Amazing Challenge

A few months ago I was listening to NPR in the car and they were interviewing a woman who was visually impaired and had a PhD in physics. It was remarkable to hear the struggles she went through to learn math and physics, which you can imagine involves a lot of visual aids.

As God would have it, I now have a visually impaired student in one of my Algebra classes. I've been searching for resources, but there is very little available for sighted people. I found a great web site in Texas by a woman named Susan A. Osterhaus. I've spent quite a bit of time searching her site just trying to get a handle on what sort of training I would need in order to work with a visually impaired student. It seems there are two different forms of tactile learning for the blind, English Braille, which is used for reading and writing words, and The Nemeth Code, which is used for math type learning. I haven't yet been able to locate any proper training in New York, but I will continue to search.

Nibelungenlied

Quite by accident I started reading a book that my DH keeps called Nibelungenlied. I'm enjoying it thoroughly.

If you don't want to click on the link and read about it, then I'll just tell you, it's the translation of an epic poem in Middle High German. It's about a powerful knight Siegfried, his murder and the subsequent vengeance by his widow Kriemhild. Anyone who enjoyed Iliad would enjoy this. The chapters are short, so I can get one in before going to sleep at night. It's quickly paced so I haven't hit a boring spot yet. The names are a bit tricky, but I could recommend it for high school age and up.