by Catherine Horn Randall
Catherine Horn Randall is First Vice President of the National Federation of the Blind of Illinois and an Alderman serving in the Jacksonville, Illinois, City Council. One rainy afternoon a young mother stood across the street from Main Hall on the MacMurry College campus in Jacksonville, Illinois, watching the busy, laughing college co-eds come and go. She cried for her four-year-old daughter who might not have the opportunity to go to college or to lead a full life, because she only had partial sight in her right eye. She was afraid and wondered about Cathy's future, and all she knew to do was to have Cathy evaluated by the professional staff of the Illinois Braille and Sight Saving School in Jacksonville.
The professionals told her that Cathy had so much sight that she wouldn't need to bother with Braille. The bewildered young parents were grateful to the experts for their advice; who else could they turn to? The school didn't tell them that the National Federation of the Blind even existed. Cathy's parents took her home, determined to enroll her in the sight saving program in Quincy, Illinois.
From this point on, I shall tell my own story. As I look back at the enormous implications to my life and to my education from being denied the opportunity to learn Braille as a child, I am as angry and frustrated now as my mother was afraid for my future in 1951.
I happen to be an only child, and I like to think that I was constructively spoiled by my parents. They could not have been more supportive of me. If they had received common-sense guidance, I know I would have learned Braille. Whatever I needed to help with my education, my parents enthusiastically provided. If we had only known it, what we needed most was the National Federation of the Blind, Braille, and cane travel skills. Unfortunately for me, we used the term "partially sighted" while I was growing up. I wasn't really blind, because I had some sight. So I didn't think of myself as blind until I began losing my remaining vision in my late twenties.
I was a blind child and a blind college student who was trying to get along without either of the most important skills of blindness, namely Braille and cane travel. I took typing lessons when I was ten, and again in both junior and senior high. Typing, I believe, is another essential skill for blind and legally blind students.
A partially blind student who reads print and takes notes with flair pens or markers and uses tapes is still greatly handicapped if he or she does not know Braille. I didn't have much confidence in myself in high school or college, and I think not having the skills of blindness was part of the reason although I did not realize it at the time.
Eye strain was a constant problem for me in school. How wonderful and practical it would have been to make an easy transition from print work to Braille when I used my eyes too much. For years my father tutored me every night in math. My mother read to me so much that by my senior year in high school she had damaged her vocal chords. I always loved school despite the hard work. I was feature editor for both my junior and senior high newspapers. I earned a bachelor of arts degree from that same MacMurry College, where my mother had despaired for my future nineteen years earlier. College took me four and a half years and four straight summers to complete. I am now convinced that, if I had had good Braille skills, I would have been able to handle four courses a semester like everyone else instead of taking only three. I had a totally blind friend a year behind me in college who took full course loads each semester and used Braille. To blind and partially blind students I would say this and I would say it with every fiber of my being: Join and become active in the National Federation of the Blind. It is the greatest gift you can ever give yourself. Take the initiative to learn Braille and cane travel. This may seem a tall order, but believe me, it is an essential one. You will find the role models that you always needed in the National Federation of the Blind. You will learn that it is respectable to be blind.