| Description | Track 1: recording setup 0.51 mins
Interview with Gordon Greenhalgh from Hull. He discusses his work doing technical work for St Vincent's school, transcribing printed religious and secular books and papers into braille, mainly for blind children. He talks about his experience of learning braille, contracted braille and describes the difficulties transcribing foreign languages into braille. He goes on to discuss the particular difficulties in transcribing pure maths due to changes in the braille notation system and having to split lines of braille to set out mathematical problems, the need to have an internationally accepted standard for mathematical notation in braille, and his opinion that transcribing maths at present is futile. He talks about the deficiencies of current methods of teaching maths to blind children, his reasons for continuing his transcription work and the potential of computers as teaching aids for blind people, the stigma attached to blind people by sighted society and the frustrations that he thinks blind people must feel in not being treated as normal human beings. He sees a lack of will in the sighted world to do anything constructive in the area of blind welfare, and talks about tensions between different organisations set up to support blind people (tracks 1-11).
Total: 32.21 mins
Dubber's reference number: PLA KF565D0730580 |