[Nfb-kzoo] Braille in Schools

[J.J. Meddaugh]

In case you didn't see this one:
Blind and sighted students celebrate Braille at Milwood Elementary
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Kalamazoo
BY ALISON BLACK
Special to the Gazette
KALAMAZOO -- Tony Wilcox is still learning Braille.
And the only thing more challenging than learning to read with his fingertips, said
Tony, who is blind, is trying to teach his sighted second-grade classmates at Kalamazoo's
Milwood Elementary School how to do it too.
``They ask me, and sometimes it's frustrating,'' Tony said. ``I just wanted to hope
for a day when they would finally just learn it.''
Tony's wish was at his fingertips Friday as Milwood teachers and students teamed
up with peers from the Kalamazoo Regional Educational Service Agency's visually impaired
program to celebrate the 200th birthday of Louis Braille, inventor of the Braille
system.
Braille bingo, Braillewriters (think Braille versions of typewriters) and Braille
books read aloud by visiting students from the KRESA program were all featured at
the event, which was held at Milwood, home to three of the visually impaired program's
students. The program has about 100 students who range in age up through 26.
Cupcakes topped with M&M candies arranged to spell out Braille letters were Tony's
favorite part, he said.
``This has been fantastic,'' said Tony's teacher, Mary Spiewak, who had the day off
from work to recuperate from minor surgery but chose to attend the party.
``It adds to (the students') understanding of diversity and to their ability to accept
others. It's exciting to use Louis Braille's birthday as an excuse to teach this,
but it really should be happening every day. This is a team effort,'' Spiewak said.
Brandon Werner, a student in the visually impaired program and a sophomore at Gull
Lake High School, read aloud ``The True Story of the Three Little Pigs,'' by Jon
Scieszka, from a Braille version.
``I thought it was really nice reading to the kid,'' Werner said. ``It's important
because they have blind people that go to their school, and today will help them
relate to these kids and be able to help them out.''
Werner shared reading responsibilities with Portage North Middle school student Dyana
Kovacs, an eighth-grader who is also in the KRESA program.
Erica Bedolla, a program teacher who assisted in organizing Friday's celebration,
said that she hoped the event would help Tony and the other Milwood students in the
program to see learning Braille as ``a positive, fun thing.''
``It can feel pretty isolating when you're the only person in a classroom reading
Braille,'' Bedolla said. ``To hear your classmates enjoying themselves and saying
positive things about Braille is really encouraging.''
When Milwood teacher Kelly DeLorge asked her second-grade class for a show of hands
as to who thought it would be ``super-duper cool ... to feel the Braille today,''
she got a flurry of raised arms -- and a chorus of children saying ``Me!''

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