I place a six-cup foil muffin
tray on my desk and run fingers over it to check that it sits two rows
across three down. I nestle a felt tennis ball in each cup. Beside me,
my student Ray shifts restlessly in his chair. He wants to go for a
smoke break. He’s been working on keyboarding for a whole twenty
minutes, after all.
“Spell ten words and you can
go,” I cajole, knowing I would have him past twenty before he knew it.
“S’pose I can do that,” he
agrees, hairy arm grazing against mine like a scratchy blanket, last
night’s beer stale on his breath. There is the bump and rattle of
plastic on carpet as he jerks his chair closer to the desk. “Good party
at my brother’s last night,” he says. “Lots of booze.” Ray is a 40-year
old First Nations man who, unfortunately, never learned to read when he
had sight. Totally blind after a recent accident, his life is a constant
toss up between literacy and liquor. Liquor more than often wins.
“Awesome,” I grin. “Can you
spell beer?” I guide his fingers, clammy and gelatinous as raw sausages,
to the muffin tray. Ray has difficulty manipulating six balls under one
beefy hand so feeling six dots under a fingertip is still a far off
goal. “What’s the first letter?”
“R,” he says, leaning on the
tray and making the balls jump with a crinkle of aluminum.
“Whoa!” I check to make sure
none of the balls escape. Felt balls make very little sound when they
hit carpet, and they roll. In a classroom of twenty students at computer
stations, with guide dogs and knapsacks on the floor, I’m not keen to go
crawling around. “You’re guessing. Sound it out. Beer. Like boy.”
Ray’s chair back creaks as he
leans back. “B.”
“Good. How do we write B in
Braille?”
Ray starts unloading balls from
the tray and I am ready with a retaining hand at the edge of my desk,
waiting for wandering balls. Aluminum crunches against pressed board as
tray squishes to desk. Four balls rescued, four cups needing first aid.
I check the remaining balls. First column, rows one and two. Good.
“What letter’s next?” I prod as
I hear one of the balls thud repeatedly, distractedly under Ray’s hand.
“E,” he says. “There’s two of
‘em.”
“Make me an E,then,” I say,
unwrinkling the injured cups.
Crunch. Thud. Almost
imperceptible whisper of felt on wood.
A fingertip save.
“Feels like an arrow,” Ray
chuckles. “Pointing to the door.”
I roll my eyes. “Yes, yes it
does.” Hey, at least he got the letter right. “What’s the last letter in
beer? Same letter that starts your name.”
“R.”
And he marches his soldiers to their tattered battlefield. “Can
we spell rum next? And then gin and whiskey and, whatchya call it,
martini.”
“You bet.” Anything to keep him
spelling. And, hey, these are words he needs for real life, right?
Teaching objective accomplished. One word down, nineteen to go. Everyone
deserves a shot at success.