we were committed to ending illiteracy in the United States.  Is this
still a goal of ours?  How can OSPI support penmanship and reading for
sighted children, while denying such a  fundamental  skill for blind
children?  Is it the cost?  

 

The price for  not educating blind children to be competitive adults is far
greater than the dollars required to provide proper training.  During my
years with the Department of Services for the Blind, I worked with scores of
adults, blind since childhood, whose basic education had been neglected.
Ms. Billings, it is so very hard, trying to put dreams and hopes and
self-belief back into someone who had all traces of them smothered. 

 

 We educate our children by word and deed.  Please explain to me the message
OSPI is sending to blind children by denying them the same education
expected for sighted children.

 

Sincerely,

 

 

 

Carl Jarvis, Director

Peninsula Rehabilitation Services

  

 

 

 

cc: Shirley Smith