[stylist] Braille for youth and adult contest info and thought

[Bridgit Pollpeter]

Braille literacy is a vital part of education for blind students.
Because the division is a part of the Federation, I believe the focus
needs to remain on the Braille aspect. The goal, as Robert points out,
is to encourage Braille literacy among youth. The NFB works, first and
foremost, to support, encourage and advocate for the blind to be viewed
as equal members in society. Without Braille literacy, we suddenly are
not on as equal of a setting as our non-blind peers. We know it's
important to expose young blind people to Braille as soon as possible,
and to encourage the use of it as they grow. As a Federation group, I
think we would be remiss to no longer retain this part of the youth
contest.

However, I agree that many youth nowadays are not receiving proper
Braille education, and this is no fault of their own. Perhaps the
division needs to consider how to retain the current rules for the youth
contest while allowing those youth who do not have the same opportunity
to learn or use Braille to participate as well. Expanding new categories
at this point does not seem cost effective for the division, so maybe
extra attention can be made to those submitting in Braille. Or maybe
Braille submissions can receive a higher award amount, or an extra award
of some kind. I don't want to exclude people especially youth, but I
also want to make Braille literacy important and encourage it's use.

Just eight years ago I first learned to use a slate and stylus before a
Perkins or any other device. It's amazing how many people I meet,
especially young people, who have no clue how to use a simple slate and
stylus; or worse yet, those who seriously could use Braille education
but are not learning it. We hear this comparison all the time, but it
really is true, and having been sighted for 22 years and learning to
read and write at an early age, Braille is our print. Sighted students
are not taught solely on pieces of technology, though sadly I can see a
move in this direction. So why not, as we push for equal treatment,
learn Braille and how to both read and write it? Just boggles my mind.

Sincerely,
Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter
Read my blog at:
http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/author/bpollpeter/
 
"History is not what happened; history is what was written down."
The Expected One- Kathleen McGowan

Message: 8
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2012 10:51:35 -0500
From: "Robert Leslie Newman" <newmanrl at cox.net>
To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Subject: [stylist] Braille for youth or adult contests - info &
	thought
Message-ID: <007301cd077a$7f565020$7e02f060$@cox.net>
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Miss Lynda and young Master Vejas and others:


Nope, Braille is only for the youth group. And someday we need to also
include those youth who do not do Braille or do not wish the extra work
of producing two versions of their work. In fact, it is a fairly
understood real life happening, that the blind person who learns Braille
and advances on to an electronic notetaker and or gets a Braille display
to be used with their computer, they stop doing much production of
hard-copy materials, and if they do choose to whip up a hard-copy
version of something, they go to a Braille embosser and crank it out.
And this story, is an age old response to efficiency ---  tell me, do
you or any sighted writer that you know, today hand-write out your work
for submission to a contest or publisher?

Yet, don't mistake this- we in the NFB, and specifically the Writers'
Division do want to promote Braille literacy and so we set up the rules
for our youth contest to get at this goal. But alas, by this Braille
requirement, we are excluding all other youth (the majority) from the
chance to work at writing for our contest. Sometime soon, we need to
expand our youth contest to include the non-Braille users, too.


Robert Leslie Newman