I went to the one BIBI site and it was great. The biggest thing they are asking for is some support and PR. There are people right here in Oregon that don't even know that we have a Deaf school. Like Jillio said, their first encounters are medical profs who steer them to the audist and oralism, and of course to CIs.
It is up to those who are concerned to educate others. That is why these threads are so important.
I still think that we could try to get the attention of the presidential candidates and ask for a meeting. By the time you get the meeting, you need to have your information together and a proposal to be considered.
Do you see why I went the route of trying to introduce ASL for free into the younger grades? How can they argue with something that is free? After it is proven to be successful, any volunteers, like seniors and Codas would turn into paid employees.
I don't want to water ASL down, but to at least get it started, so it is just considered a normal thing to the little hearing kids, I thought we would have to look at any arguments that could be made against it,, especially the money things.
I was going to introduce a petition to the community where I live, so I could get enough signatures from hearing parents that want their kids to have both a visual and oral language. There are lots of regular people out here that I have spoken to that would get behind this. If we could get one year of an experimental program put into about ten schools, it would give us the data to prove that ASL can be taught easily to little kids, and that it would be worth the expense of hiring people to teach it in the future.
Look at all of the other kids that would benefit from a visual language... Apraxic, or asphasic kids, and autistic kids, MMRs, Down Syndrome sufferers, and adults with those problems would benefit too. Those folks who have had a stroke can often use sign to communicate... A visual language also helps to reinforce English and oral skills... The studies are already proving that it would benefit more than the Deaf community. The question is how to get it past the oralists who insist that it is a bad thing.
This is why I think that the Deaf community needs to get the ear of the candidates,, and then tell them some of the issues you see that need to be worked on. It hasn't been since Galladet that you have been really heard from.. I think that the candidates would love to try to get your votes by talking about the issues.
