by Rachel Arfa
When you play card games like poker, or even go fish, the cards you get determine the outcome of your game. However, an education is too important to waste time playing games with what cards you get. The best possible cards should be given.
On that note, I want to stress the importance of having the right cards, realtime captioning, as opposed to picking random cards from the deck, which can often be notetaking (in the wrong situation). I have used every kind of service possible during my education: notetaking, oral interpreters, sign language interpreters, laptop notetaking, carbon copy notes and realtime captioning.
It was only with realtime captioning that I felt, for the first time, that I had true access to my education, that I had the right cards. I had struggled with note takers since I do not hear, and while I am an excellent lipreader, I cannot understand what is happening in the classroom, take my own notes, read a note taker's notes and process what is being said into my own thoughts. With realtime captioning, I was able to form my own opinions of the subject matter and receive the information firsthand, rather than second, third or fourth hand, since CART takes every sentence that is being said. Notetaking is NOT sufficient because the note taker cannot possibly get every word that is being said and often misses crucial information, while CART gets EVERY single concept and idea.
I feel strongly that every person who needs CART should have access to this service, because it means equal access to his or her education. After all, you can't expect to have a good outcome to your card game if you don't have the right cards to play with.
CART made a significant impact on my undergraduate academic career at the University of Michigan. I consistently achieved excellent grades and truly benefited from my classes at the same or greater level than my classmates. Everyone should have this equal access.
If you have had an experience with captioning or CART that you would like to share, please e-mail it to Peter Wacht, pwacht@ncrahq.org, or mail it to his attention at NCRA, 8224 Old Courthouse Road, Vienna, VA 22312.