Report on Tactile Graphics Workshop September 2014

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The ten day workshop on tactile graphics, diagrams, and English Lesson by Boguslaw Marek Ph.D

The HEAD Vision Home always wants that our children should be good and active at all kinds of activities. To achieve that goal we are very happy to introduce our children with Prof. Boguslaw Marek Ph.D. for the second time in Simikot Humla from 2nd to 11th of August 2014 to conduct workshop in tactile graphics, diagrams and math for blind students. He is a good man with increasable knowledge, with amazing potential and innovative minded as well. More important thing is that he wants to share and teach his knowledge with our teacher and students in such rural area like Humla. He was in Head Nepal in February 2014 for 5 days workshop with teachers and the students with visual impairment. For these ten days he had a series of classes/lesson for the teachers and students in "Tactile Graphic, diagrams, math" for blind and partially sighted students which is not only new in Nepal, but it is also a unique thing in other parts of the world.

At this moment if we say we with the help of the Prof. Boguslaw Marek (Bob) we tought our students how to draw, you may be surprised when you heard this, but yes they can draw as you do. You draw what you see but they draw what they touch by their fingers. And it is important for their education system. This lesson also helps the students to improve their skills at math and English language.

During the ten days training we started from scratch to some fine arts. It may not look to you a fine art but in tactile graphic it is a fine art. In start He starts with line and end with the map of tray. That means the student start with line and end with the map of tray.

In the very first day of workshop Mr. Bob work with our teachers Nirmal Bista and Lokraj Shahi about introduction of Tactile Graphic and innovative resources. Why we need to teach and how we can teach blind student with these resources. He gave our teacher a quick concept of Innovative resources and tactile graphic. This is also important to our teachers because we have to conduct this kind of class in a future among our students in absence of Bob. The teacher should be trained first. Now our teachers are ready for this kind of class.

2^nd day of this workshop he started to give a concept of tactile graphic to some student with total blind and nearly total blind about simple line and shape. Basically there are three lines, 1 horizontal, 2 vertical and 3 diagonal. There are three important and basics shape, they are Square, Rectangle and Triangle. The name of the students is Gorasing, Gaugora, Chhaya, Subash, and Lalita who attend this class. He asks the student to draw simple line first and later on simple shape. 3^rd day of workshop he give a simple concept of more shape tropism and Parallelogram. These shapes are quite difficult for them so he give them a wooden shape and describe it. Now the students have to understand the relation between the two shapes. For example what kind of shape you can make using two small squares and one big square. What kind of shape we can make using one rectangle one small square and two small triangle. He let the children play with the wooden shape and ask to find what happen when we combine two shapes. This kind of activities also develops the power of sensitivity of total blind student's hand. At the end of the session the student have to draw a combined shape.

In the second session He starts to give a transform of object in to drawing. For this purpose he used his one of the best invention Transforgraph. In this transforgraph we can find some real shaped object like chair table and bed. Now here come the most important things when we give blind student a real shaped table it is in three dimensions. But for this beginner student three dimension drawing is not possible. So he gives an idea how we can draw this shape table, chair and bed with the help of simple line. Here is the example if we draw long vertical in the left side and one horizontal line touching middle from that vertical line and one vertical line from the end of this horizontal line. That can make chair. In another simple example if we draw one simple horizontal line and with touching this line draw another two vertical line under the horizontal line it can be table. At the end of this day they understand the concept and able to draw this shape in their film. 4^th day of workshop Bob now moved with the real object, such as flexi man.

First he gave them the student a doll of teddy bear. They touch, feel and understand the shape of teddy bear. In the second phase he gives student a 2 dimension or flat wooden Teddy Bear with separate part and student have to assemble Teddy Bear. It gives the student the concept of right, left of themselves and other right and left after he ask for student to try to make drawing of Teddy Bear.

In another session he also works with some low vision student with cross word puzzle. And student had lots of fun. Because they have never done this before.

5^th day of the workshop Bob gave a concept of position of object such as on, under, next to, between, opposite, in front of, behind and above. This is also an important lesson for English too. Now they have to use this concept in the drawing. He also uses it in drawing. Now student have to draw shape like the ball is under the table, the ball is on the table. The ball is between the table and chair like so on. And the student enjoyed some important English word and enjoyed learning. Because this is not a formal class. They can do anything they want. As a teaching material we use real object such as table and ball so this reality make the student having fun. The last day of Bob workshop. He introduces the student about map and mapping system. We are not talking about the actual map. Here we are talking about the map of one tray which has some cup, ball, spoon and fork. We take all the things in some fix place and give them to touch and feel. For blind student this is the map of Tray. Now they have to imitate the tray in the drawing. And he plan to go more in map and wants to make work with the map of room and after that want to introduce real tactile map of Nepal. But he has to change the schedule because of bad weather. So we have to stop the class here. But we will continue later on with the help of our special teacher Nirmal Bista and Lokraj Shahi. Also Bob promise us that he will return in next year and we will gong to teach more about tactile graphic. Thank you very much Bob for coming to Head Nepal Simikot and for your wonderful works for our children. We highly appreciate your passion and hard work and also the innovative resources that you developed for the students with visual impairment.