[Nfb-science] Technical Braille

Sat Apr 14 00:35:32 UTC 2012

Hello,I am fascinated by how many different methods blind peopleuse to succeed in science.Select a successful blind student or scientist and they likely employ a number of methods for doing their jobthat are distinct from others I know in the blind scientific community.Mostly we agree that it is helpful to read subject matterfor the first time containing graphics and technical material in braille.
I want to encourage students and new professionals to do more to gain access to technical braille material in their field of study.I have a room in my home full of several complete math texts and a number more of partial texts all in braille.My sighted peers order a print textbook for $150 off the web and in a matter of daysare reading independently without the need for a sighted reader a book full ofreminders about the fundamentals of the field and some new examples tied to the work problems at hand.I buy the print books also, but review selected portions with a reader.Certain sections I may pay for braille transcription or to have an assistant typeset in latex with Scientific Notebook 5.5.A big part of my success comes from having access to the fundamentals of my field in braille.
As a blind person, how do you get access to technical braille?I am reminded of the gradual release model in education.In this model, the teacher first does the problem in the classroom, then does it with the students,then advises or checks work while the student does the problem, and finally the teacher "releases" the student and the studentperforms the problem independently on standardized exams or as part of future courses.The gradual release model applies to gaining access to technical braille.Technical braille should first start showing up to a blind child in elementary school.Perhaps parents had to request braille as part of an I.E.P. but the blind student thinks little about it.I remember encountering a math problem involving the symbol pi on a standard exam in fourth grade.I did not know how to solve the problem and had never seen the pi symbol before.From that moment, I never forgot the pi symbol and how it was involved in the problem of finding the circumference of a circle.
By the time a blind student takes algebra and geometry, there is little choice but to have a braille text to do well.For the most part, in high school the technical braille keeps showing up as part of a regular class requirement.Public school districts have a long-established lawful requirement to provide blind children a good education and this requirement includes braille textbooks.I recommend high school students request keeping several braille texts such as trigonometry and calculus or whichever textis the last in your progression through math courses.It seems fair to request keeping the braille transcription of the text for the cost of the print textbook or for some otherreasonable fee.Getting similar texts will be quite difficult later.

Now comes the gradual release part of getting your hands on technical braille.I understand that there are instances where the public school district does not provide braille texts for advanced placement courses with their assigned texts.The school district should provide the text but finds it is not already in braille and gives up.The National Braille Association will braille a text if provided 2 copies of the text.Typical lead time is 6 to 12 months.A friend's son is taking AP chemistry in the 10th grade.Supposing this child was blind and the school district was not prepared to make the book available,the blind child or the parents of the blind child would have to step up to the plate in the fall of 9th grade.Who is going to teach that cool class next fall?The school needs to assure the student that the text has been chosen 12 months in advanceand that its brailling is well taken care of.
So we come to college.When enrolled as a full-time college student is one of the few timesthat a blind person has an opportunity to collect technical braille texts in a desired field.A braille textbook is a reasonable accomodation under the A.D.A. and universities get that.Some universities, however, are much better than others in supporting providing blind studentswith brailled texts.I recommend high school students who are juniors start speaking with science division members or blind college studentsto learn how the selection of a college can help increase their chances of a college education with accessable material.Universities decide late in the game as to which professor will teach what.The text selection seems to be the sole decision of the instructor.The department chair selects the professor often in mid spring for fall courses.It is the blind student's responsability to guarantee access to technical braille.Often by meeting with the department chair, the required text if not the professor can be selected 12 months in advance.One explanation I hear many times is that the blind student asked for the book ahead of time,was told no book can be selected ahead of time, and now the blind student is enrolled in the college course with no braille text.Another explanation I hear is that it is just too much trouble to get a braille text for a college course.As president of the science division of NFB, the most frequent question I get is from non-science majors wonderinghow to prepare for a course in statistics or calculus.The best answer is to plan ahead.  Become familiar with the Nemeth Braille Code before taking the course.The course is going to be a requirement for a number of undergraduate degrees,so select which year to take the course and order the text one year ahead.
Here are some other explanations for not getting technical braille from blind students.I am getting a grade of a b in my technical major and am doing fine without the braille.My answer: try a similar course with technical braille. Maybe you will earn a grade of an a.Another explanation is: I am getting an a in my courses and am not using braille.My answer: are you working around the clock and sometimes having difficulty because a sighted reader does not show?I did one year of college courses with no technical braille.I felt so much more relaxed and had more weekend nights out the next year when I had technical braille for my courses.
As a college student, following the gradual release model, you should at least obtain one braille technical text.This will give you the background of knowing how to work directly with braille transcribers.You should talk with the braille transcriber. Give input about how you like tactile graphics prepared.Answer the transcriber's questions about possible typos in the text.Work with the professor to gain an errata of textbook corrections, if any.What a great opportunity to impress a professor with your resolve to learn thematerial for an upcoming course!This is the time to also get an electronic copy of the text that is braille embosser readyand to verify that the text has been placed in a national book archive such as at bookshare.I used to have electronic copies of many of my course texts.I did not properly maintain the electronic media.The electronic media failed and now the only copy I have is the hard-copy braille text.So I recommend burning the electronic book to a CD, keeping a copy, and keeping a spare copy perhaps with a family member at their home.
You are preparing for more than fourty years of professional life built on the knowledge from these college years.It is really impossible to assess which courses will become most central to future career work.After five years of working, I started turning to my data communications textbook and brailled homework solutionsmore than to my signal processing textbook.Now the tide has turned and I am actively researching signal processing.I am so fortunate I kept both braille resources.
And above all, you should take the opportunity to manage the delivery of the braille and the cost for its production.I started getting a quantum chemestry text brailled just a few months before the course started.For my quantum chemestry course, I had one braille transcriber braille the odd chapters and another transcriber braille the even chapters.They express mailed the volumes as they finished them to my student housing.If the transcriber had mailed completed material to student services, I would have missed weekend study time fromvolumes that arrived on Saturday.I occasionally directed the transcriber as to which chapter to braille next during the middle of the coursebased on the teaching order of the professor.The contact with the transcribers helped me tremendously in my career later.I worked with transcribers I had come to know and trust from my college years to prepare a few more texts that I needed professionally.
A hard fact is that once out of college and working, getting technical braille will become much tougher.Your college years are an opportunity to stock-pile the texts you will need for later.As a professional, you can pay for braille transcription out-of-pocket.I know that NASA is very good about providing braille transcription and thatthe federal government as an employer is also quite good.A private employer will be more reluctant to provide technical braille to the blind professional.From time to time, I request the transcription of an IEEE article that may run two braille volumes.If a manager believes in the high quality work that you are doing, the manager may support your access to technical braillein order for you to efficiently complete tasks associated with a work project.Since the company is for profit, the manager is looking for a project to be done sooner because you have access to the braille.Hopefully as a blind professional you are now quite good at getting technical braille on your own.You will likely change employers during your career and start working on something you know little about.The typical ways of learning: more college courses or technical braille on the new subject matter,and working with a reader will help.
It is never too late to start trying out getting technical braille in a field you care about.Similarly, if there are things that have been too hard to do independently for you in the past in science,try to do these tasks every couple of years.Sometimes other blind professionals have the solution now and can share it with you.Sometimes blindness technology has made the task simple.And sometimes an unrelated skill you have developedhappens to apply to solving the old problem.If you can post the access challenge to this list, we can begin to work with collegestudents as a senior project to develop a workable solution.

I look forward to working with you allto guarantee access to learning and technical material for the blind.
very best,John Miller,President, Science and Engineering Divisionof the National Federation of the Blind