[blindkid] math for blind kids

Thu Oct 3 23:30:33 UTC 2013

Hi Joy and all,

This discussion reminds me of something Hoby Wedler said at a
convention once, which I found very inspiring. He said that chemistry
and physics are not visual subjects because even someone with 20/20
vision cannot see atoms or atomic particles directly. They have to be
represented in some way. Sighted people choose visual representations
because the visual modality is a flexible one, but that doesn't mean
blind people can't form their own representations. Similarly, math is
not inherently visual since we can't directly see numbers. We create
lines and charts and images to try to make mental sense of numbers,
but these things are just one way of representing the information.
Blind students ultimately find their own mental and physical systems
for organizing the information. Braille and tactile representations
are helpful because they are probably the closest we can get to a
print drawing.
Arielle

On 10/2/13, Joy Orton <ortonsmom at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Brandon,
>
> I think you raise a great question. Math is taught visually because most of
> us who do math are visual. That does not mean that the concepts are visual.
> I hope some blind adults can respond as well.
>
> I teach math to sighted seventh and eleventh graders, and have taught math
> to my daughter who is blind.
>
> I have used the number line concept with my seventh grader, who is blind
> from birth. She and I sometimes make her nose the zero, and then her left
> hand reaches to the negative numbers, and her right hand reaches to the
> positive numbers. I think it is a helpful tool.
>
> I think the hundreds chart, too, has some value in braille, as long as it
> is big enough for distinguishing the things the teacher wants to teach. If
> the print chart is ten by ten, and the brailled chart is only seven numbers
> wide, then that would be a problem.
>
> One thing I think is not well-translated is a raised-line drawing of a
> three-dimensional shape. I prefer to use actual three-dimensional shapes
> for working with concepts related to them.
>
> Hope this helps.
> Joy Orton
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 2, 2013 at 7:00 AM, <blindkid-request at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>
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>>    1. Elementary math question (b&s)
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>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2013 05:27:57 -0600
>> From: b&s <lanesims at gmail.com>
>> To: blindkid at nfbnet.org
>> Subject: [blindkid] Elementary math question
>> Message-ID: <CFE73F59-3EA6-4359-ABF7-E09B268CB57A at gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain;       charset=windows-1252
>>
>> Emilia is now in 4th grade. I have been going in occasionally to
>> help/observe during gen ed math time. I have always understood that the
>> teaching of math (and all subjects for that matter) is vision centric.
>> This
>> is just a fact of life and I've been under the impression that teaching a
>> blind kid is just a matter of tweaking the same information that is
>> taught
>> to the sighted kids. However, What struck me yesterday was the
>> possibility
>> that entire portions of the math curriculum may be fundamentally
>> dependent
>> on a visual approach, so that the issue becomes one, not of transcribing,
>> but of truly translating the concepts to an entirely different
>> language?.and possibly even throwing out portions of the curriculum. This
>> came up while thinking about number lines. Number lines figure heavily in
>> the teaching and testing at this level. Emilia has a brailled number line
>> at school that does a reasonable job of transcribing the visual
>> information. She can read the number line and mimic what other kids are
>> doing with some effort. My question is whether a brailled number line is
>> really useful to a congenitally blind student to help with understanding
>> the underlying concepts??.or does it just make us sighted folk feel good
>> about seeing the blind kid do the same thing the sighted kids are doing?
>> Is
>> she really learning the material?
>>
>> Unless I'm missing something, the abacus seems to cover the same
>> territory
>> and more as the number line. I don't even know how to approach the notion
>> of the hundreds chart, which again, is available in braille, but is it
>> really useful? If the answer is no, then there is the question of how to
>> approach the issue of class participation, when everyone else is using
>> these tools and concepts.
>>
>> I plan to talk to a couple of congenitally blind adult friends to get
>> their perspective on this stuff. Any enlightenment from parents and
>> others
>> here would be great also.
>>
>> Thanks, Brandon
>>
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