[stylist] New THOUGHT PROVOKER #151- The Braille Princess

[Aziza C]

Judith,

No, students should not have to learn a foreign language just because
a classmate speaks it, however, if the student speaking a diferent
language is willing to share his/her knowledge, it would seem to me,
rude and pretty silly for the teacher not to encourage that sort of
interaction. Besides, reading Braille is natural to the blind girl in
this thought provoker, she knows nothing else, and doesn't really care
for print, so why shouldn't her classmates read Braille too? Children
don't really understand that some people simply have to have differend
mediums of obtaining information, that distinction comes later I
think.
Aziza

On 11/16/09, Judith Bron <jbron at optonline.net> wrote:
> When I was in first grade I coldn't learn to read with the rest of my class.
> I was very sick in first grade.  measles, chicken pox, mumps and every cold
> germ in the world landed in my small body.  As a consequence of this, my
> mother taught me to read.  When I went to Hebrew school the same thing
> happened, but I wasn't sick that year.  Because I couldn't absorb Hebrew
> with the rest of the class, my father taught me.  No teacher, psychiatrist
> or education guru can say exactly what every child will be able to learn.
> Lori is the exception.  I'm, well, let's just say I'm me.  Two first
> graders, two different learning patterns.  Who's right?  Who's wrong?  Who
> was able to excel in school without learning disabilities?  Both of us were.
> Both of us graduated high school and then college.  We can't broad brush the
> entire population.  Judith
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <LoriStay at aol.com>
> To: <stylist at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Monday, November 16, 2009 9:43 AM
> Subject: Re: [stylist] New THOUGHT PROVOKER #151- The Braille Princess
>
>
> A child in kindergarten learns things globally, that is, without making
> judgments as to what is print, what is braille, what is math, etc.
> Everything
> enters and is imprinted on his/her brain.   Adults might get overwhelmed,
> but a child simply absorbs.   Now whether they can absorb everything, who
> knows?   But they do get the foundation for later learning.   Once the
> foundation is built, all else rests on it, and it is for sure that a sighted
> child
> will focus on print, and that a blind or dyslexic child will focus on
> Braille.   (Some dyslexic children absorb Braille quicker than print)
>
> So, overwhelming?   Maybe not.   A child learns what he learns.   We would
> do well not to underestimate children.   As a five year old, I absorbed both
> English and Hebrew, learning Hebrew quickly because I had somehow managed
> to teach myself print reading in English as a three year old.   No one
> taught
> me.   It was just all around me, and I figured it out.   I built the Hebrew
> reading based on what I knew of English print, associating sounds with
> letters.   My grandkids are the same way.   So if someone had taught me
> Braille
> then, I'd have done that too.   It's only our adult brains that are set in a
> mold.
> Lori
>
> In a message dated 11/16/09 9:33:11 AM, jbron at optonline.net writes:
>
>
>> Aziza, Perhaps once the class masters reading hard copy, they can be
>> introduced to Braille, but what I know is that a first grade child is
>> overwhelmed with all the new material he or she is being introduced to.
>> If
>> a child in the first grade class speaks Japanese, does this mean the
>> entire
>> class should learn that language? Judith
>> ----- Original Message -----
>>
>
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