Translator: Hélène Vernet Reviewer: Hong Kai Pun
Oh, their American accent sounds so out of place here!
(Laughter)
I am going to set my own timepiece
because I can't see the timepiece they have up here.
So I have a Braille PDA here that I'm just going to set.
And there we are.
And I'll even look at it from time to time.
When they first invited me here,
they asked if I would need help up the stage,
up the stairs to the stage, and after what you've just seen,
I think that would have been quite unfitting.
(Laughter)
And about this timepiece, they also asked how I would be able to keep track of time.
That was a good question!
This is how I do it. It's a Braille timepiece.
It basically just kind of counts off the seconds as we go.
You call it "a timer" here.
In the States, we call it a "confidence monitor"
(Laughter)
Now what could inspire less confidence
than watching your time takeaway second by second,
especially when they only gave you 12 minutes to sell your life story.
So how do I find my way?
Well, that's easy. That's very easy!
You heard me clicking. They explained that it was a sonar.
The sonar is very much a concept that we're all familiar with.
Bats use it. Dolphins use it.
And submarine technicians use it.
So that part is easy, I click.
Click ... Click ... Click.
That essentially asks two questions of the environment.
It's a "sonar call".
Scientists call it a "call" or they'll say that I'm interrogating the environment.
The two questions are: "where are you?" and "what are you?"
So those are the two key questions embedded in every click.
(Click)
The more clearly we can ask those questions,
the more clearly will the environment respond.
Now that pretty much answers the question "how do I know where I'm going?"
If that was all to the story, I could step off stage right now
and be done with plenty of time to spare,
but would you feel ... satisfied?
Would you feel edified if I did that?
Not so much!
So the real question
is "What is the point? What is the purpose of all of this?"
If I were the only person who could flap my arms and fly to the moon,
would it matter?
Really, I've been all over the world.
They flew me out from Los Angeles yesterday, I arrived yesterday.
I was in the States for three days,
back from a seven week tour of Queensland and New South Wales Australia.
Prior to that, I was in Austria, Germany, Romania and Holland.
I've been to over, well nearly 25 different countries,
half a dozen of them in the last few months.
Why?
What would my claim to fame really be?
So why don't we go ahead and show the first clip.
I have a clicker, just in case no one's paying attention back there.
(Laughter) Okay.
(Video) (Clicks)
Lucas: Yeah!
(Applause)
Okay.
That's not really my claim to fame.
(Laughing) I did not teach this young boy how to play basketball.
I can't play basketball myself - it's worth rubbish -
but I taught him how to find the basket.
I taught him how to find his way around.
You heard him clicking.
I have developed means of teaching people
how to find freedom in their lives.
The focus is on blind individuals,
but we're all blind in one way or another.
We could all use a bit of direction, myself included,
in how to find more freedom in our lives.
Now this young boy's name is Lucas.
Lucas was perhaps seven or eight at the most,
when this film was taken.
His parents contacted me when he was four years old.
They wanted their son who was born blind to have more freedom in his life.
He would not let go of someone's hand, okay?
He would trail walls, kind of feel his way through his environment,
but that was about the extent of his freedom at that time.
His parents wanted something simple.
At first, they wanted him to have a cane.
I've got a cane, you saw me come up the stairs with it.
You saw me using it coming onto the stage. A cane is a great stuff.
It will help find things, okay,
that would not be possible
or certainly would not be comfortable without one.
So they could not get the local authorities
to teach him how to use a cane.
They couldn't even get the local authorities to provide him with a cane -
well, eventually they did but not to teach him.
I'll use the UK as an example, but this is happening all over the world.
In most parts of the world,
blind children aren't even provided with a cane
until their; say, eight years old.
What is provided in some cases prior to the age of eight
is what I call "dependency conditioning,"
systematically training our blind individuals
how to be dependent on others either to guide them
or to modify the environment to be "blind friendly."
That is not the kind of world that we live in, okay.
So the first thing I did was I taught Lucas
some very simple, very straightforward techniques
of how to use a cane.
Everyone humor me for a moment, close your eyes please.
Close your eyes for just a moment, everyone.
Now assuming that you tried to open your eyes and couldn't -
don't open your eyes -
assuming that you tried to open your eyes and couldn't, okay,
the lights are out, your eyes won't open,
but eventually you need to find your way out of here, okay,
something's got to happen for you to move,
something's got to happen for you to start to lead your life.
So on a scale of zero to ten - zero being not at all -
just think about this:
how confident would you feel to move around your environment?
How confident would you feel to be able to get up out of your seat
and start finding your way toward the door?
Okay?
Probably most of you fall somewhere between zero and three.
Very few of you would probably be thinking three, okay.
Some of you might know the place better than others.
But imagine now, keeping your eyes closed,
imagine now you suddenly had a stick,
something no more complicated than a stick.
Would you feel more confident?
Would you feel more comfortable being able to get up
and safely find your way toward the door?
Raise your hand if you would,
if you feel like you'd feel more comfortable.
Okay, let's see ...
(Clicks of the tongue)
(Laughter)
I heard a bunch of hands go up, okay.
(Laughter)
All right, it's that simple.
The use of something as simple as a stick
which actually does have some technique to it, some training behind it
but it's very simple and yet, that simple sense of safety,
that simple sense of taking ownership of our environment,
is not being provided to our young blind children.
Okay, now let me give you just a quick example
of a more sophisticated system
that works in addition to the very simple system of the long cane.
I will use a flat panel
that I just happen to have in my backpack.
Okay, this isn't an advert for Apple.
It just happens to be what I have available.
I'm going to turn my back on the audience.
I know that's a no-no, but it's got to happen.
If we all close our eyes again, please,
I'm going to give a couple of very simple demonstrations, very simple,
of a system that allows for the kinds of freedom
that we are able to make available for students.
So I'm going to make a "shhh" sound. It's going to be regular and consistent.
And I'm going to pass this "panel" I'll call it, in front of my face,
so you'll hear it going by. Listen!
("Shhh" sound)
Okay, now if you open your eyes for just a moment,
this is all I was doing.
So Lucas can learn very simply to use the click of his tongue.
Click, click, click,
he's asking the back board of the basket "Where are you?"
He can detect its edges ... shhh ... and its surface,
and that's what he's learned to aim for. It's that simple.
Now how does he know how far he is away?
So close your eyes again, please,
and I'll do the same "shhh" sound ... shhh ...
... but I'm going to move this panel toward me and away from me,
and you'll hear the change of the sound as I do so.
("Shhh" sound)
Okay, so you can open your eyes.
Same deal!
Lucas can hear where the backboard is relative to his position
both by listening for the position left-right wise
and also by listening to its distance.
If I'm riding a bicycle and I'm coming up to say a large solid object
or maybe even not so large of a solid object,
I hear that "shhh" coming.
The only difference is that I'm clicking instead of shushing,
but the the effect is essentially the same.
Okay.
Our interest is in making this available for blind people everywhere,
and also making the point
that if blind people can find their way through life
by using a method such as this,
then any of us can look at our own lives,
look at the darkness that occurs in all of our lives,
and ask ourselves what can we do to find our way through that darkness
because there's always a way.
And that for me is really the most important lesson
of why it is that I'm up here.
And John, if you're moseying up here on stage,
no cue subtle enough will let me know that you're there, so ...
(Laughter)
... don't even bother!
(Cheers) (Applause)