Hi, Olusegun,
I think you should contact BANA and let them know how you feel.
These folks are all from different organizations and they're experts in
braille reading and writing. They want braille to be improved.
Here's the problems as I see them:
1. Notetakers, like the BSP, are mainly used by people who want to write
docs in braille and translate them into print. Braille was not designed to
be used that way, so the rules and the software programmers have to come up
with ways to make accurate braille to print translation. Different
notetakers accommodate this in various ways, none of which are perfect.
2. Blind children go to regular schools with sighted children. The braille
has to be a strict representation of print. That includes fonts and
graphics and even colored text. To do this, more symbols are created that
use more than one cell. The trouble is, totally blind people could care
less what color the text is or what shape the multiplication sign is, or the
difference between bold, underline, italicized, and other fonts. But
they've got to reproduce these fonts in braille so the kids can participate
fully in all of the learning their sighted peers are receiving. They are
also expected to reproduce the same type of print their sighted classmates
do.
I'm hoping the BSP will support these things, but they will make braille
more cumbersome to read.
I don't entirely agree with this thinking and the way the trend is going,
but I can't do much about it.
3. Some misguided folks, (not BANA) believe braille is too hard for kids to
learn and they want to remove all contractions and dumb things down. They
don't insist that kids learn the contractions as fast as I had to. (I knew
them all by the middle of second grade).
Anyway, contact BANA and tell them how you feel.
Terri Amateur Radio call sign KF6CA.
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