Making Middle School Lessons More Accessible with the Monarch

Tactile maps give people who are blind or low vision a sense of their surroundings. Through careful study, a mental picture starts to form inside their heads, much like a visual image unfolds for someone with typical vision. While maps are most commonly used during geography class, they can also be utilized to bring works of literature to life in English lessons.

Sarah Kassim, a contract TVI in New Orleans, Louisiana, provides services to students in a charter school district, including her daughter, who is DeafBlind. One day, her daughter’s sixth grade class was reading I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Christina Lamb and Malala Yousafzai. This memoir discusses how, at fifteen, Malala Yousafzai almost lost her life for speaking up for her right to an education after the Taliban took over her school in Swat Valley in northern Pakistan. The teacher supplemented the lesson on the book by showing students a visual map of Pakistan.

This spontaneous addition was unknown to Sarah, and she was unable to give her daughter a tactile version during class. Unlike her sighted peers, Sarah’s daughter had no concept of where Pakistan was and could not readily connect to Malala’s story. While tactile maps of Pakistan are available on paper, Sarah did not have access to them─but she did have access to the Monarch. This 10-line by 32-cell display shows braille and tactile graphics on the same surface. It also has the capacity to display maps which could level the playing field for Sarah’s daughter.

Without the Monarch, Sarah would have had to pull up a visual image of Pakistan and verbally describe it to her daughter. Instead, Sarah opened Google and downloaded a map of the Middle East onto a flash drive, a map of Pakistan, and another map of Pakistan that showed where Swat Valley was located. Sarah then showed her daughter how to access the maps on the Monarch using the tactile viewer app. By using the directional pad and zoom in and out buttons, Sarah’s daughter explored Pakistan. She learned about the shape of the country and where its cities were in relation to one another.

Sarah expanded the lesson by teaching her daughter about the bodies of water that surround Pakistan, as well as its neighboring countries: Afghanistan, China, India, and Iran. They also practiced cardinal directions by noting where every country was relative to one another. The JPEG files allowed for multiple levels of zoom, meaning that more details of the countries and their cities were outlined. “If I didn’t have the Monarch, I would not be able to pull up or create a tactile graphic that fast that had all those particular details,” said Sarah. “I do have a PIAF machine, but even when we make paper graphics with that, it’s not as detailed as if I had the Monarch because she can zoom in and out.” Adapting the lesson in this fashion also gave Sarah’s daughter a tactile sense of Pakistan. “She has the same image that her peers were able to see visually because she got to feel it tactilely and learn from it.”

Sarah is enthusiastic about the Monarch and its potential to help more students like her daughter. “I hope that we can get this device in the hands of all the students because it’s going to make it a lot easier and better for them.”

The Monarch will be publicly available in September 2024 and available for purchase using Federal Quota funds. Stay tuned to the website, APH News, and your email inbox for information and updates.