Training to help the blind to read
By Herb Drill
That long ago inquiry brings us to a touching tale told about touch. More to the point, or might we say “pointer,” it concerns 15 women in the 48-year-old Braille group at Congregation Ahavath Chesed. They are training to help the blind to read.
My own sister, Rita, was blind from birth. I, too, had congenital vision problems. My association with the bumpy dots in two vertical rows of three for each character - enough to write the entire alphabet in Braille - doesn’t come from a textbook, or magazine article, or Helen Keller and The Miracle Worker. Still, being familiar with the theory of Braille is unlike discerning what pattern of dots corresponds to letters of the printed alphabet to translate a textbook into pages of Braille letters.
On a recent Thursday morning at Congregation Ahavath Chesed, those 15 women began training to join the congregation’s Sisterhood Braille Group. Seated in front of Perkins Braillers at
The Perkins Brailler the women use at first is known as a Braille writer, and years ago Braille writers were costly, noisy, heavy, and needed frequent repair. In the 1930s, Dr. Gabriel Farrell, director of the
A century before in Coupvray near Paris, harness maker Simon Braille and his wife, Monique, had a growing family. After they welcomed their fourth child, Louis, they discovered he was bright and inquisitive. But at age three, playing in his father's shop, Louis injured an eye with a sharp awl. Infection set in and spread to the other eye, leaving him completely blind. At 10, Louis was sent on scholarship to the Royal Institution for Blind Youth in
It was French army captain Charles Barbier de la Serre who
invented the technique of using raised dots for tactile writing and reading to allow soldiers to compose and read messages at night without light. Barbier adapted the system and presented it to the Institution for Blind Youth, calling the system Sonography, because it represented words according to sound rather than spelling. Louis discovered the potential of the basic idea and the shortcomings. By age 15, he developed the system that is now Braille, employing a six-dot cell and based upon normal spelling.
Back at Congregation Ahavath Chesed (
The City of Jacksonville, FL purchased a computerized transcriber which can take an e-mail in Microsoft Word format and turn it into Braille material. “Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, we do that for city-related events if need be,” said Jack Gillrup, chief of
Bernita Gilberstadt,Congregation Ahavath Chesed Braille Group founder, and one of the two blind proofreaders, told the Florida Times-Union she appreciates the 15 women viewing the course as a challenge because many people are needed to learn how to turn printed words into something blind people can read. Gilberstadt says it’s "necessary because more children are being mainstreamed into public school, and I think any child or even grown person in danger of losing their sight should learn Braille."
The Braille group dates back to 1957 and one blind child and now proclaims 60 members. They translate the written word into Braille and prepare embossed maps and diagrams so a blind person can "see" a road. At present, the group is printing textbooks for students in
Braille groups aren’t numerous, said group president Jacqueline Lasky. In fact, her group is the only one in northern
New group members are sought annually, since an average novel ends up being seven to eight volumes of Braille characters, and each volume takes a trained translator about a week to do. Members must learn the Braille system. Instructor Thelma Lebowitz told the present15 students the letter "A" was one raised dot in the upper left of the left-hand column. By
For the record, Ahavath Chesed is Hebrew meaning “the love of kindness as required by God.”
In his wheelchair with Muscular Dystrophy, Jacksonville, FL resident Herb Drill writes and edits www.notaccessible.com and is the principal of Able Me & Associates!, marketing consultants to the overlooked disabled community. He is a charter member of the now international Society of American Business Editors and Writers.