[stylist] Braille

[Anita Ogletree]

I can truly testify to almost everything that has been said 
regarding braille.  I learned to read and write braille when I 
was in the first grade -- used it all the way through the twelfth 
grade.  Fortunately I was blessed to have a group of what was 
called resource teachers back then.
There were at least two women who brailled out my lessons using a 
perkins brailler.  This meant I had abbl of my assignment at the 
same time as my classmates.  They did not come into the classroom 
and sit with me as I gather that may happen now, but I had to 
spend time in the classroom they had set up.
When I began school I was first sent to the school for the blind 
in Talladega, Alabama.  But after a few weeks had passed and my 
mother and I cried every time they had to leave me there at the 
facility, someone told my father about a regular elementary 
school where sighted children attended.  It wasn't long before I 
was going to that school.  So I got to stay home and grow up with 
my sibblings instead of spending the week miles from my parents.
There were only one or tw blind students sometimes in the whobbe 
school.  Some of the high school kids would often come to the 
classroom where the resource teacher was for help with some 
things.  Funny thing is that I often dream that I visit that 
classroom.
My education for those 12 years was, for the most part, very 
good.  Even when I went to high school, I was provided with 
braille textbooks for all of my classes.  By then they had hired 
an orientation & mobility instructor who would come to my high 
school to help with anything they couldn't put into braille.  He 
even found time to do some O&M with me.  I was the first blind 
student to attend my high school.  The teachers were wonderful 
and I had to keep up with my classmates.
The problems began for me once I had graduated and entered 
college.  No braille textbooks, no recorder to record my classes 
so I could study, readers put me to sleep and I went from being 
an A-B student to receiveing 'incompletes in each of my classes.
I passed at least one or two courses before I went to another 
school in California.  Still no books in braille, but I did a 
little better there thn I had at the school in Alabama, however, 
having to rely on a reader or listening to books on cassette was 
very stressful resulting in my dropping out of school before I 
could get into my Sophmore year.
Braille is my lifeline.  As much as I appreciate having the use 
of screen readers, digital players, etc., if there was any way I 
could get everything from utilities to applications would make my 
life so much easier.  Having to wait until someone can read mail 
drives me nuts! Many times people will silently read over the 
mail before letting me know what it is.  That's bad but sometimes 
that's all I can get.
I can't really say whether or not I visualize what ow am reading 
because the mental pictures I have are often different from what 
a sighted person describes.  I have been afforded the opportunity 
to experience how printed letters are.  I was introduced to the 
Optacon when it was out and I had instruction in writing in 
print.  (There are times when I can sijn my name pretty close to 
what sighted folk can read--then there are times when I know that 
my writing is unrecognizable.)
I want to teach braille but I do not have a collefe degree.  I am 
49 years old now and worry that I may not be able to handle 
taking all the classes necessary for geffting a degree.  My 
personal opinion is that I should automatically qualify as a 
braille teacher because I have spent most of my life reading and 
writing braille.  Whatever it takes to make sure no one takes 
braille away from me I am ready to do.  I love braille.  I am 
going to start a business in braille transcribing in the very 
near future.  That's the least I can do to save our most precious 
gift.

Anita