Mike Stafford: A Blind Braille Teachers’ Perspective
All new full time members of staff at A2i, no matter what their position, attend a weekly external class to learn Braille. One of the teachers at the class is Mike Stafford. Mike is 69 years old, he volunteers as a Braille teacher, and has been teaching for about 15 years. Recently, he gave us some time to answer a few questions about his experience of learning and teaching Braille ….
Q: Could we find out a little about your background? Were you born blind?
MS: I was born with poor eyesight. The left eye didn’t really work at all, but I had vision in the right eye which got me through mainstream school and through 35 years work in a builder’s merchant. Then, in my early 50s, the right eye packed up as well, so I was left with no vision at all.
Q: When did you start to learn Braille?
MS: About a year after I finished work. I started to learn Braille at an RNIB rehabilitation centre in Torquay, as well as other things such as touch typing and mobility. Then I spent time at The Royal National College for the Blind at Hereford.
Q: Did you learn it relatively quickly?
MS: No, being a student of 50 odd years and learning by touch, it does take a long time and it’s quite a struggle. Whilst you can write fairly well, learning to touch read is very difficult and slow, and at times quite frustrating. It did take quite a time. I had 12 weeks at Torquay and another 14-15 weeks at Hereford. But even then it needed brushing up, which is when I came to the centre at Bristol. After a while at Bristol I took an examination, the standard English Braille examination, which I was lucky enough to pass.
Q: Did you start teaching after that?
MS: I did some voluntary teaching beforehand. But most of the teaching I did was after I passed the Standard English Braille exam. I did a lot of teaching down at the rehabilitation centre in Torquay. When I wasn’t down there I was doing an evening class here in Bristol for sighted people and an afternoon class for partially sighted and blind people.
Q: Do you get a lot of people who haven’t got disabilities coming to learn Braille?
MS: We do. They are usually either training to be rehabilitation workers or they are support workers for blind children in schools.
Q: With the development of computers, screen readers, and Daisy [daisy talking book], do you think that the need for Braille will slowly fade out?
MS: I don’t think it will fade out. These computer systems are fine if you want to print out a typed sheet to send to somebody else. But, if you want it for your own use, then you need it in Braille. If you want reference documents, or even simpler things like labelling up your CDs, you need to have Braille to be able to do it.
If you are going to get a job, as a blind person, then you need Braille - you can’t do it without it. Well known people like David Blunkett, the ex Home Secretary, rely on Braille to do their jobs.
Q: Are there a lot of visually impaired people that can read Braille?
MS: There are. Some people can still read large print but are stipulated as being blind. However, if you look at guide dog owners for instance, then it might be as many as 60% of them that read Braille because there eyesight is very, very bad. Once your eyesight gets so poor that you can’t read print in any form - magnified, blown up or 43 times its normal size - then you can’t do it. You have to switch to Braille.
Q: How long do you think it takes to get a reasonable understanding of Braille, either with good eyesight or with visual impairments?
MS: I had one blind student who came to me with no knowledge of Braille. He was totally blind and learning by touch, but after 3 weeks of intensive lessons he had mastered Braille. He was not particularly swift at reading but he could read a book reasonably comfortably.
When it comes to a sighted person, I suspect they could probably learn it in a little bit less time. The trouble is most people learn it one lesson a week, therefore it does stretch it out for quite a long time.
Q. Could you tell us about the classes at the RNIB in Bristol?
MS: Classes are every Tuesday. We have a sighted class in the morning, then in the afternoon, we get perhaps 3 or 4 blind/partially-sighted people who are learning by touch.
This is a different, quite difficult, way of learning, which they really have to struggle through. For sighted people it’s a mind exercise - it is about retaining information. But blind people have to get the technique of reading the dots with their finger. They are all inclined to press too hard to start with, and then they flatten the dots and get frustrated. They have to learn to sensitise.
I hope to continue teaching Braille for the next few years at least, so if any of your readers are interested in learning it then just get them to give the RNIB a ring!
A big thank you to Mike for sharing some of his views and experiences.
Mike volunteers every Tuesday at the Bristol RNIB. There are two classes during the day - a sighted class in the morning and a class for blind/partially sighted people in the afternoon.
For further details about the process of learning Braille please contact the RNIB Helpline on 0845 766 9999
For more details about Braille transcription (braille translation) see the A2i website or call us on 01179 70 70 90.
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