Shillong, Feb 07: Prof Boguslaw ‘Bob’ Marek, OBE, Department of ELT Typhlomethodology, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lubin, Poland gave a heart-wrenching insight into the world of the blind children in his presentation at the Asian Confluence Conference Centre, Shillong on the evening of Feb 6. Bob, founder of “Hungry Fingers” – a small organization specializing in designing educational tools which help totally blind learners understand difficult concepts based on visual experience and spatial relations. He is honoured with the Order of British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of his English for the blind children. In his talk titled “What colour is the wind?” he spoke about the many challenges and solutions around that is associated with the world of a blind person. He took to help the blind children find their way in life after he found that something is missing in his life following his PhD.
He said that blind people face various challenges in life, which he despises to call problems, and they have solutions. While informing that there are different types of visual impairment he gave the example of a child with a blurred vision who can see things as if through a key hole. “For them large printed text is essential,” he said. Sharing his rich information and experiences helping blind children overcoming their challenges he said that the common men’s perception of blindness is to treat it as a disability rather than perceive it through some means. “They learn things with a sense of touch and they have made their names all over, such as, blind accordion player, jazz musician, climbing the Mount’ Everest, rope walking, shooting robbers in their chest, earning imprisonment for robbing banks etc.,” he said as the near full hall burst into laughter.
Displaying Peter Bruegel’s painting of few blind men leading one another holding a long stick, he said that it is long forgotten. “Blind people do not need pity but should be given chance to develop their potentialities and opportunities by those who are sighted,” said Bob who is in India for the first time. The professor of English who runs a resource centre for visually impaired university students and teaches ESL to blind and partially sighted children also said interesting things about what blind children most often asks.
What colour is the wind, Does a stone feel the way it feels, I know how fish swim but how they walk, how can you see a big mountain through a small window and the best among them is “I have always thought that aeroplanes are just like birds, flap their wings when they fly” said by a 20 year old blind woman from Germany. “Attempt of a blind child is to turn touch into vision,” he said. He shared a blind child’s definition of vision, “I think I know what it means to see. To see must be like being able to tell the future because you know now that there will be a tree and I walk up to the tree and touch it.” Through his teaching efforts Bob learnt to introduce new words to these children and check at the same time whether they can imbibe. So much it is learning curve for the blind children, so does it for Bob.
On solutions he asked if reading, writing and drawing accessible to the blind and how. He shared many illustrations how this is possible, such as, Braille book, Braille based typewriter and among the most sophisticated in modern world are Braille laptop / notepad where the user put the left hand on the device as she/he types and checks with the other, magnifying computer for people with lower vision among others. Then there are Termography – thermal imaging, and thermal video are examples of infrared imaging science, special simple plastic used to learn geometrical shapes and others. Bob also displayed drawings, simple but highly logical, drawn by blind students. One of them is of a table with legs on all sides or on the downside, an orange sized tree experienced by a child while holding it round and others. “Drawing is language for children born blind,” said Bob who will move to Nepal from here.
Ending his talk with relation between objects and knowledge he said that whether it is one thing or group of objects, how they are related, front, back, high, low, near etc. for a blind child is not possible without the help of sighted person. He said, “Rotograph, Symetrograph, Transfograph are various tools used to teach children about objects, models, sizes and shapes.” Bob is particularly interested in tactile graphics as an important educational resource for totally blind children and students. He was in the city for a workshop with the students of Bethany Society. Before coming here he had a similar workshop with the students and teachers of Ramakrishna Mission, West Bengal. In his opening remark, Director, Asian Confluence, Sabyasachi Dutta gave an insight into the subject matter. “To help blind people, to get tools and learn tools to express themselves, Bob has been doing this with an understanding to what is going on the other side of the world. It is difficult to understand how it is like to be a blind person and kudos to him for his efforts,” he said.(SP News)
