Blindness not a disability for School of the Arts student

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) _ Fourteen-year-old Brianna Murray navigates the Charleston County School of the Arts campus as deftly as any of her classmates.

Just like everyone else, Brianna had to audition to be accepted into the high-achieving magnet school, and she's as passionate about her art, playing the violin, as any other teenager there.

Brianna is just like everyone else who's ever attended the School of the Arts, except in one way — Brianna is blind.

She's the first visually impaired student in the school's 13-year history, the first to attempt its rigorous academic curriculum while meeting the artistic demands that are the school's hallmark.

Brianna has managed both the audition process and the workload with relative ease. She earned almost all A's in her full schedule of honors classes.

"She has given us a new perspective, a new way of looking at our school and a new way of looking at her world, because she doesn't consider her inability to see with her eyes a disability," interim Principal Myrna Caldwell said. "She sees everything. I'm awed by that kid. I'm just in awe of her."

Brianna, who just finished her freshman year, quickly dismisses any compliment and says she doesn't think of herself as the school's first blind student. She considers herself simply a student, she said.

"I just do what everyone else does," she said. "I just blend in."

One area that has presented some difficulty has been her music class. Brianna doesn't know how to read Braille music, an entirely different Braille code than literary Braille, and she's learned to play the violin simply by listening to pieces and memorizing the notes.

Although Brianna can play by ear better than almost anyone else that high school orchestra director Sarah Fitzgerald knows, Fitzgerald said Brianna's inability to read Braille music has been an impediment to her learning the voluminous and complicated pieces the high school orchestra plays. It's more advanced music than what's taught in middle school, and Brianna's memorization method doesn't work quite as well in high school, she said.

Still, Brianna memorizes every piece possible, and her desire to take on the challenge of playing in the school's highly regarded orchestra is a testament to her courage and will, Fitzgerald said. Fitzgerald is involved with orchestras from across the state, and she said she doesn't know of another student who is doing what Brianna does.

"She really puts her soul into it, and you can tell," she said.

Brianna said she doesn't see her lack of sight as a disadvantage because she remembers to feel the music, an important part of being a musician that her classmates sometimes forget. Given time, she said, she can memorize any piece of music and can continue advancing musically without knowing how to read Braille music.

"I think I can do whatever the rest of the orchestra can with my ears," she said.

Brianna has started thinking about college and is interested in teaching, perhaps English or music. She doesn't plan on letting her blindness impair her in any way, she said.

"It's not a disadvantage not to be able to see," she said. "I can do what anyone else can."

When Brianna isn't playing the violin or studying, she loves to read. She's gotten so good at reading Braille that she's going to represent South Carolina in the Eighth annual National Braille Challenge in Los Angeles. Brianna was one of 60 blind or visually impaired students chosen from a field of more than 500 to compete in this one-of-a-kind national academic competition.

Heath Orvin, Brianna's global studies teacher, said Brianna is an uplifting presence at the school who makes him appreciate the human spirit and life. She sets an example for others because although she's blind, she has no handicap, he said.

Orvin's room is strewn with posters, pictures and model airplanes as reference points for his lectures, and Brianna's inability to see the visuals doesn't hamper her understanding, he said. And when the class went bobbing for apples during Halloween, Brianna dove right into the barrel with her classmates.

"I'm her biggest fan," he said. "It's not what the school has done for her, it's what she has done for the school."