[Ohio-talk] recent coverage on NPR for Braille

Tue Mar 21 03:50:48 UTC 2017

Strangely, I find myself hesitating to say what I have to say: I fear
someone will find it rude. The fact is that I found Braille to be very easy
to learn. It was back in the 1980s and while I didn't want to learn Braille
because I didn't want to be blind and to need Braille, my progress in
learning new contractions and adding to my speed of Braille reading kept me
interested enough not to quit. 

I also have to credit my Braille teachers at the Cleveland Sight Center for
their encouragement and for never saying Braille is hard. It was just
something I would be learning along with cane skills and typing, and they
said I would find it useful if I was open to it and worked on learning it. A
casual, but positive enough message. I remember thinking, "Well, what else
do I have to do? As long as I'm here..." 

Right after I learned Braille, I went off to college with a Perkins
Brailler, a tape recorder, a talking calculator, a manual typewriter, a
white cane  and a CCTV. For the first three years, I used the CCTV a lot,
but often re-wrote my handwritten study notes in Braille. I couldn't use the
CCTV anymore at some point in my fourth year in college, but I was fine
thanks to my tape recorder and Perkins Brailler. 

I didn't remember all of the contractions when I first got to college. I
used those I remembered when writing my study notes and, from time to time,
I would say to myself, "I know there's an er contraction or  ment
contraction," and I would look it up and then add it to the other
contractions I used regularly. I even created my own Braille shorthand
symbols and a Braille system for doing Math.

After college, I found myself without much to do. I ordered Braille books
from the Library for the Blind and tried my hand at reading books I had
never read or listened to before by some of my favorite authors. Those books
by Graham Green, Earnest Hemmingway, and Charles Dickens came in lots of big
Braille volumes, but I ordered just one novel at a time and I found myself
engrossed in the stories just as I did when I used to read print.   

At this time of year, I use Braille to organize lists of information and
keep track of numbers and calculations while preparing my taxes. My Perkins
Brailler is my friend, as is my talking calculator. Having the Braille pages
I've written in my hands makes it easy to keep track of what I'm doing. I
then work with a reader to put the information I've compiled onto the tax
forms.

I think Braille was easy for me to learn because I felt no stress over
learning this puzzle of a code. Just like a child learning to read, I had no
sense of what importance this skill would have to the rest of my life. I
thought I might use it to label things, write lists, or whatever. I had no
idea of how Braille would help me to learn, how it would make me
independent, and how it would allow me to become who I am. And being a
Braille reader is part of who I am.

Cheryl Fischer

-----Original Message-----
From: Ohio-Talk [mailto:ohio-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Marianne
Denning via Ohio-Talk
Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2017 6:17 PM
To: NFB of Ohio Announcement and Discussion List
Cc: Marianne Denning
Subject: Re: [Ohio-talk] recent coverage on NPR for Braille

My concern is that we always say learning braille is hard. If we tell people
it is hard then people won't even try. That is the wrong attitude to begin
with. We need to change the message.

Sent from my iPhone

> On Mar 18, 2017, at 12:16 PM, Rachel Kuntz via Ohio-Talk
<ohio-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> The following story appeared on NPR's All Things Considered recently. 
> It made me think about the many reasons for the decline in Braille 
> reading most of which are not discussed in this story. Listen to or 
> read the story and let me know what your thoughts are about the 
> decline of Braille reading and suggestions on how we can promote Braille
reading.
> 
> 
> 
> As-braille-literacy-declines-reading-competitions-held-to-boost-intere
> st 
> <http://www.npr.org/2017/03/13/519983877/as-braille-literacy-declines-
> readin
> g-competitions-held-to-boost-interest> 
> 
> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Rachel R. Kuntz
> 
> Board Member
> 
> National Federation of the Blind of Ohio
> 
> 937.245.0547 cell
> 
> <mailto:rachelrkuntz at gmail.com> rachelrkuntz at gmail.com
> 
> <http://www.nfbohio.org/> www.nfbohio.org
> 
> Live the life you want. Blindness is not what holds you back.
> 
> 
> 
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