Maryse Glaude-Beaulieu est née aveugle et légèrement paralysée du côté droit. Dans l'épisode d'aujourd'hui, on s'parle de vivre sa francophonie en situation de handicap !
Maryse Glaude-Beaulieu est originaire de Welland dans le Sud de l'Ontario, elle est née aveugle et légèrement paralysée du côté droit. Ses parents ont refusé de l’envoyer dans un établissement spécialisé, elle étudie donc à son école de quartier. Ceci dit, elle est rapidement devenue pionnière des services en français offerts aux jeunes en situation de handicap dans le milieu scolaire en Ontario.
Tout au long de ses études, elle utilise des manuels transcrits en braille, ainsi que de l’équipement informatique et effectue les mêmes travaux que les autres élèves. À l'âge de 14 ans, elle déménage seule à Ottawa pour étudier la musique à l'École secondaire publique De La Salle. Elle continue ses études postsecondaires à l'Université d'Ottawa en traduction, ou elle obtient un baccalauréat ainsi qu'une maitrise. Elle travaille maintenant à l'Université d'Ottawa où elle traduit des documents en braille pour les étudiants aveugles de l'université.
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Hello everyone, I'm Camille Sigouin, I'm co-host of the podcast, and I’m Danielle Roy, I'm the other co-host of the podcast. So thank you everyone for connecting to the first official podcast of the Assemblée de la francophonie de l’Ontario, AFO. Camille and I are really really excited for the podcast called FO qu’on se parle
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In this podcast, we have discussions with influential people, and accessible models from different circles of the Ontario Francophonie. This first season is funded by the Ottawa billingue program of ACFO Ottawa. This micro-subsidy program supports communities in the creation of new bilingualism projects.
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Today, we met Maryse Glaude Beaulieu, who was the first student. We learned that today, the first Blind Students to request services in French for her lifelong education. She has constantly been clamoring, to get services and help and education that makes sense, as we said earlier Even in her post-secondary. she told us about the source of her disability. From how it happened from her parents who were teachers, who knew the education system well, who really pushed for her, from her post-secondary experience with music, masters, to all her experiences as an adult working in society as being a blind person. It really was a phenomenal conversation.
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I learned a lot, then it makes me really proud of her, and the people around me who push every day for these services
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I realized that there is really, really not much of them in French for them, so there is a lot of work for the future. That's what we talked to Maryse about today, so I can't wait to introduce her to you. Good podcast everyone.
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Hello Maryse? How is it going? It's going very well, thank you and welcome everyone to AFO's fourth podcast. Thank you for being with us today, Maryse.
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Maryse we need to talk about living french with a disability.
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Maryse can you tell us a bit about yourself, your background, your expertise, were your experiences?
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I was born in Welland, Ontario, so on the Niagara Peninsula. I was born at 21 weeks pregnant in 1978. So I was very premature, of course. At the time, the doctors weren't sure what to say to my parents so they told them that I would be deaf, blind, mute, that I would have a severe intellectual disability and that I would never walk, so from these diagnoses the only two that remained, were complete blindness and a slight cerebral palsy on the right side, my childhood happened in a very loving environment My parents were teachers so they wasted no time in finding ways to stimulate me. So obviously someone had to be very aware of my presence and be very attentive to describe an environment to me, much more than one would for a sighted person. Rather than telling me to go get a blouse over there, My mother had to tell me; go look for it in your wardrobe on the far left of your wardrobe. And my brother too, who is 4 year older than me. Obviously, he also had to adapt to the reality of living with a visually disabled, and paralyzed child. But it was a beautiful childhood, very happy. And then, when it came time to send me to school, my parents absolutely did not want to send me to an institution, a specialized school ,which was located in southern Ontario as well, but further from home. It was a school that was managed by an English-speaking school board. And my parents absolutely did not want me to lose my French at school. But that was a fluke because my mother participated before the year before I entered school, in Bill 82. It is the Education Act, which stipulated that all students with disabilities were to receive specialized services in their neighborhood school. So that's how I got into the regular school in my neighborhood. I am the first francophone in Ontario to have received services in French at the elementary and secondary levels. it is a great achievement. My parents are very proud of this. I think it also helped a lot that they were both in the education network in all of this. It really helped the cause. It goes without saying that they fought battles for me, so that I could receive those services. Because at the time, it was complicated without the Internet. Braille books had to be brought from Quebec. We even had to bring in a Larousse dictionary in French from Paris because we didn't have the Petit Larousse here and the key word here is small, there were 8 double-sided braille volumes. So it was very heavy and very bulky. The Webster pocket dictionary contained 12 or 13 volumes. So very cumbersome, but we made shelves in my room for all that I had a whole library of dictionaries. at school, things went very well in terms of integration. Of course, there were pitfalls, teachers who had trouble accepting it. but it went very well because I was a very outgoing person, who wanted to know everything, learn everything. I really wanted to learn like the others, like my sighted friends. When they were learning to write, I was taken out of class to learn braille. So I learned French and English, musical braille also in summer camps.
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I didn't know that there is a French braille, an English braille and a musical braille.
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Yes, a math braille too. The alphabet is the basis of everything. But there is also what we call abbreviated, some sort of shorthand for Braille, because it's so big that they invented a code so it takes up less space. You have to learn everything. Contrary to what people say it's not a language, it's more a code that allows you to learn languages. And in fact, I have no figures to back it up ,but I am told that blind people who have learned braille are more likely to find a job because they are quote unquote, literate because a text-to-speech voice, will not tell you, for example, the word gone can be written in different ways, while with braille you will see it right away, so you can spell the words. And that's what Louis Braille wanted when he invented the System. So this is it. My childhood in elementary school was very happy. For high school, I started at my neighborhood school. I skip grade 8 to my ninth grade, but I have guts. I wanted to go to music at the time and there was a French-speaking school, the De la Salle school here in Ottawa who offers the music program. So, stopping at nothing, I pass the audition, I am accepted. the summer before I arrived two teachers, the school had no teacher who knew braille. therefore, two teachers decided to take on new challenges and took the course to learn braille. Two extraordinary teachers. So I went to De la salle. I participated in several productions, I was part of the choir. it was 5 beautiful years where I was able to really expand my culture because in Welland.I mean my parents were very, very, very francophone, proud Franco-Ontarians. But despite everything, resources were quite scarce. We had very few artistic performances. There were some in schools, but in french, it was rare. But here, we had the NAC right next door, so we could go and see things very easily. So it really allowed me to broaden my horizons. And the neighborhood school would not have allowed me this the music program being very limited. So I did my high school at De la salle, then I went to the University of Ottawa like my parents, and like my brother. So this is our Alma mater to the four family members. Then I went to music initially. But seeing that it was more complicated, because scores in Braille were not easy to obtain. It was a hard first year. So I decided. I really like music, but I think I will sing for fun and not make it a career. So, I decided to go to linguistics instead and it went very well, with again very, very dedicated teachers. Because we must not forget that even in the late 90s, 2000s, there were not the technologies that we have today. Yes, I had a computer. Yes, I had a braille display, so something that allowed me to read the contents of a screen in braille.
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But it was really not what it is today, so linguistics was not obvious, because we had to do tactile graphics, etc. So the teachers used their creativity to help me with that. I finished my baccalaureate in linguistics in 2000, after that, I did another baccalaureate in translation. That was easier because the internet started, technologies were easier to use. Although sometimes there were websites that became much more accessible over time that weren't at the time. But that was another, two years of work, but I really liked the program. Again very devoted teachers. It was easier to have things in electronic format too because email was also starting, so it was easier.
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There is one thing in your story that i keep hearing, I have two parents in education, so i may be a little biased. But my mom was a teacher and a guidance councelor and now she works with youth, with IEPs and deaf youth. My father was a teacher and principal
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I don't think teachers realize how much of an impact they have on the development of a person and one that can be so positive
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Absolutely, my parents were also high school teachers. And , I think it helped my cause a lot. Because, they knew where to look for the right resources.But the students too, how many students said to me afterwards "my God, I didn't know what a blind person was. I had no idea how you can function. thanks to you now I know. Thank you for opening my eyes "Despite myself. I think I made a lot of people aware, even if it was not my goal at the start, obviously, it was the conditon, it was not the goal at the start. But I really sensitized people. And yes, indeed when we have teachers who have the dedication, the creativity and the will to help you, who really want. Im thinking of a music teacher, among others, who recorded cassettes for me at the time to describe partitions to me because we made orchestral pieces that I really could not have done in Braille, it would have Impossible that too would have been about 12 volumes too. She would describe the scores to me, she was my eyes, but it wasn't me who thought about it, it was her. I think you really need to have a will to help. I'm going to use the English expression Think outside of the box, really think differently. and that's how I see education, you have to think differently.
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What I really liked about your biography we read is that at every step, like at elementary school, high school in Ottawa, university, there is no discomfort from people.
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People really treated you like everyone else
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Yes and for me that's very important
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I don't really dwell on it in the biography that I sent you. There were some problems, like the school board had to ask questions. Had to say to themselves "but why invest so much money for a person? " because at the time, we did not know if I was going to be a good student. If I would succeed, I will learn like the others Well, they quickly realized that yes, the money invested was worth it. But yes, there were some pitfalls that's clear. And, yes I had a few little moments of intimidation. However, if someone said really unkind things to me I wasn't happy, and I would say it.
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I think of my mother who works with young deaf people, I don't know if she works with young blind people. But I see the evolution and to think that you were the first to receive services in French, the snowball effect that it has created until today. It is really phenomenal as an evolution of services, evolution of support for these young people.
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Absolutely. At the begining when we started, we started from nothing. I even had a teacher, I think second grade, who learned braille on her own, because she wanted to adapt games for me. She was really really dedicated. She really wanted to learn, then she learned and then she did things. Then, the teaching assistant that I had at the beginning when I started in kindergarden, did not know braille at all. She had done her class in.
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Early childhood education They asked her if she was interested in doing that and then she said `` I don't know braille '' but they said "ok you're ready for a challenge." And she said yes.
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We remained very good friends. After all that, even as an adult. She was very devoted. It was anglophones who came to teach her braille because we had no lessons in French at the time. It was quite a story
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Really, I'm very proud of it, very proud of it.
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Yes and with good reason. You were really a pioneer for all these young people today. Exactly, pioneer for students with disabilitie’s education
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What is inspiring and is also the reason for this podcast. Its that It is also in french. You succeeded in getting all these services in french, you had parents persevering to get all these services in french, if you look at all this course, I find it exciting
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Are you proud?
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I am very proud of this, and then to go for a master's degree afterwards, I worked as a translator then I returned to the University, I work at the University of Ottawa now.Then I decided to do a master's degree in education, precisely. And I did this for 4 years and I finished in 2018. And it is always a source pride to have a master's degree hanging on my wall, saying to myself. I did that by myself obviously with a lot more technology, with a lot more autonomy too. I did everything on my own. I was able to scan my books myself, read articles myself, etc. I needed much less help from other people. But still I'm very, very proud of that.
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On that same note, if there was one thing in your life, in your journey, in all of your experiences if there was one thing you would say is the thing or accomplishment that makes you proudest
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What would that be?
I think I have 2. Having been a pioneer in french education for people with disabilities, but also my masters. I think so.
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A master's degree is hard for anyone, I can't even imagine with all these challenges it must take longer too, because I have seen your system reading for you, is that in english?
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Yes that's it. It speaks english , but I put a French voice on it. Soit is a little sketchy. But I'm very used to it, my ear is very used to it, and people tell me, your system reads so quickly, while it's not true it does not read quickly compared to other people’s. But to each his speed. Everyone has their own way of configuring the system. So yes, if it's very good it helps me a lot in my daily life.In primary school. Idid not have that, I had a machine like a typist with paper, I had to write my work. Then someone would transcribe what I had written. There was really a delay between when I handed in the work, and when it was handed to me corrected. But now I Send my work by email or by other means. At the same time as everyone else, there are really no more obstacles.
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Right now,as an adult at work, at the University of Ottawa, to live in Ottawa in general
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What is the biggest challenge right now? Is there anything that could be improved in terms of services that would make things easier?
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Well, I think that services for people with disabilities in French, amongst other things, there aren't many. There really are not lot of them. For example, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind has an office in Ottawa. But there are many, many English speakers who work there. If we want advice on how to organize our kitchen so that it is adapted to us, in french, good luck. It's not easy to find. It if someone who is super francophone as an adult and loses their sight due to glaucoma if they don't speak much English. Good luck getting services in French, it's not easy.
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Because it's still common to lose your sight. Later in life
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Exactly. Sure enough, Babies that are born prematurely, there are still some, but we manage to save them. If we make a decision, we immediately succeed in saving them, but.
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I say yes as an adult, it is really not easy, the services in French. When it comes to accessibility at home, it is clear that if the services are not offered in French you will choose the services in English. If I don't have services in French, I will argue to receive them in french but after a while, you have to prioritize.
That's it, you have to choose your battles. But at the same time, I think that for people with disabilities, I think it will be important to have more services in French, of course, in schools tere are some, but as adults. I think it's less obvious to have services in French. Right now.
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do you work in french or both languages.
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Both, yes, especially in English, but I do both.
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What are you doing? I don't think I asked the question. so I take care of transcribing the books.
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In normal times, from paper to electronic format, so for students, for example, who have learning difficulties, who need to listen their books rather than read on paper. Blind students too, who need their books in Braille. I am the one doing it.
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we do a lot less of that now, now it's a lot more in electronic format books that we take care of.
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I wonder with if COVID and with the virtual transfer of the university, and colleges. It must be even more complicated.
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Yes I also think that some students who might need, actually people, who would need to socialize more, to have a little more interaction. And we may not see a computer screen, but sitting in front of a computer all day, it's tiring, and you want to go elsewhere and do other things. And yes there are still platforms used by some universities, some colleges that are not accessible to people with disabilities. Some say it's still useful, but others don't.
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Yes, I wanted to mention that Camille, earlier I was talking with Maryse, she mentioned to me that Carol Jolin taught her
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Really ?
Well yes, yes, absolutely. He taught me in elementary school.
Hello Carol
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He taught me theater or drama. the Franco-Ontarian community is small and my parents are quite well known in the world of education.
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They did a lot for education. They've been involved in a lot of things
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They are very well known.
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Yes, someone told me that in life you know 1 in 8 people in the franco-ontarian world. When you have parents who are very involved like mine, or like yours Danielle, like yours too, Camille probably, it helps youe cause a bit. Yes, indeed, But it also creates succession, eh?
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Sorry I hit the microphone. Sorry, Camille, If you heard noise.
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I am also very involved in my community, in associations and committees.
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Are there resources in the community, such as organizations or supports available in the Franco-Ontarian community?
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Not in, an institution like a university? .
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If there is any, I would like to know. I know there is the Phoenix helping out, by the way I'm involved with them too. Im not sure if there is anything in rural areas
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at the francophone level. To be developed for the future.
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Yes.
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What advice would you give to a person living with a disability in French?, especially the French-speaking side, it ia important to me that it is for french speakers
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I think I would tell them to go for it, you have to go for it .Because otherwise, you won't have what you need. We'll always tell you, “We can't offer the service because because because”, but we have to go for it, I think we also have to assert ourselves
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Not to be afraid to assert yourself or to express your needs towards the community, towards our close ones, towards our teachers, our entourage. I think you really have to express yourself, And not be afraid to tell our community what we want.
00:29:06
Claim it, It will be so fun when it is no longer needed. Yes, but I am happy to have paved the way for something because I see the young people have services in French in school, that's wonderful.
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I'm glad to have been,
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yes, the first to receive, but also a witness to the services that young people have received. And I am always open to give advice and to talk to parents of blind children or having low visions I am always very, very open to this, because I think it is important that we give advice , and that we are able to help them.
00:29:59
This is what I wanted to ask, do you go to schools sometimes? Are you asked to talk?
00:30:04
Yes, it happened, it happened. I'm doing it less now. Especially with covid for obvious reasons. But I did a lot in schools too.I even spoke to the teachers who were taking the course.
00:30:19
As I told you earlier, there is a course given for blindness and low vision for education. Those who do the first part always have a testimony. My testimony, so I give them my life course, etc. Of course, they often have questions for their students, and it's really interesting. I really like doing it.
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there is a comment you made,
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at the beginning, you mentioned that there were questions from the staff who said why are we investing so much money for one student.
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It's crazy that this is even a question, everyone in Ontario, Canada.
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Has the right to an education
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It's surprising to me that it was even a question of not figuring out how to give you a good education.
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But I am happy that you have parents, who knew the system that were ready to push, and that
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you were ready to push, and to push yourself work to adapt yourself a 100%, it's really inspiring.
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I find it fascinating
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You must have stories. Oh we could be here for three hours stories? oh yes.Some Funny some less funny, but I think that it forged who I am. , I find that it is also necessary to have humor. I think we should laugh at his situation, not make fun of it, but to be able to laugh at yourself. Then to say to yourself oh well, it happens. We laugh, we move on.
00:32:16
Do you think that.
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If you had the technology and accessibility that we have today when you started school
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There would have been the same reluctance from school boards
00:32:47
Well yes I think today it's much easier to include. I hesitate to use the words integrated because for me, now, it is inclusion and I learned that during my master's degree. Before, I always said that I was integrated, but then I understood that inclusion and integration are not the same thing at all. It's a concept that's totally different.
00:33:07
I will not dwell on it. But I understood that I was included, in other people’s activities.
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We chatted for a long time and, like you said earlier we could chat for hours and hours. Oh my god Yes, thank you Maryse you're such
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an inspiring person. I'm really happy to have met you, virtually obviously. Thank you very much for doing our podcast.
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If people want to follow you, are you on social media? Yes I am on Facebook you can find me on Facebook, no problem.
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Thanks again. Thank you also to you, dear listeners, don't forget to follow AFO. on all these platforms @ mon assemblée on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linked in and Youtube.
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And in the next episode, we will talk about racism with an artist from Ottawa that you know very well. See you soon, Bye!