Zane
Sorry for all the posts today. This is the last one, I promise.
This is a slightly edited version of my response to a comment on the Paterson article I posted earlier today.
My braille instructor wasn't actually a TVI. In fact, she didn't go to college. But she was a certified braille transcriber. The school district hired her and technically classified her as an "aid." Though there were a number of other students who could have benefited from learning braille, they didn't get the instruction because they had a little remaining vision. (One boy had been told he would be totally blind as an adult, but they still did not provide him braille instruction, and his parents didn't know enough to push for it.)
The school board wanted to start teaching me braille when I was in the sixth grade, but my mom threw a fit. In the end, she won, and Zane was hired just before I started kindergarten. She worked with me at varying degrees until I finished high school in 1993.
When I was young, Zane worked with me to complete a braille reading curriculum in addition to what the other kids were doing. (I always thought it was unfair that I had a whole extra reading class.) By the time I was in high school, she was basically transcribing assignments for me. The school district still did not have technology to translate braille, so Zane transcribed my lessons by hand, interlining the braille and print. I did have access to a computer at that point (an Apple 2GS I think), but they never did get the speech syntehsizer to do anything other than play silly games. After my junior year, I got a Braille 'n Speak, but we never got it connected to anything. So I would write my papers on the Braille 'n Speak and then go in and retype them on the non-talking computer. Zane or the TVI would read the prompts of the spell-check to me.
Sadly, after I graduated, the school board decided there were no other kids who needed braille, so Zane was transferred to another program. I was her only braille student. She worked with me from kindergarten until I graduated. Truly, no other person has had such am impact on my life.
This is a slightly edited version of my response to a comment on the Paterson article I posted earlier today.
My braille instructor wasn't actually a TVI. In fact, she didn't go to college. But she was a certified braille transcriber. The school district hired her and technically classified her as an "aid." Though there were a number of other students who could have benefited from learning braille, they didn't get the instruction because they had a little remaining vision. (One boy had been told he would be totally blind as an adult, but they still did not provide him braille instruction, and his parents didn't know enough to push for it.)
The school board wanted to start teaching me braille when I was in the sixth grade, but my mom threw a fit. In the end, she won, and Zane was hired just before I started kindergarten. She worked with me at varying degrees until I finished high school in 1993.
When I was young, Zane worked with me to complete a braille reading curriculum in addition to what the other kids were doing. (I always thought it was unfair that I had a whole extra reading class.) By the time I was in high school, she was basically transcribing assignments for me. The school district still did not have technology to translate braille, so Zane transcribed my lessons by hand, interlining the braille and print. I did have access to a computer at that point (an Apple 2GS I think), but they never did get the speech syntehsizer to do anything other than play silly games. After my junior year, I got a Braille 'n Speak, but we never got it connected to anything. So I would write my papers on the Braille 'n Speak and then go in and retype them on the non-talking computer. Zane or the TVI would read the prompts of the spell-check to me.
Sadly, after I graduated, the school board decided there were no other kids who needed braille, so Zane was transferred to another program. I was her only braille student. She worked with me from kindergarten until I graduated. Truly, no other person has had such am impact on my life.