[stylist] The ponder to take to another level

[Donna Hill]

Bridgit,
The other thing is that when a sighted kid has a learning deficit, they look
all over the place to see what the problem is. Is the child suffering from a
learning disability? Are there circumstances at home that are holding the
child back? Is the child dealing with a physical or psychological condition
that hasn't been diagnosed?

When a blind child falls behind, it's because the child is blind. They don't
look any further than that. If a sighted person can't find their keys,
they're not paying attention, or they just forgot, no big deal. If I can't
find my keys, it's because I can't see them. We can't have one deficit or
problem that can't be explained away by the fact that we're blind. It burns
me up. It would be one thing if it were just me; after all, that was 50
years ago. But, it persists today in a state that is little altered despite
laws, technology and the extraordinary achievements of some blind
individuals.
Donna

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Bridgit
Pollpeter
Sent: Friday, February 08, 2013 4:41 PM
To: stylist at nfbnet.org
Subject: [stylist] The ponder to take to another level

I think this is a travesty that kids aren't learning exactly what sighted
kids are learning. Clumped together, we all learn at different paces with
different methods, and we all have an individual comprehension level, but at
most sighted kids (and there are exceptions to this) but in general, sighted
kids are learning together at the same time, receiving the same information
with the same material. Blind kids are often not afforded the opportunity to
access said material at the same time or in the same way. Kids who need
Braille but don't receive instruction or proper instruction, are expected to
learn either verbally or via computer, or perhaps both, but they don't have
the opportunity to pick up information in the same way as their sighted
peers. Kids who have some level of vision are expected to use this vision,
and for many it's difficult and tedious, leading them to develop a learning
delay and worse, giving up. And it's the education system insisting upon
this disgrace. Regardless what people think, this states that blind kids
aren't worth the extra effort, and that they don't qualify for the same
opportunities in life as nondisabled kids. I wrote a paper on this at
university, but it's such a complicated issue that begins to run off in
various directions once you research, but it's a problem that needs
immediate addressing. And of course, education in general needs major reform
and growth.

Going back to a comment of Robert's, I heard once of a student who only read
audio material. He was not aware of punctuation and grammar, and he thought
the phrase, "Once upon a time," was a single word. This just shouldn't be
happening.

Sincerely,
Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter, editor, Slate & Style Read my blog at:
http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/author/bpollpeter/
 
"If we discover a desire within us that nothing in this world can satisfy,
we should begin to wonder if perhaps we were created for another world."
C. S. Lewis

Message: 12
Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2013 08:03:09 -0600
From: "Robert Leslie Newman" <newmanrl at cox.net>
To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Subject: [stylist] Quote to ponder - taken to another level
Message-ID: <03ed01ce0605$070eb2d0$152c1870$@cox.net>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"

We were discussing how the impact of what is read is influenced by the
reader, themselves (by what they personally bring to the reading-table).

And here is an interesting thought or outcome that is happening to too many
blind people! First as a baseline thought - the sighted student/reader who
uses print to read literature, educational stuff and the like - they are
reading the words themselves, visually scanning, actively processing ---
while during this process, the student is being exposed to important
"reading related/literacy" features/elements such
as: format, punctuation, spelling, and features like tables, graphs,
pictures, etc. Also, along the same line of literacy, of actively reading
for oneself --- The blind reader who has the skill of Braille can get the
same basic exposure to content, plus all the important literacy features as
- format, punctuation, spelling and the other stuff. However, in today's
world, at least in this country, Braille is not being taught as a first-line
method of reading for the non-print reader! And yeah, you all have heard
this gripe, this warning before.
There again my point today is a bit different: My thought, question is
--- hey --- picture this- if you could not read print, did not know Braille
and could only hear new information, be it a textbook, or poem or piece of
prose --- you were not getting exposed to formatting, punctuation, or
spelling of anything you heard; And so I ask does this then essentially take
the blind person back to the preprint era, back to learning via the oral
tradition? Yeah --- what are these teachers thinking? (Another bazaar
thought - what do you think these teachers who are doing this to the blind
would do --- if they were to find that in school their very own sighted
children would have print taken away and their child was restricted to only
listening to what was being taught??)


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