In July 1998 the Overbrook School for the Blind (USA) and The Nippon Foundation (Japan) embarked on a unique and ambitious collaborative effort to improve and expand education and employment opportunities for blind persons in Southeast Asia.
The program set out to address needs of blind and low vision persons in eight (8) countries in Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam).
The program was created on the assumption that with: -collaboration at the national and regional levels, -effective use of new technologies and -active involvement of blind individuals, their organizations, teachers and parents would result in improved educational access for blind children and youth and new employment options for educated blind adults.
This program, the Overbrook-Nippon Network on Educational Technology, soon became better known by its acronym ON-NET. In addition to ON-NET national level committees that set the tone and priorities for each country, ON-NET also created a Regional Advisory Committee whose task was to identify challenges that were: -common to all or most of the countries in the region and -might be most effectively addressed through a region strategy. At the first ON-NET Regional Advisory Committee meeting in December 2001 the issue of weak instruction in mathematics for blind children was identified as one of several priorities that might best be tackled through a well-planned regional strategy.
This same group noted that poor instruction in the area was a region-wide weakness and that it was placing significant impediments in the career path of otherwise well-educated blind persons who wanted to pursue careers in the areas of science and technology. As is the case with most challenges, it is always easier to identify a problem than it is to create a solution.
However, in January 2003 a group of teachers, blind individuals, teacher trainers and members of the ON-NET Regional Advisory Group met in Bangkok and agreed that a plan to prepare a small but very carefully selected group of Master Trainers from throughout the region was something worth doing. It was further agreed that while mathematics instruction at all levels was weak; our focus should be on improving secondary level mathematics instruction for the blind. In May 2003 a group of experts met at the ON-NET Regional Center at Ratchasima College of Mahidol University to work out the details of putting together an expert team to conduct the Master Trainers program and to a comprehensive mathematical package that could be field-tested and then used by the Master Trainers to train others.
This publication is the result of that effort over the past three years. At the Bangkok planning meeting, I invited Dr. M.N.G. Mani, Secretary General, ICEVI and Ms. Aree Plernchaivanich, Director, Region 7 Special Education Center, Phitsanuloke, Thailand to co-chair a Math Task Force that would develop the training program and the training materials. Both Dr. Mani and Ms. Plernchaivanich are experienced educators of children with visual impairment and mathematics teachers. Mr. G.R. Ramesh, Lecturer in Special Education, International Human Resource Development Center for the Disabled, Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya, Coimbatore, India was later co-opted to the Task Force.
There was unanimous agreement that developing a learning package for teaching mathematics would not only facilitate improved ability of special educators teaching mathematics to blind children, but the materials would also be useful for general classroom teachers as well. Next, the group tackled the question of where to begin.
There was agreement that some of the background materials such as use of abacus, creative mathematics, easy ways of teaching Nemeth code, etc., developed by Dr. Mani in training teachers of mathematics would form an excellent base for the learning package. Following a series of deliberations by Dr. Mani, Ms. Plernchaivanich, Mr. Ramesh and I during May and June 2003, it was decided to develop a mathematics package that would address the following major areas:
a) Methodology of Teaching Mathematics,
b) Use of Abacus,
c) Use of the Nemeth Mathematical Braille code,
d) Instructional Strategies, and
e) Creative Mathematics
