Blind Citizens
Submission to the House Standing Committee on Education
and Vocational Training
Inquiry into
Teaching Training
This submission has been compiled by
Contact
Details
Fax: (03) 9372
6466 Email: john.power@bca.org.au
November 2005
Table of Contents
Inequality in literacy standards: Ableism and the
print bias
Braille: The tool of literacy for people who are
blind or vision impaired.
Teaching the teachers braille: Building equality
in literacy
Blind Citizens Australia (BCA) is the
National peak advocacy organisation of people who are blind or vision impaired
for people who are blind or vision impaired. Our mission is to achieve equity
and equality by our empowerment, by promoting positive community attitudes and
by striving for high quality and accessible services which meet our needs. We
have in excess of 3,000 individual members, branches nationwide and around 15
affiliate organisations.
Blind Citizens Australia asserts that education policy makers and
teaching institutions need to broaden their teaching practices to include
braille instruction to improve the literacy standards for students who are
blind or vision impaired. On the basis of this assertion, the following submission
will focus principally on the teaching of braille literacy for primary and
secondary school teachers relevant to the terms of reference 7(i), 7(vi) and
10. It is our hope that by the conclusion of this work, the Committee will
understand that the long term future of children who are blind or vision
impaired will be greatly improved when the teaching profession attain braille
instruction upon graduating from teachers college.
Since the 1970s students who are blind or severely vision impaired have
been integrated from specialist schools to the mainstream Australian education
system (Gale, 2001, p.15). Amongst other benefits, this move of inclusion has
brought about increased tolerance and acceptance of students who are blind or
severely vision impaired in the community. Paradoxadly however, the creation of
this inclusion has excluded students who are blind or severely vision impaired
from reaching the literacy levels of their peers.
Print discrimination in our schools is a by-product of the broader
ableist assumptions that are deeply rooted in our education system. Hehir (2002), writing for the Harvard Educational Review
correctly asserts that ableism equates to the devaluation of disability in
society. Perversive by nature, discriminatory in spirit, ableism sets a
curriculum for the education system where it is better for “a child to walk
than roll, speak than sign, read print than read braille, spell independently
than use a spell check, and hang out with non-disabled kids as opposed to other
disabled kids” (Hehir, 2002, p.3).
Commenting on the far reaching affect of ableist assumptions on braille
instruction, Gale asserts that there “exists currently in Australia, an
increasing anxiety in the professional education system, as well as in the
adult braille reading community about the decline in the use of braille” (2001,
p.13). In discussions with its membership, Blind Citizens Australia is aware of
situations that warrant this anxiety, including examples where children
attending integrated schools are being denied instruction in braille, despite
their parent’s requests. Instead of braille, parents are being told that their
children can learn to read by using audiotapes or a computer with voice output.
While these technological options are more appealing to an ableist education
system, they are inadequate when compared to braille.
BCA is also aware of situations where parents have requested braille
instruction for their child who may have some usable sight; the child is often
denied braille instruction because he or she has some vision. Medical and
educational professionals, including some staff of blindness agencies, hold the
view that if the child is not blind, then that child should learn to use
his/her existing vision to the maximum. Again, ableist discrimination pervades
the notion that it is better to be a like a sighted student.
Braille is the most
important literacy tool for early childhood students who are blind or severely
vision impaired. Those who do not have access to sound braille reading and
writing skills will have a greater chance of becoming illiterate. It is not an
exaggeration to say that a blind person who does not have sound braille reading
and writing skills is functionally illiterate. To acquire knowledge of words,
spelling, punctuation, syntax and grammar from reading a book on an audio
cassette or by reading by a computer with voice output is not possible.
Generally, a child who reads by audio cassette or by computer with voice output
does not comprehend the material as well as a child who is able to read and
write braille competently.
However, despite the importance
of braille, the print bias in our education system is denying adequate access
to braille for students who are blind or severely vision impaired (Gale, 2001).
“Students who are blind or
have very low vision that don’t have access to braille simply miss out. People,
who rely on audio as their main means of reading, miss out on the constant
reinforcement of spelling, grammar and syntax which you only get reading with
your eyes or your hands. I know of students who have only had very little
access to braille and as a consequence they freely admit in their adult life
that they struggle with basic literacy skills”.
The mainstream education system must do more
than simply move children with disabilities from a specialist school to an
integrated school to create inclusion. Equality and inclusion go hand in hand.
To bring a student who is blind or severely vision impaired into the mainstream
system of education and then frustrate his/her learning experience is simply
unacceptable. However, as it currently stands, this is exactly what’s happening
to blind children.
Specialist itinerant teachers of braille are
in short supply and when available, have infrequent access to children who are
blind or severely vision impaired (Gale, 2001, p.15). While sighted children in the classroom are
free to immerse themselves in print, the child who is blind or severely vision
impaired must struggle with infrequent access to his/her primary medium of
literacy. Inadequately equipped with braille teaching instruction, mainstream
teachers are unable to bridge the gap.
Very few teacher training university courses
have on campus training modules in braille instruction, while others only offer
such training through distance education. There is also a lack of post-graduate
opportunities for teachers to specialise in teaching blind children.
Consequently, teachers are graduating into an inclusive and challenging class
room environment profoundly ill-equipped to deal with the literacy needs of
students who are blind or severely vision impaired. If this trend continues, “it is difficult to imagine that a dynamic and viable future
for braille literacy in the Australian school system will eventuate” (Gale,
2001, p.16).
To alleviate the potential of this future
outcome, student teachers, in the first instance, need to acquire a broad
understanding on the rights of children to access literacy and how these rights
are impeded for children with disabilities due to the bias of ableism.
Following from this, teaching curricula should contain constant training
modules in braille literacy. Learning braille is just one example of how
varying teaching instruction can help teachers successfully adapt to their
inclusive environment and help students with disabilities reach the literacy
standards of their peers to achieve equity.
In the briefing papers provided for the
recent National Inquiry into Literacy undertaken by the Federal Department of
Education, Science and Training (DEST), it was noted
that “proficiency in English literacy is of major importance for every
Australian’s personal, social and cultural development” (DEST,
2005, p.1). To deny people who are blind or vision impaired the right to this
proficiency is to deny them the chance to participate fully in society; and for
this to be occurring in a wealthy and advanced nation like
While an inclusive education system provides
obvious benefits it can create inequities due to prevailing biases. As it
stands, the dominance of ableist standards in our education system are leaving
children with disabilities with unreasonable and discriminatory measures of
adaptation to acquire skills in literacy. To build equality, it is educators
that need to adapt and with it the system. For children who are blind or
severely vision impaired, this means teaching the teacher’s braille.
Federal Department of Education, Science and
Training (DEST) (2005). ‘Committee
for the Australian Government’s National inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy:
Briefing paper 1’. National Inquiry into
the Teaching of Literacy, 2004-2005.
Gale,
Gillian (2001). ‘In
Hehir, Thomas (2002). ‘Eliminating
Ableism in Education’. Harvard Educational Review. 72,
(1), Spring, pp.1-32.
Power, John (2005). Interview with