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

Tue Nov 17 04:25:50 UTC 2009

Yes, but the teacher did not say that the students had to learn
braille, the child made the comment and the teacher encouraged her by
calling her a princess, a character in her favorite story, of Braille,
her form of reading.

On 11/16/09, Judith Bron <jbron at optonline.net> wrote:
> The children know they are reading Dick and Jane.  If the child wants to
> explain how she reads and perhaps there are differences in the stories she
> is reading, then certainly she can share her experience.  A child sharing an
> experience is far from making it mandatory that everyone take part in the
> same experience. Judith
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Aziza C" <daydreamingncolor at gmail.com>
> To: "Writer's Division Mailing List" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Monday, November 16, 2009 3:20 PM
> Subject: Re: [stylist] New THOUGHT PROVOKER #151- The Braille Princess
>
>
>> 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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>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>
>
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