DISCLAIMER: This publication contains announcements from the Silicon Valley Council of the Blind and is also a forum for opinions relating to blindness issues. Signed articles reflect the views, and research, of their authors.
STATUS: SVCB is a 501(c)3 non profit, tax-exempt organization under the California Council of the Blind.
CHANGES OF ADDRESS
Contact Julie, database@svcb.cc
MEETING LOCATION
SVCB's monthly meetings are held in the dining room of the Monte Vista Terrace Apts. at 1101 Grant Road, Mountain View. Meetings run 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. the third Saturday of the month and are open to all. Monte Vista Terrace is one block from the intersection of Grant Road and El Camino Real and is accessible by bus #22.
Note: Postal addresses and phone numbers are not included in the online version of this newsletter. For contact information, email membership@svcb.cc
August was picnic month! I went to SMCCB's picnic on August 1. I started with a self-satisfied feeling; all was well with the world. But when we were well on our way, I noticed that my pockets felt strange. Oh dear, no keys, no money! So much for good feelings.
So what to do? Well, I figured I'd just call Star when we got to the train station, explain my goof and ask her to pick me up. But the Outreach fellow bundled me off to the Redi-Wheels driver so I didn't have a chance to do that. I did tell the RW driver, and she just gave me an IOU form I could send to Samtrans. That driver was very nice, a good introduction to Redi-Wheels. And I found out that they take customers all the way to the LightHouse in San Francisco. Good show, that! So I made it to the picnic, easy as you please. But let me tell you that I'll never (I hope) leave home again without the essentials.
The picnic boasted good food and company, and this time I wasn't bothered by bugs and wind blowing my Bingo card around. I spent a lot of time talking to Dale Edwards, who serves on the San Mateo Community Paratransit Coordinating Council, similar to Santa Clara's CTA. I hope Dale will come talk to us, one of these days. I hear that picnic photos can be viewed at SMCCB's website, www.smccb.org..
And now to our picnic. I really enjoyed it, and I was very pleased that the tables were close together so it was easy to wander around and talk to everyone. I've heard reports that the food was cold (although my hot dog wasn't), but everyone I talked to felt that the shady area, socializing, docent tour and individual explorations were fun. The goings-on of the raffle gave everyone something to laugh about, and Star even wrote about it. Our electronic megaphone helped a great deal. Let's all thank Victor Clifford and his gang for such a great picnic.
And now to business. At the October meeting, I will be calling for amendments to SVCB's Constitution and Bylaws. Ordinarily these documents are distributed in the September newsletter when they have recently changed, but logistical reasons prevented this from happening. However, the current Constitution and Bylaws are posted on our website at www.svcb.cc/constitution.htm, and you can call me to get a braille copy or Julie Lovins to obtain large print. It is assumed that you will read these documents and have items included in the October newsletter.
Expectations are that SVCB will have a booth in the exhibit hall at the fall convention, where we'll be selling T-shirts and cookbooks. Contact Michelle for more details.
At the September meeting, we will be electing delegates for the fall CCB convention in Fresno (have you made your reservations yet)? I'll also be announcing the members of the Nominating Committee, which will prepare a slate of candidates for 2010. The 2010 administration will be elected at the November meeting. We'll also be talking about plans for Braille Literacy Month, January 2010, just around the corner!
At the business portion of the July membership meeting, a motion was passed that if the Board felt there was time to do it, an ad hoc committee would be formed to develop a community outreach program for "employment of People with Disabilities Awareness Month" in October. After discussion, the Board agreed that there wasn't enough time for a comprehensive program, so the committee was not appointed. However, you don't want to forget that the October program will feature SVCB people talking about their working careers and the role disabilities played in them.
Return to the Table of ContentsJames Unites, Deputy Director, Operations Service and Operations Planning of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, will be our speaker at the September 19 meeting. Mr. Unites is responsible for a number of things at VTA that affect us directly. He staffs the Committee for Transit Accessibility and manages the VTA contract with Outreach to provide our paratransit. He will talk with us about the changes that are coming at VTA with the budget problems.
Have your questions ready, but be nice!
Return to the Table of ContentsHappy September birthdays to our members Mike Keithley, Donald Reelfs, and Lyn Saunders!
Return to the Table of ContentsThanks to all who contributed prizes and to all who purchased tickets for our picnic raffle. We raised $201!
We will have another auction at our September meeting. At this point, we will have a tin of tiny mints and a very nice pen for participants to bid on. So come prepared to join in the fun and support SVCB!
SVCB is again selling Entertainment Coupon Books! They cost $30 each. For the first 37 books sold, SVCB will receive 20 percent for each book sold. We will receive 50 percent for each book sold after that. To order or help sell books or for more information, please contact Mike Keithley at mkeithley@pobox.com.
sAs you may recall, CCB asked its chapters and affiliates if they would be willing to conduct a fund raiser in September or October and to donate a portion of the proceeds from that fund raiser to CCB. I indicated in last month's report that we would be doing something to benefit SVCB and CCB in October. I'm pleased to announce that plans are underway for us to have a booth at the CCB Fall Convention in Fresno. We will be selling our cookbooks and T-shirts. We will donate 33 percent of our profits from our convention sales to CCB.
I will be placing a second order for our T-shirts during the last week of August, so chances are that by the time you read this, I will already have the shirts. The shirts say, "reading is for everyone" in regular print, braille, and large print. The text is written on the front cover of a closed book, and the book is wearing a pair of headphones to include the idea of audio books. These short-sleeve shirts are white with the artwork in black. Shirts are available in ladies' sizes small-2X without pockets, men's sizes small-3X with and without pockets, and children's sizes small-large without pockets. Shirts without pockets have the artwork on the front. Shirts with pockets have the pocket on the front left and the artwork on the back.
Shirts without pockets cost $17 each for adult sizes small-XL and $20 each for sizes 2X-3X. Shirts with pockets cost $19 each for sizes small-XL and $22 each for sizes 2X-3X. Children's sizes cost $13 each. We can offer a discount to organizations that wish to purchase shirts as a fund raiser. Shipping charges will apply if you are unable to pick up orders personally.
For more information or to place an order, contact me at svcb@onebox.com.
It's time to reserve your calendars for 2010! SVCB will again be selling large print/braille calendars featuring artwork by blind and visually impaired people of all ages. These calendars cost $9 each. To reserve yours, please contact me as listed above.
Clearance sale! Obtain one of our last White Cane Safety Awareness T-shirts for only $11 each! We currently have two small in black with white lettering and two small and one large in white with black lettering. To purchase one of these shirts or for more information, please contact me as listed above.
See you at our September meeting!!
Return to the Table of Contents"Literacy is the heart of sustainable development." (Kofi Anan, former Secretary General of the United Nations)
Ninety percent of blind and visually impaired students residing in the United States today are not learning braille. Does this statistic frighten you? It terrifies me, especially because it comes from such a reliable source: Steven M. Rothstein, President of the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts. I heard Mr. Rothstein address this issue at the fourth general session of this summer's American Council of the Blind National Convention in Orlando, Florida. In his address, Mr. Rothstein relayed this alarming statistic along with enlightening commentary on causes for the decline in braille literacy, as well as strategies for reviving the prevalence of braille in the lives of blind people. As chair of our SVCB Braille Literacy Committee, I would like to share some highlights of Mr. Rothstein's address with our chapter and to open a discussion about ways in which we can continue to promote the use of braille, and the awareness of braille, in our surroundin!
According to Mr. Rothstein, three paradoxes and two "lacks" have caused braille instruction and reading to decline in the United States. The first paradox is technology. None of us will deny the benefits that we have gained from the evolution of screen readers and other speech-based technology. But in many schools throughout the United States, blind children are given no exposure to braille; all texts and all instruction are relayed entirely through speech technologies. The end result is that blind youth are often unable to spell, comprehend spatial text lay-out on a page, appreciate the physical size of a document, understand braille maps, raised diagrams and braille music, capably use English syntax, or for that matter, even write. Just imagine how these illiteracy problems complicate one's grasp of mathematics and science. Just imagine the difficulty of launching one's career without these most basic literacy skills. Mr. Rothstein asserts that technology must not replace!
braille in our schools. Instead, it must be a companion to braille.Paradox number two results from "mainstreaming" or "inclusive education." Inclusive education most definitely has its merits. With the support of truly dedicated and knowledgeable braille resource teachers, I received a fantastic mainstreamed, public school education here in the Campbell elementary and high school districts of California. According to Mr. Rothstein, however, not every remarkable teacher knows "deep braille," i.e., grade 2, Nemeth, mathematical braille, computer braille, music braille or the braille code essential for writing world languages. Indeed, there are currently only about 7000 teachers of blind and visually impaired students who know braille. Obviously, this number is too small to meet the needs of all blind children who might potentially attend public school in the United States.
Paradox number three is a result of advances in medical technology that allow for the survival of more premature babies. Of course this survival is a good and marvelous phenomenon! But premature babies have a higher propensity for multiple disabilities than do babies who are carried to term. These disabilities, combined with visual impairments, can make learning braille harder.
In addition to the aforementioned paradoxes that bring with them both blessings and challenges, Mr. Rothstein cites two "lacks"--I call them deficits--that severely impede braille literacy. The first is the lack of enough qualified teachers, and the second is a lack of public awareness. Concerning teachers, Mr. Rothstein recommends a national certification program designed to insure that braille literacy standards deemed appropriate in one state are recognized and upheld in all 50 states. Ideally national certification will allow teachers of braille to agree upon commonly held educational values, as well as upon the highest possible standards for their curriculum. With regard to raising public awareness about Braille literacy, the Perkins School for the Blind is already leading the way. Today Perkins provides services to the United States and 63 additional countries. The acronym for its service program is TAPS. "T' stands for Teaching; Perkins provides free seminars on its website on braille instruction and other issues concerning blindness. The "A" in TAPS stands for Advocacy, and "P" for Products--Perkins Braillers and more--and the final "S" for Services, one of the most outstanding of these services being Perkins' vast braille library.
Ultimately, raising public awareness about the need for braille literacy is a task best addressed in our local communities. Our SVCB chapter has already begun to address this task. We have donated a number of Louis Braille "Touch of Genius" biographies to local public and school libraries. When we sell and also wear our new "literacy" T-shirts, we help the public encounter braille. But we can do much more. We can hang print/braille calendars in our places of employment, thus rousing our colleagues' curiosity and sparking dialogue. I always have an APH Insights print-braille calendar hanging on my office wall at West Valley College, and it is frequently a topic of conversation among my colleagues, my students and me. We can place braille labels on our California ID cards, ATM cards and credit cards. This insures that as we interact with local merchants, they get a little exposure to braille. When it's time to send out birthday and other holiday greeting cards, why not send print/braille cards. When we dine out, we can ask our server whether the restaurant has a braille menu. Even if it doesn't, merely asking this question can plant a seed of interest. When I am in a public building such as a hotel or office that has excellent Braille signage, I try to make a point of expressing my pleasure about this fact to someone in authority. I haven't yet taken what for me is the scarier step of speaking out when there is no braille signage. Case in point: I teach at West Valley College, and we have no Braille signage marking our classrooms, our private offices, our student services offices, or even our one ATM machine. My desire to be a cooperative colleague and team player has caused me to be remiss about speaking up with regard to our need for braille signage. I think that I need to worry less about being liked, and more about the fact that the braille that is not available to me as a faculty member, is also not available for our blind students. Further! more, my speaking up will make my colleagues aware of Braille Literacy.Perhaps our most effective means of making people aware of braille, is to simply read braille in public. I can't begin to count the number of occasions on which I've been reading a braille book in a local Starbucks, at a public park or beside my community swimming pool, and someone sees me reading, walks over, and starts a conversation. Sometimes that someone knows someone else who has just learned that his or her child is blind. So we talk about braille, how easy or hard it is to learn, what local services are available to blind children and their families. On other occasions my conversation "partner" just wants to learn a little bit about braille. Yet again, she or he just wants to discuss books. The point is that braille literacy is out in the sun where everyone can see it. That is what I ultimately want.
I realize that not all members of our SVCB chapter read and write braille. Some of us have enough eye vision to read and write large print with ease. Others among us have acquired our blindness later in life, and may only wish to know enough braille to label appliances and clothing. All of this is perfectly fine. What concerns me, and what concerns many of us for whom braille is our primary literacy language, is that we are in danger of losing it. If, for instance, we allow the dominant public perception to be that speech technology makes braille unnecessary and obsolete, then both the human and physical resources that provide braille will go away. I would like our chapter to assume a much more active role in educating our community about braille literacy, and I'd like to hear everyone's ideas regarding how we can go about doing this. We might continue this discussion in future newsletters, or we might devote one of our general program sessions, if not some business meeting-time, to discussing it. I welcome everyone's input.
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