American Association of Blind Teachers

The following article was originally published as
Professor Overcomes Disability
in the Lubbock, Texas Avalanche-Journal, August 11, 2000. While history, especially ancient history, is especially print-intensive, this article demonstrates how Dr. Forsythe has been able to do it successfully.

Kara Altenbaumer

New Texas Tech history professor Gary Forsythe said the hardest part about being blind isn't standing in front of a classroom, it's convincing people he can.

"Probably 80 to 90 percent of the population has never had meaningful interaction with a person with a major disability," said Forsythe, who begins teaching at Tech this fall. "The thing that is almost impossible is the hiring process and the application process. The big thing is getting the job offer because of them having reservations that a person with this difficulty would be able to perform the duties of the job."

Forsythe jokes that one of his challenges will be knowing if students are sleeping through class. But for the most part, he seeks help only to make sure students don't cheat during exams.

"It's things outside the classroom that cause the problems all the preparation, having all the materials in an accessible format," he said.

"The time that goes into getting ready for class is much more intensive," Forsythe said. "It takes much longer to read in Braille, listen to a computerized voice synthesizer or have a person read text to him," he said.

It also takes longer to write because he must wait for a computer to read text back to him line by line. And grading papers consumes more time because someone else must read essays to him.

"It's much more time consuming because reading anything for a blind person is going to take much longer than a sighted person," Forsythe said. "The actual in-class teaching and interaction with students is really the least transparent phenomenon."

Forsythe was born with no sight in one eye and near-sightedness in the other. At 11, he suffered a detached retina and lost sight in the other eye.

"I lived a fairly normal childhood until 11,'' he said. ''I had light perception for a few years and could even see shapes. I can sense light. Sometimes I can see the sun, but I'm not sure if it's heat or light I sense."

While technological advances in recent years have made writing and researching easier, Forsythe said that getting the education necessary to become a professor was not easy.

At least twice once as a student and once as an instructor he was faced with a situation where he could not get Braille texts or was suddenly without someone to transcribe for him.

"Keeping up with material was pretty hectic," he said. "There were times when the person available for transcribing was no longer available. There was a period of two weeks once when I ran out of text in a class."

That time his wife came to the rescue. Similar situations have occurred when he was teaching Latin courses.

"Most major libraries now have at least some kind of equipment (for transcribing or reading)," Forsythe said. "Just within the past four years, I've pretty much changed the way I do research and writing. I used to have to use lots of people to read scholarly texts and journals to me. There are only so many hours in the day and so many hours you can ask a person to read."

"The really great thing for visually impaired people is scanning technology. That puts the blind person in a much more advantageous world because a computer becomes a tireless reading machine."

In fact, Forsythe said he recently was able to read a book he purchased 20 years ago because he scanned it into his computer. He had never had time to have anyone read it to him until now.

It takes about a hour to scan 250 pages and several more hours for the computer to recognize the characters for voice synthesis. Forsythe sets the computer to do the character recognition while he sleeps.

Through the years, he has built up quite a collection of Latin and Greek texts even in Braille, on reel-to-reel tapes or other electronic formats. But one important book remains absent from his collection a Greek dictionary. There aren't a whole lot of sighted people who happen to know both ancient Greek and Braille.

His wife, who has learned Braille since meeting Forsythe, has also learned how to pronounce Greek and reads word definitions to him.

"It's important to try to learn to look at people in terms of what they can do and be willing to look at things in a different way," he said. "I might be able to get at the same goal as someone else, but I might arrive at it in a different way. People with disabilities are as varied as people who don't have disabilities."

"If you meet a person with disabilities, people should not generalize that that is the way all persons with disabilities are. They are just as individual as the able-bodied population."

Note: To get a sense of Dr. ''Probably 80 to 90 percent of the population has never had meaningful interaction with a person with a major disability,'' said Forsythe, who begins teaching at Tech this fall. ''The thing that is almost impossible is the hiring process and the application process. The big thing is getting the job offer because of them having reservations that a person with this difficulty would be able to perform the duties of the job.'' Forsythe jokes that one of his challenges will be knowing if students are sleeping through class. But for the most part, he seeks help only to make sure students don't cheat during exams. ''It's things outside the classroom that cause the problems all the preparation, having all the materials in an accessible format,'' he said. The time that goes into getting ready for class is much more intensive, Forsythe said. It takes much longer to read in Braille, listen to a computerized voice synthesizer or have a person read text to him, he said. It also takes longer to write because he must wait for a computer to read text back to him line by line. And grading papers consumes more time because someone else must read essays to him. ''It's much more time consuming because reading anything for a blind person is going to take much longer than a sighted person,'' Forsythe said. ''The actual in-class teaching and interaction with students is really the least transparent phenomenon.'' Forsythe was born with no sight in one eye and near-sightedness in the other. At 11, he suffered a detached retina and lost sight in the other eye. ''I lived a fairly normal childhood until 11,'' he said. ''I had light perception for a few years and could even see shapes. I can sense light. Sometimes I can see the sun, but I'm not sure if it's heat or light I sense.'' While technological advances in recent years have made writing and researching easier, Forsythe said that getting the education necessary to become a professor was not easy. At least twice once as a student and once as an instructor he was faced with a situation where he could not get Braille texts or was suddenly without someone to transcribe for him. ''Keeping up with material was pretty hectic,'' he said. ''There were times when the person available for transcribing was no longer available. There was a period of two weeks once when I ran out of text in a class.'' That time his wife came to the rescue. Similar situations have occurred when he was teaching Latin courses. ''Most major libraries now have at least some kind of equipment (for transcribing or reading),'' Forsythe said. ''Just within the past four years, I've pretty much changed the way I do research and writing. I used to have to use lots of people to read scholarly texts and journals to me. There are only so many hours in the day and so many hours you can ask a person to read. ''The really great thing for visually impaired people is scanning technology. That puts the blind person in a much more advantageous world because a computer becomes a tireless reading machine.'' In fact, Forsythe said he recently was able to read a book he purchased 20 years ago because he scanned it into his computer. He had never had time to have anyone read it to him until now. Even with the technology, Forsythe doesn't have the luxury of picking up a new book off the library shelves and immediately reading it. First he must take the time to convert it into an accessible format. It takes about a hour to scan 250 pages and several more hours for the computer to recognize the characters for voice synthesis. Forsythe sets the computer to do the character recognition while he sleeps. Through the years, he has built up quite a collection of Latin and Greek texts even in Braille, on reel-to-reel tapes or other electronic formats. But one important book remains absent from his collection a Greek dictionary. There aren't a whole lot of sighted people who happen to know both ancient Greek and Braille. His wife, who has learned Braille since meeting Forsythe, has also learned how to pronounce Greek and reads word definitions to him. ''It's important to try to learn to look at people in terms of what they can do and be willing to look at things in a different way,'' he said. ''I might be able to get at the same goal as someone else, but I might arrive at it in a different way. People with disabilities are as varied as people who don't have disabilities. ''If you meet a person with disabilities, people should not generalize that that is the way all persons with disabilities are. They are just as individual as the able-bodied population.''

Note: To learn more about Dr. Forsythe as a researcher, you may want to visit
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