vib8205.htm

Braille Literacy Begins with the Slate and Stylus

Carlton Eldridge

422 West Canedy Street, Springfield, Illinois 62704.

The Reader's Digest, March 1979, contains an article entitled "Everything Begins with a Pencil," with the tag-line, "Seven inches of wood and graphite: it may be the most underrated intellectual tool man has ever devised." According to the article, "Some 2.5 billion pencils (enough to circle the world 11 times at the equator) are manufactured and sold annually in the United States." It has been said that if the pencil were to disappear suddenly, the world of scholarship, science, industry, business, and art would come to a grinding halt.

The slate and stylus is for the blind as the pencil is for the sighted. One of the first toolsof learning put into the hand of as ighted child is a pencil, Formerly one of the first tools that was put into the hands of a blind child was the slate and stylus. I know, because I was a blind child and my classmates were blind children.

Most of the literate blind of the present come from this era. Today, in our traditional schools for the blind much of the teaching is by rote (and the recorded word), which may be called the "story-hour method;" in the mainstream, it is "sit and absorb." When and if the writing of braille is introduced, it is by the cumbersome braillewriter which, like its inkprint counterpart, the typewriter, is essentially non-portable. The slate and stylus, like the pencil, can be slipped into a pocket to be used easily and unobtrusively whenever and wherever the need arises: taking notes in a class or meeting, noting telephone numbers and addresses, and for everyday jottings. Imagine lugging a typewriter about, whipping it out of its case, and finding a flat surface on which to set it, merely to record a telephone number.

The sighted world uses the pencil as a primary tool, the typewriter as a supplement. In like manner, the slate and stylus is the primary tool for the blind; t he braillewriter is the supplement. Denying the blind child the slate and stylus is tantamount to denying the sighted child the pencil. Nearly every sighted person owns and a carries a multitude of pencils, but few blind people own a slate and stylus. They do not possess, nor can they use, the basic tools of intellectual life. It is inconceivable that many blind students of today are permitted to drift through college without this skill. (Recently, I met a blind college student who had been denied the slate and stylus and was forever condemned to go hither and yon with her braillewriter bumping along in a backpack.)

The continuing argument-and excuse for not teaching the slate and stylus is that one must learn to write from left to right, turn over the page, and read from right to left. That is supposed to be very difficult. However, my generation accomplished this feat in natural course. The sighted child must learn four letter-forms upper and lowercase in both print and script. Braille has only one letter-form.

Several years ago, a number of my sighted friends surprised me by purchasing slates and styluses and learning to write and read braille for correspondence. They reported that they had little difficulty in adjusting to the reversal of the page. How simple would be the learning process for the young child whose mind is fresh, open, and uncluttered!

The real reason behind the general dereliction in the teaching of braille, and especially the basic use of the slate and stylus, is that colleges and universities devoted to the training of teachers of the visually impaired are more interested in the psychological, sociological, and mobility prowess of the blind than in their professional proficiency and the basics of literacy. This ignores the fact that these personal qualities develop as a natural result of the confidence emanating from a well-rounded and total education. Testimony indicates that teachers of the blind (especially those with sight) are given perfunctory training in braille, and this only on the braillewriter. Are we settling for lesser educational standards for the blind than for the sighted? Shall we, through a neglect of the basic tools of literacy (the slate and stylus), risk slipping back into the Middle Ages when education for survival was considered sufficient for the blind? Or shall we affirm a dynamic, total education for a place of dignity and service, yea, even for equality in competition within the sighted community?

If, for the sighted, "everything begins with a pencil," and that implement "may be one of the most underrated intellectual tools man has ever devised," so must its counterpart, the slate and stylus, hold for the blind. Let us return the braillewriter to a status equal to that of the typewriter, as a supplementary tool of literacy, which is usually introduced on the junior or senior high school level after the basic writing skills are learned.

Mr. Eldridge, for the past 33 years has been professor of music at Springfield College in Illinois. He is also an adjunct professor at Sangamon State University.