Braille Exchange
Put It to Work for You
Seminars@Hadley
Braille Exchange
Put It to Work for You
Presented by
Sharon Howerton
Vileen Shah
Moderated by
Kim Walker
March 14, 2016
Kim Walker
Welcome to Seminars@Hadley. I’m Kim Walker. I’m an Instructor here at the Hadley School for the Blind, and this morning our Braille Exchange Seminar will be Braille: Put It to Work for You. That’s a fun title and you have two great Hadley Braille Instructors, Sharon Howerton and Vileen Shah.
They’re going to be sharing some fun tips and tricks about how you can use braille. Of course we always think about using it to read and to write, but there are many other ways that you can put that braille to work for you, such as cooking, measuring, keeping your calendar, your appointments, many leisure things and organization for sure, and then Vileen has a special tip and tricks that he’s going to share with us on how to use different fingers to read braille so I’m really excited to hear what Vileen’s going to tell us about that, so I’m going to go ahead and hand the microphone over to Sharon and Vileen and they’re going to give you a quick bio about themselves. It’s very impressive so hi, Vileen and Sharon. We’re so happy to have you here with us this morning to share all those tips and tricks so welcome again.
Sharon Howerton
This is Sharon. I have been reading braille ever since first grade. I’ve been blind all of my life and the braille is something that’s always been very important to me. I always tell clients or students don’t measure yourself against how I read or write because I happen to be a very fast reader and writer, but the important thing is that you’re actually reading and writing yourself.
I’ve been with Hadley for almost 14 years and prior to that, I was a Rehabilitation Counselor with the State of Illinois and worked with blind and visually impaired people all over the city and some of the suburbs for almost 25 years so I’ve been around a while, and I’m very glad to be teaching braille which I’ve been doing now for I think maybe about ten years so glad to be here, and I’m glad to be able to chat with all of you. Nice to see some familiar names but mostly ones I don’t know. Go ahead, Vileen.
Vileen Shah
Hi, I’m Vileen Shaw. I have been blind since age three so I may say that I’ve been blind practically all my life. I’ve been reading braille since age eight, and braille has been my friend guide [inaudible 0:02:59] for all my life. I’ve been working as a Braille Instructor at Hadley School for the Blind since 2001, so it’s been nearly 15 years that I’ll be completing by this May so I’m going to share my ideas how we can use different fingers for reading braille when that time comes so I’ll be with you. Thank you all for joining us.
Sharon Howerton
For those who don’t know, Vileen is originally from India, and I met him about the time that he came to Chicago because he was a client of mine so we have a lot of history so actually Vileen is up at the school and I am in my office in Chicago, so I’ve been teaching what we call Braille Literacy I and II.
Braille Literacy I is what we call Reading and Readiness for Braille and Braille Literacy II is the alphabet, and after the first lesson in Braille Literacy II, people are asked for different things that they would like to use braille for and I can’t even tell you how many times students will say, “I want to read restaurant menus. I want to read the Bible. I want to read books. I’m going to grad school and I need it.” I always kind of cringe because it’s not like magic. It doesn’t just happen overnight, and it’s not like when you read print and you learn your letters and you’re finished with it. There’s a whole lot to it and I feel like sometimes it might be discouraging for people to say this is what they want to do and then they get started and it’s like oh, gee, what have I gotten myself into?
The main thing is that you’re learning and so many people have said – and I had a conversation with a student just this morning and she’s in her 60’s and she said, “Younger people keep saying I really don’t need to learn braille because there is so much technology.” Well, that’s true and a lot of us use technology, whether it’s an iPhone or the computer or something, a NoteTaker or whatever it happens to be but it’s so important that we have literacy, that we can have a backup for the information that we have.
I used to know someone who didn’t want to learn braille, maybe learned a few letters or whatever and would remember everything, and I would say, “Why do you have all this information crammed into your brain when you could put that information on a piece of paper, whether it’s a phone number, an appointment, an outline for something that you’re intending to do and still be able to do something else besides that?”
Let’s just talk about some of the things that one can do with braille to make your life a little bit easier. Partway through the Braille Literacy II course, we send what we call a handheld labeler, and people tend to either love this thing or hate it. Some people have a hard time using it but other people have just gone nuts with it. One lady told me years ago she labeled everything in her pantry. Another student just told me the other day that he was really excited about it. He said braille opened up his entire world and he has been calling in his lessons for a while and it’s just been amazing to hear the change in his tone of voice as he has progressed through the course.
It’s been really, really amazing to hear that and I don’t care if it’s a student who’s 20 or a student, and I have had them, people in their 90’s, some people really get into this. Another thing that I always tell students is if you learn to read braille, it will be so helpful to you when you travel. We’re not always with someone who can help us to press a button on an elevator or find the proper restroom door. I went on a little vacation back in November and I was so amazed – this is a new hotel and I was just so amazed at the amount of braille signage that I was able to find, whether it was the room numbers, excuse me, the room numbers on our floor or the elevator buttons.
There was even signage on some of the doors, even private access doors, it would say “employees only” or something like that and once I knew where that first label was, the first sign was on my room, then I could look in that similar place when I was trying to find out where I was. I was traveling to along with my guide dog and sometimes we didn’t exactly -- [inaudible 0:08:21] we wanted to go right away. I think she wanted to wander and check the place out but it’s so great to be able to press a button on an elevator, and sometimes the elevators will beep as they go through the floors but you can’t always count those.
I remember I went on a trip last summer and that we were on the 27th floor and it’s like okay, how am I going to count to 27, but you lose track but you check the side of the door as you get out and you feel that and you can feel the braille numbers, as well as a raised print number, and those of us that don’t know the print numbers, the braille sure does help a lot.
Another thing that has really helped people, that they’ve wanted to do is to play cards and some people said that was one kind of leisure activity that they really enjoyed, and it doesn’t take you very long to get into one of our courses, the braille alphabet in particular, so that you’ll be able to read playing cards and I’m sure there are other kind of games that you can get. I haven’t done a whole lot of them but you can do that and you can resume a more normal life and fit into things and do things that you have done in the past.
Going back to my student that mentioned about labeling things, he was talking about labeling things in his freezer. That was one of his assignments and I said, “Well, you know what? How about if you make your label and attach it to an index card, and then you could say, put a couple of the same items in a freezer bag, put that card in there and then you’re going to know what it is because Dymo tape, which is what the labeler uses, may not necessarily work itself in a freezer and you know there’s nothing worse than thinking you’ve got this whole thing figured out, only to find that your label has fallen to the bottom of the freezer and you’ve got to try to find it.”
Another thing that’s been very helpful is to label your CD or DVD’s. Now I can put a CD into my computer and it will tell me what’s on it, but I’m not always at my computer. I don’t always want to be at my computer, and sometimes I just want to listen to a particular CD so you can reach over there. No matter what kind of system you use, put thewhole title on there. Put the artist. Put whatever. Make up your own system so that you’re able to read it.
Another thing that people like to do is clothing tags. Now those of that have an iPhone, there are different apps you can use to find out colors and that type of thing, but not everyone has an iPhone and so I’ve read – excuse me. I’ve been getting over some breathing things lately but I’m sorry. There was an app that came out from a particular vendor of blind products that was advertising clothing tags that you could sew into a clothing item, and it would go through the laundry without disappearing or falling apart which would happen if you used your Dymo tape on the label.
Something else that I have found really helpful is to put a label on my chargers, my cell phone charger, my charger for my Victor Stream, whatever it is. Many of them feel the same and it’s just really nice to be able to have that luxury to just read a couple of letters, and you don’t have to be a real fast reader to read this but if you have two or three letters on there, it’s going to make your life a whole lot easier, instead of having to go searching for all kinds of stuff as you try to charge up your phone, your Stream, whatever it happen to be.
Once you learn how to write and some people learn this at different times, we teach it in a later course than what I teach, but an invaluable thing for me has been my calendar. I happen to do a lot of different things and I’m in a choir, and my calendar tends to focus around the dates that we have rehearsals and the dates that we sing and I use five by eight index cards. I tend to use a slate and stylus for that sometimes or I use my braille writer, whatever it happens to be but if I need to change it, I don’t have to go through my phone, do all kindsof stuff. I don’t have to find it on my computer. If I have things that change from week to week, I can change them, write a new card. It takes me a few minutes and toss out the old one. It’s kind of strange to toss out weeks at a time but sometimes you got to do that, especially when the weeks are done. I also tend to keep my account information, my check register, when I write things down.
Yes, I do go online and verify that and sometimes I don’t do it every day so I will go back and write things that are there but at least I have a record, things that I can go back to and speaking of, if you have account numbers, whether it’s a credit card number, different important things that you don’t want everybody in the whole world to know, if you braille them you’re got that kind of privacy because over the years, the things that people have said to me that they seem to really struggle with when they lose vision is the lack of privacy, that you don’t always have when someone has to read your mail or read your bills or do whatever so the more things that you can do for yourself, the better off you’re going to be, and it’s going to empower you and make you feel a whole lot more independent.
It’s been something that’s been so wonderful to hear from my students as they’ve completed the Braille Literacy II course when they complete the alphabet, and it’s justgreat to hear them say, “I can do this. I don’t have to ask someone,‘what is this spice,’ or ‘what is in this can’.” Anyway, those are just some of the things that you can do, and I tell people as they get into their studies and get to the point where they get that labeler, make this work for you.
It’s not just a matter of doing a lesson. It’s a matter of having literacy and having freedom in your life and having a greater amount of independence, so that’s a short version, maybe too long, of things that I’ve done with braille, what students have said to me about using braille and Kim, we’re going to do questions or you want to go directly to Vileen?
Kim Walker
Thank you, Sharon. Yes, let’s take some questions. I do have a question from Jones, and it says,“Vileen and Sharon, which grade of braille will I need to study music?”
Sharon Howerton
You would need to know contracted braille. It’s a different type of code and I have not learned it. I will freely admit that and in order to transcribe music for example, you have to have certain software, unless you do it manually and write it out that way, but we do teach braille music and the instructor can tell you more about what you need.
Vileen Shah
This is Vileen. Sharon is right. I may say that I’m almost zero in music, but I do know a little bit that you do needto learn or take grade 2braille used to call. Now they’re called contracted braille. However there are a number of special symbols that form the part of learning music in braille or braille music.
Sharon Howerton
It’s all special symbols. I’m not going to go any further. They’re all special symbols and if you were to look at score, you cannot make any comparison to Literary Braille which is what we’re talking about here.
Kim Walker
This is Kim again. Something else that I want to add that a while back, I had a student who was a seamstress before she lost her vision, and she had a question about a measuring tape. We use those flexible measuring tapes when we measure and so I posted the question to our wonderful group of braille teachers, and they told me that you could buy one of the common flexible measuring tapes and use staples to mark maybe the one inch with one staple, the half inch with two staples, so that’s something that you can definitely use your tactual skills with that also and the seamstress is using it and very happy to use it so now I would like to open up.
Do we have any more questions or we would love to hear you share for a couple of minutes some tips and tricks that you’ve used yourself with either tactual symbols or actually the braille that you’ve learned, so I’m going to open up the mic for some comments or questions.
Allen
Hi, this is Allen from Kissimmee, Florida. I’ve used it for several things. One, my file folders that I file in the drawer. Instead of putting the braille label on the front tab, I put it upside down in the back tab so as you’re fingering through to find whatever you’re looking for, your finger is curled over the top of the file and it’s already in the place for reading, as opposed to pulling the file up and moving your hand upward to try and find it.
The other thing is on my DVD’s. That was easy to label. I just stick it on the [screen 0:18:22] part of the DVD box but on the CD’s, it was difficult to figure out how to do that. What I did is I still line them up as you would look at books. However, I’m right-handed so I would take my braille label and put it vertically.
Kim Walker
Hi, Allen. It’s Kim. We were having some technical difficulties but what we could hear about your file folders and your CD’s, that is wonderful and your technique for using those, so do we have any other comments or any other questions?
One thing I would like to ask Sharon and Vileen is using the slate andstylus. As a braille teacher, braille instructor, I have many students that really don’t like to use the slate andstylus and they love their Perkins Braille Writer, and I totally love my Perkins Braille Writer but the portability of it and I do have to say I have watched Sharon Howerton use your slate andstylus and I’ve never ever seen anyone that can do it as fast as she can, so Sharon or Vileen, would you like to make a brief comment about using the slate andstylus instead of having the large Perkins Braille Writer with you?