[stylist] Braille
Anita Ogletree
yrstrli at gmail.com
Sat Feb 9 10:18:25 UTC 2013
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
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