by Oral O. Miller
Recently it was my pleasure to complete a series of four lectures in Japan focusing on the impact of disability rights legislation in the USA. One of the lectures was presented at the Kochi Prefecture School for the Blind located in Kochi City, approximately 500 miles from Tokyo. Upon meeting the principal of the school, she proudly informed me that one of her English teachers is an American. I was then introduced to Robin Barnes, who informed me that while majoring in Japanese at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colo., she was awarded an ACB scholarship at the 1997 national convention in Houston. At the time of our conversation she was completing her third year teaching at the Kochi school. While guests were talking informally with me both before and after my lecture, I was impressed by the number of times they automatically turned to Robin and asked her in Japanese how to say what they wanted to say in English. During my conversation with Robin we discussed such things as the almost omnipresence of audible bird call traffic signals at very busy intersections featuring traffic driving on the left-hand side of the road (the practice in Japan), the lack of relatively well-defined sidewalks as we know them on many very narrow streets, the use of many different tactile tiles underfoot in an effort to be of assistance to blind pedestrians, the occasional use of simple audible signals such as intermittently chiming tones to convey important location information to blind pedestrians and the cultural acceptance of blind people in working and mobility settings. And, yes, she recalled with pleasure the ACB national convention and the outstanding people she met there while receiving the ACB of Colorado scholarship.
(Editor’s Note: Are you a previous winner of an ACB scholarship? Let us know what you’re doing. Contact Sharon Lovering at the national office, 1-800-424-8666, e-mail [email protected].)