Organizing for Success
Should Blind Students Use Note-Takers?
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The Experience of Hebrew Study as a Student Who is Blind
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Blindness in Depth
Sarah Blake has lived with blindness/visual impairment due to premature birth since childhood. She has had several surgeries to treat complications such as detached retina, cataracts, glaucoma, and cornea damage which threatened her small amount of vision at various points in her life. She learned both braille and print as a young child. She travels with a dog guide.
Sarah graduated from Anderson University School of theology in 2009 with a Master of Divinity. She is a licensed minister with the Church of God (Anderson, IN) and travels as a guest speaker and singer to churches, colleges, and other community groups. She also works with companies to increase features of software to enable blind students to access foreign language materials.
Sarah serves on the health care issues committee affiliated with the American Council of the Blind, which promotes access to health information and equipment. She also serves as co-moderator for several online discussion groups, including BVI-Parents, a group for parents of blind and visually impaired children.
Sarah provides technology training and support, motivational speaking, and other services. Learn about her services.
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During my time as a university student, professors, other university staff, rehabilitation counselors, and other students who were blind often encouraged me to hire people to take notes for me. The following thoughts are based on my experiences both as a student and as a teaching assistant.
I am very opposed to the idea of having another person take notes for me unless there is a reason it's necessary (like copying something off the board). Board material is usually meant to supplement the teacher's oral presentation. I often found that even if the teacher was not reading straight from the board, my notes included the information and followed the board material with no problem. I never used another person's notes because of my blindness, even in math and science classes.
It is probably worth saying that I began note-taking in 1990 on a slate and stylus. I had never taken notes in high school; and I panicked when I sat in my first university class and realized that I could not write fast enough to keep up with the professor. I started recording the classes; and in the evenings I practiced taking notes so that I could ditch the recorder as soon as possible. In 1996, I got a laptop computer, and my note-taking speed increased dramatically. I can still take notes on a slate (using copier paper instead of braille paper); but I strongly prefer the laptop. I now have an Olympus digital recorder, and I again record when I attend a class or lecture. I do this because I do appreciate the back-up now--I am not quite as fast as I used to be, and I often come away with missing pieces of notes for one reason or another. I have developed a mild hearing impairment; and it is often easier to play the recording back than it is to ask for repeats numerous times throughout a lecture. I have learned to insert [check recording] in my notes when I cannot hear adequately.
A few philosophical points are worth making. Note-taking is an integral part of the learning process. Besides doing the writing herself, the person taking notes is also deciding what's important. Teachers may give clues about material that might appear on a test, and often it is possible to get some idea of which material might be fodder for questions in certain formats. As a passive listener while someone else is taking notes and deciding what's important, it is very easy to "zone out" or forget things one wanted to remember. The act of writing not only helps to build a "mental map" of the information but also helps to commit things to memory.
It is possible to find people who take excellent notes and are very good at identifying important information; but that's not a guarantee, and it's much better for the student to make those decisions.
I worked as a note-taker for a student who had use of only one arm. We had an excellent working relationship. He handled copying things off the board, and I took lecture notes for him. This continued for four years, and he also hired me to type papers and do some other things for him. There were a lot of things that made that working relationship successful, and for the student who does need to use another person's notes I think those are important things to know. We sat near each other (beside or one behind the other) so that if he wanted something emphasized he could tell me quietly. He also had my phone number so that he could contact me if he needed something clarified. The person taking notes should always be responsible about absences, particularly if the student needing notes has no way to take his/her own notes in an emergency. If I was ill, I called ahead of time so that the student I worked for could arrange to get notes from a classmate.
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Sarah J. Blake