I'm inclined to look at the whole issue on a wider, international scale.
With the exception of the United States, all major countries who have adopted
UEB have adopted UEB math braille. And even the US is not exclusively Nemeth.
I'd add that given that lack of support for braille which you mention, it would
make sense to use a math code which has a better chance of back-translation.
George
-----Original Message-----
From: duxuser-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:duxuser-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On ;
Behalf Of Kuenga Chhoegyel
Sent: 18 July 2017 14:46
To: duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [duxuser] Re: Future of Nemeth.
Thanks for your comments. This is a question to all. Most of the blind
children, today, are studying in a public school, where we find very little
support in Braille. In such cases, what would it be better to teach, UEB or
Nemeth?
On 7/18/17, Terri Pannett <pann1@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I can't help it, I must add my two cents' worth here.
I am writing from the viewpoint of a person who is a braille reader,
not a braille transcriber.
I learned Nemeth in the late 50s
and early 60s and used it in high school. I was blessed to have a
braille based education and I first learned Nemeth in public school
from a resource teacher who knew Nemeth and who could read it and write it,
too.
I was amazed to learn from one of the lists I belong to that one of
the people had never learned Nemeth. So, my first thought is this:
Are the visually impaired teachers qualified to teach totally blind
students Nemeth or any other math braille code for that matter?
Although I liked my high school resource teacher very much, I don't
think she was as qualified to teach Nemeth as the resource teacher I
had in public elementary school. I believe a sighted VI teacher who
doesn't read and write braille proficiently and who has only learned
braille from a transcriber's point of view won't be able to understand
how to teach a blind person who depends solely on braille to any code
of braille to someone who has no experience of braille, whether it's a
student in Kindergarten or a person who has lost his or her sight
later on in their childhood.
I don't think that just learning braille from a transcriber's course
is enough to qualify a person to teach braille to someone else.
So, if there aren't resource teachers or VI teachers who are qualified
to teach either Nemeth or UEB math braille, then the poor students
must struggle to learn the braille math code as well as the math
itself. The transcriber will assume the student knows the math code
and the studen'ts VI teacher won't be able to answer any questions
about what a symbol means.
If an adult, like me, doesn't use any of the higher math symbols and
doesn't use any of the scientific and/or chemistry code, the code
learned in school will be forgotten. Yes, I remember the arithmetic
symbols for Nemeth, but I have forgotten everything I have learned in
algebra and geometry and I've forgotten the Nemeth symbols for this
higher math.
So, I think the problem of Nemeth and UEB math boils down to two things.
Are there VI teachers who are qulaified to teach either math code?
If a student has already learned Nemeth well and understands it switch
to a totally new math code? Blind children who are in the early
grades could probably switch but those who are learning braille for
the first time could learn either math code, if there are qualified
people to teach it and transcribe it.
Math was not my best subject in school, so I sympathize with any blind
kid who must learn to switch codes as well as learn how to solve the
math problems. Their math teachers in public schools can only teach
the math, they have no clude about how to teach math braille.
I guess I've written more than my two cents' worth.
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