Are deaf kids bullied/harrassed more frequently than hearing kids in mainstream?

Jane B. said:
I am not sure why this is causing the uproar to the extent it is. I go to eat once a week approximately with a group and we have all had errors made in our orders even though I am the only one with a profound hearing loss. I can see how she would view it the way she did based on prior experience but there is also the matter of errors being made in orders or getting someone else's order just based on the number of orders being handled.
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Botts doesnt have a reputation of overreacting.
 
Jane B. said:
I am not sure why this is causing the uproar to the extent it is. I go to eat once a week approximately with a group and we have all had errors made in our orders even though I am the only one with a profound hearing loss. I can see how she would view it the way she did based on prior experience but there is also the matter of errors being made in orders or getting someone else's order just based on the number of orders being handled.
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And another one that comes in just to minimize another's experience.:cool2:
 
rebeccalj said:
And he wants to meet deaf friends.:shock::roll:
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i guess he's very curious about deaf/hoh people that he just finished high school. He is sort of exploring into his life in the world.

i thought it's a good thing for him to realize that we all are the same as everyone except hear. :) Oh yes there are some 16 or 17 yrs old teen gals who have hearing losses who just joined here on alldeaf. :D
 
naisho said:
I see it in a good way. He has that debative spirit in him and that kind of passionate advocacy helps the deaf community for its needs to promote awareness. He'd end up giving AGB a tough time should he be the agent on the right side. :cool2:
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hope he sticks around here after one day experimenting on alldeaf. I thought he has a great and fresh sport. :D let s see if he does come back. :D
 
power-over is all connected...racism, sexism, audism, able-ism etc - same same
that's the real issue one must look beneath to see

products of audist, racist, sexist society.

the thought that simply because we in U.S. happen to have an African-American president = racism is less - is itself one of the most racist perceptions
 
Jiro said:
what's 6th form?

Sixth Year? sorry - I don't know how UK universities work. I'm from America. In here - most universities are 4 years.
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Post 16 education. Finish school at 16 years old and sixth form is for 17 years old want to stay school another year or two then go College or Uni or Work.
 
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dogmom said:
power-over is all connected...racism, sexism, audism, able-ism etc - same same
that's the real issue one must look beneath to see

products of audist, racist, sexist society.

the thought that simply because we in U.S. happen to have an African-American president = racism is less - is itself one of the most racist perceptions
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In this case, I think it's a matter of youthful optimism. With some education, the young man will come to understand.
 
yes, in this case I agree there is a preponderance of that
and I do hope he will come be to be awake - but he might not-
 
Wirelessly posted (droid)

We are using teaspoons in a vast ocean. If we can all use our teaspoons, maybe we can make a difference.
 
It nearly killed me to see a 5y/o with bi-lateral CIs the other night. His parents not once used ASL with him and the boy was all oral. I can tell he was struggling even with the CI at the party with other kids. I thought about walking up to him and ask him if he knew signs or not, but I thought, no his parents might think I'm some crazy person so I didn't. But still, I would have liked to have known. I wanted to tell the parents, there's nothing wrong with deafness, there's nothing wrong with ASL. One day he will make the personal choice to be deaf or be a broken hearing version of himself. Once he discovers the deaf community, he will go to be with those who understand him best- Deafies like us.
 
Dixie said:
It nearly killed me to see a 5y/o with bi-lateral CIs the other night. His parents not once used ASL with him and the boy was all oral. I can tell he was struggling even with the CI at the party with other kids. I thought about walking up to him and ask him if he knew signs or not, but I thought, no his parents might think I'm some crazy person so I didn't. But still, I would have liked to have known. I wanted to tell the parents, there's nothing wrong with deafness, there's nothing wrong with ASL. One day he will make the personal choice to be deaf or be a broken hearing version of himself. Once he discovers the deaf community, he will go to be with those who understand him best- Deafies like us.
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OMG yes......I wish SO badly that we could get rid of that old myth that HOH (either functionally or audilogically) aren't welcome in ASL circles or Deaf culture. GOD, the world is not a soundbooth. It's difficult functioning as "fake hearing" in difficult listening situtions such as the real world.......whereas with ASL, you can communicate in a crowd of strangers.
 
Wow, it just took me two days to work my way through all 13 pages. I started reading and noticed after a while that one unpleasant memory after another popped up.
I was mainstreamed, I was bullied, I hated it.
I'm not sure what was worse. The teachers, not doing anything, the teachers laughing along with other students, or my so called "friends" humiliating me every single day.
It was hell...
7th to 9th grade were a really dark hour.

I can't finish this right now, my daughter is up, but I hope I can get it off my chest sometime later.
 
Dixie said:
I couldn't fit my entire question in the title but here it is:

Are deaf/hoh kids bullied and/or harassed more frequently than their hearing peers within mainstream schools?

I say they are because I was the only d/hh kid in school and I was a constant easy target.

I was bullied, sexually harassed where boys would reach up my shirt and play with my breasts, they would stick pencils in my pants and I recall once that a boy walked past my desk. He grabbed my head by the hair and shoved my face into his crotch. When I tried to move away he would hold my head there longer. He was a huge football player for the JV team and I was just me. They would then spread notes all over school calling me whore slut and the whole lot. If I tried fighting against it I was labelled as homosexual, lesbian, dyke. I couldn't escape.

I was taunted, and I was seen as some sex plaything. When I tried to get them to stop, they would force their way on me more.

This triggered my depression, my anorexia, my hurts.

During this time I got to the point that I no longer cared about school. I just wanted to drop out, run away, and never return. I begged my parents to let me transfer to another nearby school but they wouldn't hear of it. They said I needed to face to them and deal with it.

By Christmas of my senior year I was threatening to drop out altogether I hated it so bad. I wanted out. But my parents would not have it. They forced me to stick it out. That's when I really started to rebel. There was something in me that just fired off and was ready to tell the world to fuck off because I'm done. I was still bullied, I was still tormented, but I found myself taking it out on me through anorexia, extreme obsession to exercise. I hated the world, but I also hated me.

Still I was tormented. At this point I was beginning to drink heavily to escape from the pain. Get drunk enough and you black out and you forget for a while. I think a few other students knew, but in this small town, who doesn't drink? It didn't solve the fact I was bullied/harrassed, it just hid it when it became too much to bear.

It got to the point that I was literally bullied right out of my senior prom. That night I never felt so unbeautiful. I ran out embarrassed, ashamed, defeated, humiliated. I ran not home to my parents but to a friend's house, my only friend. I ripped off my borrowed second hand prom dress (my parents refused to buy my prom dress), tore my hair down, ripped out my jewelry. I washed the make up off my face. I changed into jeans and a t-shirt, and lay there on her couch covered in tears.

After that day, I never went back to school. I maxed out the number of days I could miss school and still graduate. When it came time to graduate. Everyone got to pick a friend to walk with. Well guess what, no one wanted to walk with me. I remember walking into the gymnasium to the stares of the crowd and thinking dammit, if I am going to stand alone, the least this damn place can do is reassure me that it's alright.

Needless to say I was never invited to our class after graduation party. What did I do? I stole a bunch of beer out of my parents garage fridge, hopped on the fourwheeler and went riding and drinking in the woods at night. I remember waking up the next morning to a sunrise in the middle of nowhere and a painful hangover. But I thought - shit, it's finally over. All that hurt is finally over.

So that's my story from the social side of mainstream school.

So do you think deaf/hh kids are targeted more frequently that hearing kids in mainstream schools??

A penny for your thoughts.
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Hi, Dixie - oh my gosh.. I am so speechless. To answer your question - well, it's hard to say whether about Deaf students are more likely to be bullied/harrassed by hearing peers in mainstream school than normal hearing peers. I had been through bullyings by hearing peers in middle and high school. I was barely the only Deaf student at my mainstream school although I wasn't. There was about 10 other deafies (almost all of them were hard of hearing students that could speak and hear much much better level than an non-orally Culturally Deaf like me) in my school they were not fully mainstreamed. They went to that special program classroom for "hearing impaired" but I left that stupid program long time ago and I was on my own with private hired-interpreter in full mainstreamed classes as everyone else. There was a several students I knew them have CP (Cerebal Palsy) and I had never seen them being bullied or harrassed. They were chaperoned along with a staff of an assisant or something like that from class to class, I guess...that's because I oftenly seen them passinig in the hallways. There was one Deaf student named Sarah at my school but I assumed that she 'overshadowed' her deafness, she has Deaf Grandmother but i don't know much about her family issue.. I remembered her mentioning me that her hearing parents did not get along with Sarah's grandmother because she is Deaf...? They argued over Sarah, Deafness, and ASL issue and the Deaf grandmother was upset Sarah's parents decided to put her in hearing school and banned her from learning ASL and also banned her from hanging out with Deaf people or friends, and then she grew up orally. I don't know if Sarah ever visits her Deaf grandmother but i am not sure if her grandfather is also Deaf or HOH, I cannot recall. Not sure if they are still alive or not. I had never met her grandparents I wish to meet them and what they were like because they are Deaf. I don't see Sarah's hearing parents as true Christian when they done something awful hurt and disrespect to her own Deaf grandmother. I felt little uncomfortable meeting my friend Sarah's parents..I don't know but I felt something funny but maybe i am wrong...when they first met me at their house i was first nervous... my feeling was mixed...not sure whether if they looked down on me because Sarah did not have Deaf friends at that time except me. that the everyone treated her like she is hearing. I think at that time she was hard of hearing person and now she is profoundly Deaf after high school graduation. It does still disgust me to this day especially you brought this question up making me remember why nobody picked on her, bullied her, harrassed due to that she has deafness in her. She was ranked 13th HS class student and very strong Christian background. She did not really sign at all, we lived in same town and I had never met her until in the middle of our freshman year, I just happened to notice her hearing aid behind her ear almost covered by her hair outside by the hallway door near my Earth Science classroom (we never had same class period except lunch break together in all 4 years at HS) and I tapped on her shoulder, 'hi I didn't know you Deaf' in signing and she didn't know ASL at that time. She knew very few words in signing...I was shocked. Sometime later I meet her during lunch break and tried to start conversation..she started to learn some ASL in order to communicate with me. I know this is off point, to cut the chase to the end of the story, 10 years later we reunited after HS graduation, she is now teacher for the Deaf at Deaf school, expert ASL user, is identifed as Bilingual and Culturally Deaf as well. I asked her how come no one hearing students picked on and bullied her in school life but me? She flatly answered 'no idea why'. I can tell why..that is NO , i repeat NO EXCUSE for hearing peers to treat us any differently because we have the same deafness issue. That is total bullcrap for what they did to me throughout the years and she had none.

Anyhow, well it is very unacceptable what your careless parents said to you and treated you as lowest human being next to the nothing...if your parents were my parents...I would've shoot them in the head.
 
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Speedy Hawk said:
Post 16 education. Finish school at 16 years old and sixth form is for 17 years old want to stay school another year or two then go College or Uni or Work.
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I was told by a Deaf Bulgarian friend who was born and raised in Bulgaria, that the Deaf school in Bulgaria where she attended, is not allowed Deaf students to go to college after HS graduation. I was like, WHAT?!!?!
 
DeafBadger said:
No. I see no evidence of that. I keep seeing deaf/hoh kids who had the same experiences I did growing up.



Because of a stupid educational idea that deaf/hoh kids should be educated and raised without the use of sign langauge. This is called "oralism." There are a LOT of deaf/hoh kids raised this way. We are forced to get by in the world, basically trying to pretend to be hearies. We can't truly hear like hearies can, so we have to compensate by using lipreading, body languge and so on. It's a joke.

Watch this short film (less than 30 minutes) to understand what that's like.

BSLBT > British Sign Language Broadcasting Trust > My Song
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All I can say, WOW!! I watched the rest of the film...I loved it! Since I know it wasn't aired on U.S. tv. But it is perfect to put that film for World Deaf Cinema and International DeafFilm Fest in Rochester, NY and Los Angeles, CA. At least it helped me learn a bit of BSL whenever I meet a Deafie Brit!!
 
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