BRAILLE: A RENAISSANCE
              An Address Delivered by Ramona Walhof
                    at the Convention of the
                National Federation of the Blind
                   Dallas, Texas, July 8, 1993

     When I was in the sixth grade at the Iowa School for the
Blind, my class was given a timed reading test. Afterward, each
student was called in for a private conference. I was
congratulated and told that my Braille reading speed was very
good: 91 words per minute.
     I remember very vividly knowing that something was wrong. I
was not a good reader, and I did not like the prospect of never
getting any better. Still, I had no idea how to improve, and the
message was clear. I should not expect to. I knew a few students
who read faster in Braille than I did--although not many. The
prevailing attitude was: Most people can't read Braille very
fast. How futile and discouraging for a young blind student! And
I now know how incredibly wrong!
     As many of you know, I was the second of three blind
children. Our attitudes about Braille did and do vary
considerably. That is explainable and may be significant as we
examine attitudes toward Braille. In my family we had a sort of
mini laboratory.
     My brother is the oldest and took kindergarten and first
grade in public school, where he was provided large print books
that he couldn't read. Anyone can imagine the frustration a child
in this situation must experience. Unfortunately, many children
must repeat it still today. When my brother went to the school
for the blind after Thanksgiving of his second grade year, he was
behind the other students. He did learn Braille, but was slow.
The other students said he read like a tortoise, with the accent
on the second syllable for emphasis. I can never remember my
brother's reading much in Braille, except (as he grew older) the
Braille Technical Press. He became quite good at getting adults
to read technical material aloud to him. In college he used
readers and tapes. Shortly after college graduation, he was
married, and his wife has read for him ever since. Never has he
had adequate motivation and encouragement to build good Braille
reading speed. It's not that he is incapable. His slow speed is
not just fate. It has causes and, if he chooses, a cure.
     I enrolled at the school for the blind after Thanksgiving of
my first grade year. I could not see the large print books in
public school either, but I was humiliated to go to a school
where the children had not started to read at all. When we did
start reading at the beginning of the second semester, we were
given flash cards that did not have enough letters. I could
understand look (L-O-O-K), but there was something wrong with
Sally. Nobody told me about an A-L-L-Y sign. By the end of that
year, I had read and memorized one little book Happy Days--and I
had learned something else, that it was bad to read Braille.
     My sister, a year younger, started to the school for the
blind after Thanksgiving of her kindergarten year and learned the
Braille letters from blocks that had nails arranged in the
formation of Braille letters. She remembers that once near the
end of that year another student and I came from the first grade
into the kindergarten room to demonstrate reading Braille. She
remembers thinking we were not good readers. She was right. She
said that she decided right then and there to read better than
her older sister--which she did.
     For me during second and third grades Braille was dreary.
The students who used Braille never read all the material in the
textbooks, and nobody indicated that we could or should do
better. The students who used large print read faster than we
did, and they read more stories. This just reinforced our notion
that Braille was bad, although nobody ever said so. Once in third
grade we went to the library and checked out books. Crazy as it
sounds, we were not permitted to take the books to the dorm, nor
were we permitted to read them in the classroom. Therefore, at
the end of the month we took our books back to the library
unread, and never checked out any more. My sister, on the other
hand, did take library books to the dorm and read them. She took
a timed reading test in the third grade and read 110 words a
minute. Nobody could understand how she got so fast. There was a
boy in her class who also read rapidly. Perhaps they provided
stimulation for each other. Since then, I have met children who
were reading 150 words per minute or more in the third grade.
Some were reading print, and some were reading Braille.
     News commentators read between 160 and 180 words a minute.
Thus, 150 is a comfortable speed for reading aloud, and probably
a low average for good readers.
     As we grew older, the best encouragement I had was my little
sister's reading speed, which was better than mine. I did get
faster, but a little direction and encouragement might have
helped. It wasn't until after I graduated from high school and
found people reading Braille at three and four hundred words per
minute that I began to work on speed for real. And it made a lot
of difference. Today my reading speed varies, depending on how
much Braille I have used recently. Even at my relatively slow
speed in high school, I read every Braille book the librarian
would recommend, and some that she didn't. The library had far
too few titles, even for a small school--another disincentive for
Braille readers.
     I had a different experience with Braille writing. My
brother brought home a Braille slate and stylus after his third-
grade year. That summer I took possession of it and taught myself
to write. I could write better with the slate than with the
Braille writer when I went back to school that fall, much to the
frustration of the man who was supposed to teach me. To this day
I still enjoy using the slate, and I always carry one in my purse
and briefcase. As I once undiplomatically told a colleague in
college: If you can't write an address or phone number when you
need to, you are illiterate. And how many blind people still find
themselves in that trap?
     Most of the teachers at that school for the blind read very
little Braille, and when they did, they read with their eyes and
followed the text, if necessary, from print teachers' manuals.
They had no real idea what the expectations for Braille should
be. You can speculate about how their attitudes were formed:
Blindness is bad. Therefore, it is bad to read Braille. Further,
reading and writing Braille are probably slow. Some teachers even
asked us (their students) how much would be a reasonable amount
for us to read for an evening history or science assignment. If
any student had said, "give us a big, fat reading assignment,"
that person would have been lynched by his or her classmates. But
all of this was developing our attitudes about Braille and
blindness. This was the climate that largely shaped our thinking
about our potential as blind people.
     All this causes one to ask why some blind people read
Braille as well and as rapidly as they do. The answer is simple.
Somebody provided encouragement and helped these people believe
that it was possible for them to be good. It may have been family
members. It may have been another blind person who read Braille
well. It may have been the need to keep up with print readers in
public school. It may even have been a teacher at a school for
the blind. One thing is sure. Somebody or some combination of
circumstances helped good Braille readers believe in
Braille--helped them understand that Braille can be used rapidly
and for virtually anything for which you can use print.
Expectations have a lot to do with performance. Both blind
children and blind adults will read and write better if we
provide encouragement and sensible advice. The National
Federation of the Blind knows how to do this, and we intend to do
more and more of it.
     Recently at a state convention of the NFB, I became involved
in a discussion about Braille. There seemed to be a consensus
that, in order to become a fast Braille reader, it is necessary
to begin reading at an early age. Along with everyone else, I
agreed that this is desirable. However, it is not the only way.
It is not reasonable to assume that anybody who learns Braille
after age 7 or 10 or 15 will never be able to read quickly and
enjoy it. There are simple techniques for increasing Braille
reading speed. Read with both hands, and generally keep at least
six fingers on the Braille lines. Learn to skim. Read easy
material, and re-read it going faster. Read Braille while someone
else is reading the same text faster. A tape recording of the
same text you are reading in Braille will work just fine. Most
important, read a lot. An hour or two a day will do, but more is
better.
     As a language major in college, I was at a
disadvantage--along with most of the other students--because I
only started studying Russian and French at age 18. There were
some native speakers in our classes who had flawless accents and
a big head start because of their early introduction to the
languages. That did not mean it was impossible for those of us
who were not native speakers to become proficient in Russian or
French or whatever language was being learned. Most of us had a
slight accent, but our use of the language became clear and good.
Some of the people in that class are now employed as translators
and teachers. I had no trouble making myself understood in the
Soviet Union when I was there, and other students had similar
experiences.
     Braille is not a foreign language. But reading and writing
Braille are fairly complex skills, as are reading and writing
print. With proper training and opportunity, an adult can develop
good facility in Braille, even though starting earlier would have
been an advantage. Many factors affect the development of these
skills.
     The age one begins to read and write is certainly one of
them. Others are: use of language generally, level of education,
self-discipline, motivation, availability of material to read,
amount of time spent reading and writing, and the quality of
instruction. More basic than any of these is the attitude about
Braille and Blindness.
     As you know, most state affiliates of the NFB have supported
legislation to improve Braille literacy for blind children. Some
have already passed such laws. Of course, the reason these laws
are necessary is because so many educators and others don't
regard Braille as good in comparison with print. They wouldn't
want it put that way, but that's what it comes to--and we see
plenty of evidence. Most of us have been educated by teachers
with these attitudes, and many of us read and write less well
than we should because we have sold Braille short. I recently
talked with a certified teacher of blind children who was taught
in college that the average Braille reading speed is 70 words per
minute. That was his reason for teaching most of his students
large print. He really believed none of them could be expected to
read Braille rapidly under any circumstances. I did my best to
show him that he had been misinformed. This teacher was thrilled
and went away intending to teach more Braille. There are bound to
be encounters that will shake his resolve, but we can change
attitudes only a little at a time--just as we eat an elephant--
one bite at a time.
     It is important for each of us to examine our attitudes and
determine whether we are limiting ourselves in the use of
Braille. If we wish to improve, it is most certainly possible. We
may choose not to use Braille at all. That is respectable. Some
blind people can read and write print efficiently. If so, that
too is respectable. The closed circuit t.v. enlarger is a useful
piece of equipment and should not be discouraged. But it will be
most useful as a supplement to Braille, not a substitute. We
should be honest--at least, with ourselves--about why we choose
to teach Braille or print and why we choose to use one or the
other ourselves. We may decide that it is worth the trouble to
discipline ourselves to become rapid and accurate Braille readers
and writers. Most of us can do this if we wish, including
diabetics. I have taught many diabetics to read Braille, some of
whom were told they did not have adequate feeling in their
fingertips.
     You and I know a number of people who learned Braille as
teenagers or adults and are now quite good at it. Peggy Pinder
and Fred Schroeder learned Braille in high school. Neither needs
apologize for Braille skill. Joyce Scanlan, Allen Harris, Mary
Ellen Halverson, Joanne Wilson, Seville Allen, and Betty Sabin
are other good Braille users who did not read Braille as
children, and, of course, I cannot begin to list them all.
     Mabel Nading and I were teaching Braille in the mid 1970's,
and some of our students grew discouraged because learning
Braille took them so long. Mabel and I thought we could speed up
the process, so we wrote Beginning Braille for Adults. We used
our students as guinea pigs to test the lessons, and our success
surprised us all. Not just one student, but many, learned Braille
more quickly than was formerly the case and began to pick up
speed. One of our students learned Grade 2 Braille in 3 weeks and
built her speed to 150 words per minute in six months. She worked
at it 3 to 4 hours a day. She had been a very rapid and constant
reader of print, and a better than average student. She was being
trained in a climate where she was in constant contact with
people who used Braille well. Her speed continued to improve, and
she is not the only person to make this kind of progress.
     I want to tell you about Norm Gardner. When I first moved to
Idaho, Norm was president of the Federation's state affiliate.
One night he and I made presentations to the legislature at a
dinner. After an event like that, we frequently want to review
what happened and evaluate the reactions of some of the guests.
But after most people had left that night, Norm wanted to talk
about something else. The first words out of his mouth were: "I
am determined to learn Braille." I responded that it was a good
idea but asked why it was on his mind right then. He said with
some vehemence, "You had eye contact with the audience, and I had
my nose down on the lectern in my notes. I do a lot of lecturing,
and Braille notes would be so much better." I thought I could
understand how he felt. That was several years ago. I suggested
the methods and techniques I knew, and Norm began (as he could)
to work on Braille.
     Then he moved to Arizona, and I had very few occasions to
talk to him about Braille. A couple of years later, though, I
observed at the Washington Seminar that Norm had all the Arizona
appointments written in Braille. He was working at it when he
could. He was proud of his progress, and so was I. Then came the
evening I called Norm about something totally unrelated to
Braille. When he heard my voice, he said: "I just have to tell
you what I was doing when the phone rang. I've been reading the
Hardy Boys in Braille." He was as happy as a child with a new
toy, and he went on: "This is my third Hardy Boys book. My
brother Bruce and I are both reading them. I never could read for
fun when I was young. It was all I could do to get people to read
school work to me, and I only discovered tapes in college. Now
I'm reading Braille for fun almost every day." As I talked with
Norm that night, I kept wishing that all the people who
constantly say that adults can't learn Braille could be hooked in
on that phone line.
     Then there are the people who assume that you have to teach
writing primarily with the Perkins Brailler because the slate is
so slow that most people never develop good speed or accuracy. 
Consider the following:
     There was a time when Braillers did not exist--and later, a
time when they were scarce. And during all of these times they
were not affordable for many of the blind. Children learned to
write with the slate and stylus, and it is hard to believe that
all youngsters are dumber or less well coordinated today than
they were forty years ago. If we were to take pencils and pens
away from sighted children, their skill would deteriorate just as
has happened with blind children who are never encouraged to
become skilled with the slate and stylus. There is nothing wrong
with the Brailler--but it is too big, too noisy, and too
expensive to be a substitute for the slate and stylus. 
     Kim Boshart in Nebraska started teaching preschoolers to
write with the slate and stylus because she didn't know they
couldn't learn it that young. And guess what! They did learn.
     There was a day when a college-bound student came to me with
a question. She wanted to know how to develop good enough writing
speed with a slate and stylus for college note-taking. She had
started to learn Braille about a year before and could read
better than she could write, but she needed to build speed
generally. Skeptic that I am, I felt rather sure she would not
take my advice, but I did the best I could. I told her: Don't
take a pen or pencil or tape recorder to class. Take your slate,
and do the best you can. At first you will miss things and make
some mistakes. Remember that most college freshmen are still
learning to take notes. If you make yourself depend on the slate
even when you think you are missing things, you will be taking
good notes well before the end of the first semester. You will
have required yourself to write two or three hours a day. I also
advised her to use light weight paper so her arm would not rebel.
Having done all I could, I forgot about the whole conversation.
At Christmas break, this student came to me for a piece of
information. I told her what she wanted to know, and she wrote
it. Suddenly, I realized that she had written it on a slate, and
very quickly.
     I was delighted and said, "Carolyn, you did it!" At first
she was puzzled and asked what I was talking about. I reminded
her of her concern about college notes on the slate.
     "Yes," she said, "I haven't thought about it lately. I did
what you recommended, and it worked." I say to you that if
Carolyn can do it, so can thousands of others, given
encouragement and a little advice.
     Another project from my past came to mind not long ago when
I was discussing with some blind college students the kinds of
employment they might find. You never know when a skill might
come in handy, but if the skill is not there, you cannot use it.
I was one of forty-five blind students enrolled in two projects
sponsored jointly by Georgetown University and the old Department
of Health, Education, and Welfare. Most of us studied the Russian
language, and a few took German. As you may know, the Russian
language is written with the Cyrillic alphabet. The Braille was
easy enough to learn, but the average Braillist couldn't
transcribe Russian. In order to improve our vocabulary and read
material from the Soviet Union (which we could get through the
Library of Congress) we desperately needed a Braille dictionary.
Somebody (it wasn't I) thought up the idea of our transcribing a
large Russian-English dictionary into Braille ourselves. We could
get our professors to record the dictionary on tape and we could
transcribe it into Braille. Most of us didn't have Braille
writers, but we could afford to buy forty-cell board slates.
     Slate writers were in clover, because we were paid (I think)
$2.40 per hour. In any case, it was more money than I had ever
before earned in my life. I suppose ten or twenty of us
participated in copying that dictionary. There were some who
worked more hours than I, and some may have used Braille writers-
-but I was quite happy with the arrangement. I understand that
this dictionary may still be in use by blind translators working
for the Department of Defense.
     I mention this not just for the sake of a little nostalgia.
A lot of books were put into Braille using the slate and stylus.
Many of us here today have read some of them. It was quite an
adequate method. The Braille writer is faster, but that does not
mean that the slate is worthless. Just as the computer keyboard
will not soon, if ever, replace the need for pens and pencils,
the Braille writer has not made the slate undesirable--and
probably won't.
     As I have said, Federation affiliates in most states have
been working on legislation for better Braille instruction and
for better Braille literacy. This will in time improve the
reading and writing skill of today's and tomorrow's blind
children. Belief in the value and potential of Braille is again
improving. Ten years ago it was declining. You and I know the
cause of this change--the National Federation of the Blind. We
have reversed a trend. We must continue to work, and our progress
will accelerate.
     I have a friend named Marian who is in kindergarten. She is
intelligent, active, and blind. She and her mother have become
good Federationists. Recently Marian and her mother stopped at my
office, and I took the opportunity to see how Marian was coming
in Braille. She could tell me how to make most of the letters,
and she could write many on the Braille writer. However, when I
gave Marian a piece of paper with whole lines of individual
letters written on it, she could not identify any of them. I
thought this was odd since Marian knew these letters. I did not
believe she was playing games.
     When I looked at her hands, I found she had placed them flat
on the page so that her fingertips were slightly raised off the
paper. She was not using her hands the way you do to read
Braille. I showed Marian and her mother how she needs to hold her
hands to feel the Braille dots, but it was clear to Mom and me
that we have a lot of work to do to see that blind children have
adequate opportunity to learn Braille--and to learn it in a
usable manner. This was an unfortunate experience for Marian.
Thankfully she has lots of Federation friends to fight for her.
This was an example to set before the legislature as we worked
for better Braille literacy in Idaho. Marian's teachers are
trying, and Marian is bright--but we must work to build a better
system for teaching Braille to young blind children.
     It takes a long time to get the information about blindness
so distributed that it can be found by those who need it. Think
of the Braille Monitor, Future Reflections, The Voice of the
Diabetic, the Kernel Books, our public service announcements, our
JOB literature, our state and local newsletters, our public
speaking, and all of the individual work we do. Even so, we still
come across people who seem never to have heard a positive word
about blindness.
     Last summer I was helping my daughter get settled in her
first apartment after college just before she started her first
full-time job. I managed to schedule a weekend in Chicago in the
middle of a business trip, and one of the things we did was to go
grocery shopping. I don't need to tell you who was paying the
bills. My daughter was far in debt in spite of her college jobs
and all the help I could give her with college expenses. As we
walked side by side behind the grocery cart toward the used
pick-up she was driving (a college graduation present from me), a
car passed very near. The driver's window rolled down, and the
woman said, "She is so lucky to have someone like you to take her
out!" 
     That woman was not talking to me about Laura. Before either
of us could say a word, the window rolled up, and the car drove
on. How could there be a more eloquent description of the work we
have left to do? I am lucky to have a daughter like Laura, and
I'm proud of her. But the picture of blindness in that woman's
brain could not have been more wrong. 
     If anyone believes that reluctance to teach and promote
Braille is not intertwined with the same notion about blindness
expressed by the woman in the supermarket parking lot, then that
person has a different understanding of the world from the one I
have. The image of blindness and the image of Braille are very
closely related whether we like it or not. As we in the National
Federation of the Blind--tens of thousands of us--work together
to change what it means to be blind, we will at the same time
inevitably be changing what it means to read and write and teach
Braille. We support and use Braille because it is a good way of
reading and writing, not because we are making the best of a bad
business. We have made progress.
     It took a generation before more than a few of Louis
Braille's close associates would accept his work as the wonderful
breakthrough it was. How much of the reason was because he was
blind? It was another seventy years before Braille was accepted
as the standard in this country. Braille reached its peak in the
1930's, or perhaps the 1940's. Back-sliding is not unusual for a
new system, no matter how good it is. Braille will have another
new day. You and I, together with thousands of other members of
the National Federation of the Blind, will make it happen.
     Today the cost and time necessary to produce Braille are
decreasing with new developments in Braille translation software
and low-cost Braille printers. We are leaping forward in the use
of Braille. New instruction materials, new laws, and better
teachers are coming forth. The dark ages of the 1960's and 70's
have been succeeded by a new awakening for Braille. As we move
toward the turn of the century, we are truly in the midst of a
Braille Renaissance.
     This is part of the work of the National Federation of the
Blind. We know where we are going, and we know how to get there.
We will meet roadblocks and detours along the way, but we are
determined, and there are more and more of us each year.
Increasingly, the road is paved with love for each other, with
belief in ourselves and other blind people, and with the
increasing effectiveness of the largest organization of the blind
in the world. My brothers and my sisters, I am proud to be a part
of the National Federation of the Blind; I am proud to use
Braille; and I am proud to have each of you as a colleague.