June 30, 1995
Judith Billings, Superintendent of Public Instruction
PO Box 47200
Olympia, WA 98504-7200
Dear Ms. Billings,
A retired Washington State employee, Don Crawford, sent you a letter from Salt Lake City dated April 26, 1995, in which he congratulated SPI on preventing the passage of the Braille Bill. A copy of this letter has just come to my attention.
I am also a retired state employee. I too, am blind. Unlike Mr. Crawford, I am a strong advocate of Braille instruction for blind and severely visually impaired children, and newly blinded adults.
I do not believe Braille has outlived its usefulness, but, on the other hand, I'm not a fanatic worshiping at the feet of some Braille Idol. Braille is a communications tool, nothing more-nothing less. Like print, Braille has its limitations. Both are extremely bulky and cumbersome compared to the storage and recovery capabilities of today's technology; both are limited
in adapting to the fast changing communications needs of the modern world. Nonetheless both continue to be necessary tools. So long as sighted children are taught to read and write, blind children need a comparable skill. Perhaps a day will come when all children are handed some wonderful little box into which they speak their commands and the little box answers them in like manner.
Until then, a scrap of paper and a stub of a pencil are the most convenient and cheapest means of storing information, unless you are blind. Then, the slate, stylus and a piece of Braille paper are your most inexpensive option.
The "Doom-and-Gloom" folks have been predicting the death of Braille for many years. When I became blind in 1965, I was told--by my Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor--not to worry about learning Braille. The modern tape recorder would soon make it a lost art. I chose to learn Braille, not an easy task at the age of thirty. It turned out to be a wise choice, the tape recorder did not replace Braille, nor will the computer. Certainly not in the lifetime of blind children entering school this Fall.
Here, in my office, I sit at a keyboard. My computer is
speech adapted, and beside it is my Braille 'N' Speak. At the back of my desk is a Braille Writer and in the top drawer are a collection of slates and stylus' and note cards. What would I do without Braille? How would I label my computer disks and tapes? Just in case one of my marvelous gadgets crash, I keep backup files, such as telephone numbers and address', in Braille file boxes.
Imagine, Ms. Billings, you enter your office one morning and find you cannot read print. All pens, pencils and paper are gone. "Don't worry," someone tells you, "you don't need print any longer. Here, take this computer. It talks to you".
You're handed a stack of computer disks and a bundle of audio tapes containing everything you've been working on this past year. How will you quickly identify them?
As a person who has retired from state employment but not from the world of work, I use every tool available to me. I need Braille as surely as I need the fax machine--which does not replace the Post Office--or the telephone or the computer or my wife's visual assistance. I wish I could afford a scanner and some of the newer, more sophisticated equipment, but I can't. What does surprise me is that just because Mr. Crawford can afford such equipment and enjoys spending his days strolling to and from the Public Library, he now proclaims Braille to be a useless, archaic form of communication. It's certainly his right to declare this true for himself, but not for me--not for all the children who want the opportunity to earn the kind of life that Mr. Crawford earned for himself. But the playing field is not level for blind children. In order to achieve success. they need every tool available--especially one as basic as Braille.
I am a strong supporter of public education. It is one of the basic building blocks that has made us such a strong, free nation. When I was a child, we were committed to ending illiteracy in the United States. Is this still a goal of ours? How can OSPI support penmanship and reading for sighted children, while denying such a fundamental skill for blind children? Is it the cost?
The price for not educating blind children to be competitive adults is far greater than the dollars required to provide proper training. During my years with the Department of Services for the Blind, I worked with scores of adults, blind since childhood, whose basic education had been neglected. Ms. Billings, it is so very hard, trying to put dreams and hopes and self-belief back into someone who had all traces of them smothered.
We educate our children by word and deed. Please explain to me the message OSPI is sending to blind children by denying them the same education expected for sighted children.
Sincerely,
Carl Jarvis, Director
Peninsula Rehabilitation Services
cc: Shirley Smith
Sue Ammeter
Toby Olson
Ed Grant
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