Child and Youth advocate Kelly Lamrock is urging change in the school system following his new report that shows a 29 per cent decline in child literacy over 10 years.
from CBC | New Brunswick News https://ift.tt/5GzNL2Q
Louis Braille (4 January 1809 – 6 January 1852)
“Imperfectly Perfect” as written in Braille.
Louis Braille began losing his sight at three years old, due to an accident with a toy that struck him in the eye and which became infected and spread to his other eye. By age five, Louis was completely blind. It was 1812 and there was nothing that medicine could do for either eye.
He was lucky though and was able to attend one of the first blind schools in the world, the Royal Institution for Blind Youth in Paris. There, Louis was exposed to the “night writing” method invented by Captain Charles Barbier of the French Army. It was a series of dashes and dots intended to be read by soldiers when putting on a light might be dangerous. But the night writing system was rather complicated and difficult to use. It did, however, inspire Louis to try and make a better system on his own. By the time Louis was 15 years old, he had trimmed Barbier’s 12 dots into six and had found 63 ways to use a six-dot cell in an area no larger than a fingertip. Braille, the system still used around the world, had been born.
Just to finish off Louis’ story – his life did not end at age 15! He published his own system in 1829 and added symbols for both mathematics and music. He went on to have a number of publications about the new reading and writing system, and in 1833, Louis was offered a full professorship where he taught history, geometry and algebra. He also became an accomplished cellist and organist. Unfortunately his invention was met with skepticism by the public. It was not even taught at Braille’s alma mater, the Royal Institute. Due to a persistent respiratory illness he was forced to give up teaching and move back to his hometown at age 40.
In 1852, Louis Braille died, just two days after his 43rd birthday. He would never know how widespread his invention would become. Today there are over 250 million people with visual impairments, who are able to access the written word thanks to Louis Braille.
I for one would actually love to hear what you have to say on Braille literacy
Braille should be integrated into early childhood lessons alongside letter recognition.
Not only would braille keyboards help teach braille - they would remove the need for specialized keyboards which cost thousands of dollars. Similarly USB displays for braille would be easy to create, but remain basically nonexistent due to being a niche market.
Electro-mechanical braille tablets/ebooks are an energy-efficient alternative to those with illuminated screens and fulfill the role of being readable in the dark.
People who print braille dots on a flat surface (instead of embossing them) should be attacked with water guns for their crimes.
We need more reading material than the goddamn bible being produced by insufferable missionaries who can’t even leave blind people alone. (A problem immediately solved by braille tablets.)
Braille books should not be confined to special remote libraries. Additionally there should be no additional requirements to access a braille book than any other library book. (Many libraries require letters from eye doctors, etc.)
Street names should be embossed into sidewalks.
The fact that braille literacy is declining is not simply because blind people have other options (like audiobooks) but also due to sighted people making a bigoted assumption that blind people don’t need to read!
Tangential - a major way that bias against blind / low vision people manifests is through the assumption that we are unable to do anything ourselves, and thus there is no reason to teach a variety of life skills. That we have no need to learn cooking, cleaning, the use of transit systems, and so on.
Being marked for only the second time ever, World Braille Day on Saturday raises awareness of the importance of the tactile global communication system which helps enable blind and visually impaired people, to realize their full human rights.
4 January 2020
Human Rights
Being marked for only the second time ever, World Braille Day on Saturday raises awareness of the importance of the tactile global communication system which helps enable blind and visually impaired people, to realize their full human rights.
It is estimated that approximately 2.2 billion people have a vision impairment or blindness, according to the Worth Health Organization (WHO), a billion of whom have either not had their condition addressed, or whose impairment could have been prevented.
People with vision impairment are more likely than those without, to experience higher rates of poverty and disadvantage.
Not meeting their needs, or fulfilling their rights, has wide-reaching consequences: vision loss often represents a lifetime of inequality, poorer health, and barriers to education and employment.
Braille brings written language to the forefront as a critical prerequisite for promoting fundamental freedoms. The system relies on touch to recognize alphabetic and numerical symbols, using six dots to represent each letter and number and even musical, mathematical and scientific symbols.
The 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which has advanced the rights and well-being of persons with disabilities, considers Braille essential for education, freedom of expression and opinion, access to information and social inclusion.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted in 2015, further pledges that no one will be left behind in the aim to ensure that all human beings can enjoy prosperous and fulfilling lives.
Looking back in history
World Braille Day is celebrated on 4 January, the day in 1809 when the system’s inventor was born.
Having become blind after a childhood accident, at age 15, Louis Braille created the eponymous system we know today.
It has been tweaked over the years and as early as 1949, UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UNESCO took the initiative to promote a survey of problems aimed at establishing Braille uniformity.
Louis Braille (4 January 1809 – 6 January 1852)
how have i never heard of archive.org until today.. it’s an internet library that functions just like a real one, as in you borrow the books for 2 weeks and then they are returned to the archive. you can dl pdfs as well, but you’ll lose access after the 2 week period. it’s all free tho, literally just like a real library. i was searching for a cheap copy of this serial murder book from the 90s for my thesis and i found it for free on here. there’s like.. no gimmick at all? i’m so amazed. i literally just signed up and now i’m reading a super hq scan of this book for free. i love libraries.
[Image description:
Outlines of letters with Braille dots organized in them for each letter.
First image- a sign for a terminal displayed on a wall, with two people reading it: one with sight, and one through the Braille.
Second image- a finger on some text saying that Braille Neue combines Braille and visible characters.
Third image- a diagram of how the Braille for the letter T fits into the Braille Neue letter typeface, then the entire alphabet.
Fourth image- a Braille Neue sign that says “Toilet,” with an arrow, on a handrail.
Fifth image- basically the second image but closer; another view of the finger on the Braille Neue.
End description.]
"Imperfectly Perfect" as written in Braille.
