You have truly touched my heart with this post. What you survived was abusive. It was traumatic. It is a testament to your own personal strength to have survived it and be able to heal somewhat from it.
It is obvious to me that you are a very intelligent person. It is apparent in the way you express yourself and the depth of your thoughts and insight. What a horrible, horrible thing to take a child who is intelligent and capable, and turn them into a child that hates school. It is destruction of potential...and for what end? It is senseless.
Your anger is justified. You were exposed to abusive treatment that was completely unjustified. Of course you would be angry. You have every right to be angry. And I can see that you are not letting that anger eat you alive, though. You are trying to work through that anger. Holding onto the anger just gives those people from your past control over you today. In order to work through the anger, however, you first have to feel it. I would guess that you have already figured that out. The process is to feel it, to admit the injustice and the pain it caused you, to grieve for that poor, abused child, and then to let go of it.
I think I probably should let you know right now, so that it doesn't appear that I am trying to hide anything from you, that I am hearing. But the Deaf culture and the language are very much a valued part of my life. I treasure the friends I have made and the valuable things I have learned about life from my interactions with Deaf culture.
Yes, it would appear that Germany is far behind the U.S. in regard to deaf education. Your descrptions really put that into perspective. But in many places in the U.S., it remains just like you have described. There is no consistency and that is a problem in and of itself. With more hearing parents choosing oral only educational placement for their kids, I have the fear that, in the next few years, we will start to see a regression in deaf ed here rather than progress. I can already see signs of that happening.
It has been very nice meeting you, and I hope I have the opportunity to get to know you much better with time.
Thank you for your words! Working through all that will take a while, but I've got no reason to hurry.
Don't get me wrong, of course they all can sign but there are many deaf people who sign on a low level b/c of the bad education they had! The worst example I can give you was a few years back, not at the Oktoberfest, but at another of those bavarian drinking events. A friend of mine and I were talking about Sigmund Freuds view of the human child. At some point we were interrupted by a man in his thirties asking what that one sign was, he didn't know. (he was deaf) We were talking about the "soul" and that was the word he didn't know. We fingerspelled it, he still didn't know what it was. So we spend thirty minutes trying to explain this person what the human soul is about. He had NEVER heard of it in his life.Are you serious??? Wow, I don't know much of anything like that you mentioned about deaf school system and most Deafies do not sign well in German and its language? I am shocked about it. I had visited Germany for the first time a year ago for Oktoberfest in Munich and I have met so many Deaf Germans and picked up some of their Deutsch Signs in conversation. They invited me to join them to the Deaf club and other night at the night club (Klaus?) after the Oktoberfest deaf gathering, I saw so many Deaf my age and I thought watching them awesomely signing in German. I have an acquaintance Deaf friend who moved here in New York from Germany about 15 years ago. Maybe one day I should ask him more about what it is like living as a deaf in Germany and all. I thought school for the deaf and other school seems okay I have heard that schools in Germany are one of the best in the world.
A friend of mine told me he bought a "satellite". The next day I picked up on that topic while we were chatting and I wrote the word. He didn't know what it was. I tried to explain it, but he didn't get it. I had to turn on my webcam and sign it.
The deaf community is splitted within itself. There are deaf events, all about drinking, making friends, chatting along, and then there are deaf events where you actually can talk about politics, education, art, etc. You normally don't see the same people attending both types of events.
To narrow it down: Bad education leads to that lack of knowledge and I think it really is a major problem in this country.
You know, I think many parents remember their own school years and the problems they may have had (we do know hearing kids get bullied too) and because it probably wasn't that bad for them, because they grew up and became a respected member of the society (respected = fitting in), they don't really take it serious. That's where things like "In my time things weren't as easy as they are now, we turned out pretty well, too...You have to stand up for yourself..." come from, I think.I do have to say that I think that mainstreaming can be abusive. God it gave ME PSTD. I am never ever ever going to go a high school reunion, b/c it was SO bad! It angers me SO much that mainstreaming and inclusion is painted as some sort of glorious utopia, or something innovative. It's NOT and never has been! Yes, there are a handful of kids who have done well overall (meaning they only need minimal accomondations, and don't even have social issues) but overall kids are struggling and are misrable socially....
ANd yes, I hear you. But I think on the other hand that there are going to be a lot of parents who chose sign and deaf schools b/c their siblings or friends may have had really negative mainstream experiances. I do think a lot of parents are out of touch about the downside of mainstreaming, and don't understand that their kid could do so much better at a deaf school.