Low Expectations

The Heretic

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During my college career i have had to struggle against a stereotype about deaf people in general, fight against the common assumptions about a group of disabled people, and constantly prove myself capable by shattering unfair but understandable generalizations. After blazing a trial in my own limited time (by breaking the prejudices of others) it does become tiresome and repetitive, redundant that I am fighting against extremely low expectations and that whatever I do that clears the embarrasingly low bar is simply taken as brilliant, impressive, wonderful, amazing, or [insert any superlative here]. This is not a cry for a universal standard, fairness, but that the concept of low expectations does result in low results. It is somewhat a self-defeating prophecy, if you look at the results without any preconceived notions.

The unexamined prejudice, or stereotype i am talking about is that because of the disability, a deaf person should not be able to articulate speech consistently well, even write eloquently in English, and/or specialize in non-visual training (i.e. abstract studies such as that of mathematics or philosophy).

The first stereotype is not too much of a problem. Once i open my mouth and ask for something in the public arena, say, ordering food, sometimes i'm taken for a hearing person pretending to be deaf in order to get away with things. Other times incredulity is written allover their faces that a deaf person can speak at all is embarrasing to the degree that those preconceived notions are just exactly what we all are guilty of when we meet the strange or the rare, or the different, those of unlike bent - whatever it is, disability, cultural differences, or social classes - whatever we have limited experience of we unfairly make quick judgments and assessments that are actually a short cut for true knowledge and understanding. Is it human nature to make shortcuts with stereotypes so we don't have to waste time in the future?

The 2nd stereotype is even more troubling, because my major requires that i write a lot of papers, essays, summations, reports, analyses, critiques, and etcetera. I remember my first semester at the local college, i was enrolled in a course on Folklore & Mythology. During lecture i had been constantly keeping my arm up and answering posed questions or adding information, but that was not sufficient grounds for the professor to doubt the true authorship of my papers. He had the audacity to ask whether i did write my essay. At that time i wasn't too worried because I assumed that the professor was concerned about the quoted material or sources i had worked with. But it slowly dawned upon me that he was laboring with assumptions that i could not have written that paper precisely because of my disability- not that he came out and said it, for he was too smart to paint himself in a corner like that. My interpreter found this so insulting that during the interrogation she broke down and cried like a baby. The professor defended his charges by saying that in 35 years of teaching he never came across a paper that technical, so he had grounds to doubt the abilities of a lowly freshman. More similar incidents followed, until i built a reputation of producing well-written papers in the philosophy department was i able to dispell that sort of low expectations. About time!

To this day i keep surprising people on the internet with the admittance that i am hearing impaired. Sometimes i can interpret that as a compliment, for example there is this intelligent, talented thinker who frequents over at darwinawards.org i have had the courtesy of befriending- he told me that he would have never guessed that i was deaf.

The third stereotype is the choice of major- since the most common major for the deaf student at schools like Gallaudet, NTID, or CSUN is 'deaf studies,' it stands to reason that there are exceptions who do not fall into any homogenized categories. However, the assumption that a deaf person is exceeding expectations if he focuses on something not necessarily visually aided (technican, auto mechanic, art) he is bound to fail or be doomed to a life of misery or frustration is unfounded.

Perhaps this is a matter of semantics, that the people who happen to be deaf is actually a microcosm of the population at large, that the ratio stays fixed, that the majority of the people are not devoted to high-brow intellectual pursuits, but in more practical matters, and that the categorization of deaf/hearing is spurrious and unnecessary.

For subjective purposes, i do not find my disability a source of pride because i did not chose to be deaf. That may be a fundamental problem of my own, that i refuse to participate in a social thing that stems from an accident of nature (that translates as well to other elements such as those of racial origins, cultural background, social status). If i didn't choose my ethnicity, my parents, my social class, my history, how can i take the credit for any of those?

Seems that i've rambled on long enough, but heck- i felt like i had to get this off my chest, however incoherently. Comments and thoughts welcome!
 
I know how you feel. I'm in the same shoes as yours. I grew up with a lot of criticism from my mother. She's a college-level English teacher and has always helped me with my English. By the time I graduated high school, she no longer had the need to help me for I was able to do good papers on my own. There have been times when my teachers would question my writing ability. Sometimes, they would lower their expectations just for me because of my disability. I would then ask them that I'm fine and could to it at their regular level of expectations and that took quite a bit of convincing to do. Now, I'm at RIT and don't need English since it was waived during the LAPT I took when I first came here. I still write papers for many various classes and my average is usually an "A". Once, I turned in a paper and the teacher asked me if I had any help on it. I told her that I didn't and asked why she wondered. She said that my writing level was so high compared to the other hearing students in her class that she thought that I might have had some extra help getting it to be so good. I was flattered a bit but am a bit disappointed to see how this world is coming to when it comes to English and grammar skills.
 
The Heretic said:
To this day i keep surprising people on the internet with the admittance that i am hearing impaired. Sometimes i can interpret that as a compliment, for example there is this intelligent, talented thinker who frequents over at darwinawards.org i have had the courtesy of befriending- he told me that he would have never guessed that i was deaf.

It's so nice to finally meet someone else who appears to be just like me. I get this quite a bit. In fact, my closest online friends, who I have known for more than 6 years, still sometimes forget I'm deaf. As for whether or not it's a compliment...I don't know. I've always taken it as such, but I could see how you might say it's merely a result of low expectations and nothing more.
 
VamPyroX said:
I know how you feel. I'm in the same shoes as yours. I grew up with a lot of criticism from my mother. She's a college-level English teacher and has always helped me with my English.
This is an advantage i never had. My parents are first generation immigrants who speak English as a 4th or 5th language. Although they are fluent, they speak with a very thick accent. Man if i grew up with an english teacher, my speaking abilities would be somewhere closer to my writing skills.
By the time I graduated high school, she no longer had the need to help me for I was able to do good papers on my own.
Even though i could write pretty okay, i could never tutor well enough - case in point: my younger sister is a college graduate and she still needs her papers to be proofread. Having the ability to write (or draw or sing) doesn't mean you can teach as well.
There have been times when my teachers would question my writing ability. Sometimes, they would lower their expectations just for me because of my disability. I would then ask them that I'm fine and could to it at their regular level of expectations and that took quite a bit of convincing to do. Now, I'm at RIT and don't need English since it was waived during the LAPT I took when I first came here. I still write papers for many various classes and my average is usually an "A".
Nice. Were you enrolled in the NTiD program that may have gotten a few doors opened? I couldn't waive shit and had to go through all the pre-requesites. That means ENGL 001. :barf: The other students kept asking me why i was wasting my time there. And, not to brag but in the next English class, ENGL 100 the professor told me in strict confidence that i was the best writer in the class. :applause: Even if this wasn't true, it is nice to have a cheerleader for a teacher :)
Once, I turned in a paper and the teacher asked me if I had any help on it. I told her that I didn't and asked why she wondered. She said that my writing level was so high compared to the other hearing students in her class that she thought that I might have had some extra help getting it to be so good.
Heh. Low expectations again. A couple of interpreters here write the papers of their students, and i'm sure that goes on a bit over there too.
I was flattered a bit but am a bit disappointed to see how this world is coming to when it comes to English and grammar skills.

Actually it's the other way around. We're fighting centuries of prejudice and stereotypes. The world was not a better place in the past in the slightest - at least for the deaf.
 
It is a mixed feeling for me to see someone whom I antithesis the most on this forum shares many common experiences. My parents doesn’t speak English that well, but they held technical professions, my mom works at one of the best university in the west coast and my dad is an engineer. I have to admit that writing is not my strongest flair, but as a computer science student I went through similar experience with my current employer. I had to perform data entry when the classes I took back in college were taught by some of the best pofessors.
 
Yeah, I've found that quite a lot of people see deaf people as unable to do anything. I was always encouraged to take part in hearing English classes because I had good english and was capable of keeping up with the other hearing students. However, I was the only deaf person out of the deaf unit at school to be placed into a normal English class and I feel that some hearing students might have seen the rest of the deaf students as stupid and unable to keep up when this was sometimes not the case.

Hearing students have expressed amazement that I have normal English skills like them but I tell them not to find it so surprising. My teachers have also told me how surprised they are, but they are also aware that some deaf people are not so lucky.

I think it's a shame that some deaf people don't care enough about their own English skills to make the effort to improve so that hearing people can see that deaf people are not illiterate.
 
kalboy said:
It is a mixed feeling for me to see someone whom I antithesis the most on this forum shares many common experiences.
Antithesis, eh? Life is full of surprises.

I have noticed that sometimes people of similar disposition cannot get along, because they need a complementary personality (someone who has strengths they lack) to feel comfortable to express themselves.
 
I have read all of your posts and I feel as if all of your posts are my echoes!

Currently, I am a deaf 17yrold freshman at a hearing state university that has no deaf community... Automatically one will think that I am in a wrong university.

I am enrolled in Rhetoric and Writing Studies 200... and i am a first-semester freshman. (how did I get in 200... passed my AP exam, that is how.)
The students in that class mostly are sophmores and should (and I repeat- SHOULD) already know how to write their papers and so on regarding to the grammar in English.

I was SADLY mistaken. It was becoming more obvious that hearing people shouldn't put stereotypes on us ("the deaf people") when THEY are carrying the sterotypes, not us. There was a session where the fellow students were supposed to correct another's paper... I was overwhelming with numerous grammar errors and spelling errors in the hearing student's paper...
and the fellow student had the nerve to put red marks on my paper (which I later asked the professor to check out and the prof. totally countered against the student's corrections!) I was thinking to myself, "how the hell did they get into 200 if they couldn't perfect their NATIVE language in RWS 100?!" I did ask the fellow student if he is biligunial or anything and he said that he "only speaks English and just starts taking Spanish". IMAGINE that. I felt a twitch coming on my face and I turned away and asked myself, "What the hell have made them thinking that a deaf is supposed to suck at english when they are actually the ones that are screwing up the basic spelling of 'THEIR', 'THERE', 'THEY'RE' and the proper use of each term in a sentence!"

The more deaf people I know that are taking the "hearing" English classes, I feel the awareness that just because we dont "speak" English doesn't mean we are dumb have finally spread and proved the hearing people WRONG.

Keep the awareness strong! Spread it, spread it... hopefully our future deaf generation wouldn't have to suffer the same frustrations!
 
gnarlydorkette said:
I have read all of your posts and I feel as if all of your posts are my echoes!

Currently, I am a deaf 17yrold freshman at a hearing state university that has no deaf community... Automatically one will think that I am in a wrong university.

I am enrolled in Rhetoric and Writing Studies 200... and i am a first-semester freshman. (how did I get in 200... passed my AP exam, that is how.)
The students in that class mostly are sophmores and should (and I repeat- SHOULD) already know how to write their papers and so on regarding to the grammar in English.

I was SADLY mistaken. It was becoming more obvious that hearing people shouldn't put stereotypes on us ("the deaf people") when THEY are carrying the sterotypes, not us. There was a session where the fellow students were supposed to correct another's paper... I was overwhelming with numerous grammar errors and spelling errors in the hearing student's paper...
and the fellow student had the nerve to put red marks on my paper (which I later asked the professor to check out and the prof. totally countered against the student's corrections!) I was thinking to myself, "how the hell did they get into 200 if they couldn't perfect their NATIVE language in RWS 100?!" I did ask the fellow student if he is biligunial or anything and he said that he "only speaks English and just starts taking Spanish". IMAGINE that. I felt a twitch coming on my face and I turned away and asked myself, "What the hell have made them thinking that a deaf is supposed to suck at english when they are actually the ones that are screwing up the basic spelling of 'THEIR', 'THERE', 'THEY'RE' and the proper use of each term in a sentence!"

The more deaf people I know that are taking the "hearing" English classes, I feel the awareness that just because we dont "speak" English doesn't mean we are dumb have finally spread and proved the hearing people WRONG.

Keep the awareness strong! Spread it, spread it... hopefully our future deaf generation wouldn't have to suffer the same frustrations!
I agree with you. I've been asked to grade papers for other students in the past. I used to do it for everyone until I realized that most of it was too much work that I just referred them to their tutors or teachers to help them. I've had students come up to me asking me to proofread their work that's already on their computer. Yes, it's in MS Word. As soon as I open the document, the whole thing is in green and red! For those of you who are wondering what I meant by red and green, when a word is squiggly-underlined red... spelling error, when a word is squiggly-underlined green... grammar error. Why ask me for help when they haven't let the computer check the grammar themselves. Oh yeah, the grammar was so bad that MS Word couldn't correct it... and gave up. Wow, amazing... I never thought that computers could give up! :eek: Since then, I only glance at most papers and if the whole first paragraph sounds good, I'll finish it. If I see too many mistakes in the first paragraph, I just tell them to check the spelling or grammar with MS Word on their own or have a teacher check on it.
 
Yes, even a lot of hearing students are DUMB!!!!!
Has anyone on the thread had trouble with low expectations for deaf/hoh kids in the mainstream? It seems like in mainstream schools, regular teachers either expect you to be SuperDeaf ( VERY high achieving deaf/hoh person, eg the type who takes ALL honors classes, is a superstar on athletic teams, is hyperinvolved in extra curricular activties etc) or DumbDeaf (oh they're just lazy and don't need any special accomondations and it's not worth it to give them extra help b/c they're just going to graduate and get into a low/semi-skilled job, and won't amount to much)
 
It does not surprise me that some hearing people cannot spell. Being hearing has its disadvantage in spelling because they relay on auditory sense to remember spelling whereas many deaf people remember the spelling of words base on the word structure. I both strategies has no advantage over one another and it all depends on how skillful one master them.
I also believe that reading helps improve one’s grammar so the advantage goes to people who read more.
 
deafdyke said:
Yes, even a lot of hearing students are DUMB!!!!!
Has anyone on the thread had trouble with low expectations for deaf/hoh kids in the mainstream? It seems like in mainstream schools, regular teachers either expect you to be SuperDeaf ( VERY high achieving deaf/hoh person, eg the type who takes ALL honors classes, is a superstar on athletic teams, is hyperinvolved in extra curricular activties etc) or DumbDeaf (oh they're just lazy and don't need any special accomondations and it's not worth it to give them extra help b/c they're just going to graduate and get into a low/semi-skilled job, and won't amount to much)

When I was in high school, I had a big problem with the principal trying to ship me off into the special ed classroom, despite the fact that I had proven again and again that I was more than able to keep up with the work in a regular classroom. My life being the soap opera that it is...my mother, who is a teacher at the school, was in love with that principal and dated him and he is the father of my youngest sister. He and I are civil, but that's about all. I have to disagree with the SuperDeaf/DumbDeaf thing...because the only thing I ever saw was the DumbDeaf one, despite the fact that I was involved in extracurricular activities and have a very high IQ. My mother chose to mainstream me because it *is* a hearing world, whether we like it or not, and it's much more difficult to lead a "normal" life by society's standards if you can't speak and lipread and aren't used to deal with hearing people on a regular daily basis. I hated it at first,but now I am confident she made the right decision, and I thank her for it, because I don't have problems...I can pretty much roll with whatever and understand anybody I need to in almost any setting. Only thing I require is light. ;)
 
deafdyke said:
Yes, even a lot of hearing students are DUMB!!!!!
Has anyone on the thread had trouble with low expectations for deaf/hoh kids in the mainstream? It seems like in mainstream schools, regular teachers either expect you to be SuperDeaf ( VERY high achieving deaf/hoh person, eg the type who takes ALL honors classes, is a superstar on athletic teams, is hyperinvolved in extra curricular activties etc) or DumbDeaf (oh they're just lazy and don't need any special accomondations and it's not worth it to give them extra help b/c they're just going to graduate and get into a low/semi-skilled job, and won't amount to much)

Now you are mentioning it...! [looking back to her high school years] yeah, they do have those two extremes, that you mentioned, of expectations that they supposedly foreshadow the deaf students to fall under.
Yeah... i remembered the regular teachers kept encouraging me to join clubs (yearbook, cheerleader, newspaper, etc) because they think i am really smart enough to hangout with the hearing students and also to SET THE EXAMPLE for the other deaf students.. but i refused (some of you probably would throw tomatoes on me) just because I was striving to be the ANTI-social student *yeah, being a rebel and breaking awway from the tradition, ROCK ON! :nana: lmao*. ^__^;;;
Alas, it sure did put a cramp on my transcript when it came to applying for colleges and scholarships... so A TIP TO HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS- Join a hearing club ... It doesn't mean that you have to do something.. just be a member (go to one of their meeting ONCE a blue moon and DO SHOW UP FOR THE CLUB PHOTO! that is the hook-and-reel to confirm you are a member for your transcript to take note of) because there are SO many colleges and scholarship that don't acknowlege deaf activies such as Jr. NAD, Deaf Academic Bowl or anything that are deaf-related. Like pbpara said, "because it *is* a hearing world, whether we like it or not", we have to get something that the outside world can correlate themselves wtih us to enable ourselves some benefits for our futures. Similar to brown-nosing, really...
 
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I've went through many similar things you guys have gone through. I grew up speaking/writing english as my second language and sure it wasn't that easy for me to keep up grades in my english classes back then. As an only deaf student at a local high school, I was grateful to have those teachers and friends who showed positive and support; if it wasn't for them I might be more of an anti-social and wouldn't show any interests I wanted to be. I've joined a lot of after school activities such as sports and clubs to keep myself around with the others and I had many interests like the others does. I was voted co-president and treasurer of two clubs. My hearing friends and I even successfully established ASL club for everyone. I even attended weekend colleges' HS courses during my free times. I loved it.
Other than that, I don't see all of hearings are dumb. I've seen SO many of them that never had met deaf person before. Or even worse, they never knew anything about disabilities. I've gone through some difficult times with them sometimes, they felt that they could take advantage of me just because I "don't know anything" or "just can't hear anything". I've met classmates and co-workers who were like that and after all of attempts to make conversations and it took times for them to adapt, understand, and learned more about me. Then they just treated me like everyone else.
I've seen WORSE low expectations-- coming from those teachers of the deaf schools. AHHH! You have no idea how much I hated them from what I saw how they treated their students. I went to a school for the deaf for a year in my HS and it was my hell of a year. The school got paid for nothing, teachers wouldn't do a shit to give anything for students. I wish I had the power to take down the school or convert it completely in a better way.
I'd say you have to live with this, be stick with those who had never met a person like you, make them learn the true side of you and then they realize that we're not different. It'll make worth your and their times, they may pass on words about us that we're no different than them.
Sure, I'm not only person here who complains, experiencing of being looked down on or left out. There are up and down feelings everyday.
 
I've seen WORSE low expectations-- coming from those teachers of the deaf schools. AHHH! You have no idea how much I hated them from what I saw how they treated their students. I went to a school for the deaf for a year in my HS and it was my hell of a year. The school got paid for nothing, teachers wouldn't do a shit to give anything for students. I wish I had the power to take down the school or convert it completely in a better way.
Oh, yes....I'm not saying that the schools for the deaf are heaven, expectation wise. Just saying that the low expectation attitude is experianced in the mainstream as well. I can understand why teachers at those schools have such crappy expecations, since so many of their kids' parents aren't really involved with their child's educations. (eg the parents don't Sign, or expect the staff at the school to teach their kids everything)
However maybe going to a GOOD school for the deaf, might be fun, like TLC or MSSD.
 
kalboy said:
It does not surprise me that some hearing people cannot spell. Being hearing has its disadvantage in spelling because they relay on auditory sense to remember spelling whereas many deaf people remember the spelling of words base on the word structure. I both strategies has no advantage over one another and it all depends on how skillful one master them.
I also believe that reading helps improve one’s grammar so the advantage goes to people who read more.

I agree with you, kalboy, regarding your belief in people reading more will add to the advantage of getting a good grasp of the english grammar and structure and so forth.
I grew up seeing my mother read a book night after night, so adopted that habit and have had it since then! ;) I LOVE reading and I thank my lucky stars that I developed a love for literature and reading, therefore it boosted my understanding about the english structure and all. :thumb:

It's quite saddening to see and know that a lot of deaf AND hearing people alike have trouble attaining fluency in english.
It really does depend on the eduational system kids are in and how kids absorb education, etc.
 
Wow, thanks for sharing your stories guys. It's good to know I am not alone in these things!

Heretic, if I may take a metaphysical approach with my comments regarding your first post in this thread: There is the idea of being powerful to the extent of being able to choose your challenges for every lifetime then you have chosen your lessons wisely for this incarnation whether you are aware of this or not. This is what the popular notion of New Age is - you're a creator-god. :kiss: Just thought I'd insert another perspective here.

Yes, I've encountered well meaning folks who are taken aback by my good grammar. I even surprised my Norwegian neighbors with my expanding Norwegian grammar. They have said that Norwegian is one of the most difficult languages to learn in the world. Bullocks. Sure, it's not anything like English.. maybe a little like how Spanish is written, with many things being "backwards" (never MIND that English IS backwards to 'em Norwegians either!! lmao) - and it's not that hard to me to just throw away the foundations of English in order to learn Norwegian. Takes a little training and a lot of exposure. Like English. :thumb:

Life sure is funny sometimes when there are instances like this to just let go of a foundation in order to learn another foundation. That includes some nice folks who have had low expectations of deaf folks' English grammar. That is such a tiny speck in the bigger picture. I've learned to just smile nicely in my best "what'd you expect?" way, instead of staring at them as if they were really so goddamn stupid. :Oops: I'm not gonna picket them to death with signs that say "Deaf hater deaf hater!"... lmao, because believe it or not YOU and I are role models for THEM! Of course, this is my expressed opinion. :naughty:
 
VamPyroX said:
I agree with you. I've been asked to grade papers for other students in the past. I used to do it for everyone until I realized that most of it was too much work that I just referred them to their tutors or teachers to help them. I've had students come up to me asking me to proofread their work that's already on their computer. Yes, it's in MS Word. As soon as I open the document, the whole thing is in green and red! For those of you who are wondering what I meant by red and green, when a word is squiggly-underlined red... spelling error, when a word is squiggly-underlined green... grammar error. Why ask me for help when they haven't let the computer check the grammar themselves. Oh yeah, the grammar was so bad that MS Word couldn't correct it... and gave up. Wow, amazing... I never thought that computers could give up! :eek: Since then, I only glance at most papers and if the whole first paragraph sounds good, I'll finish it. If I see too many mistakes in the first paragraph, I just tell them to check the spelling or grammar with MS Word on their own or have a teacher check on it.

Been there, vampy.... I've put my foot down on the editing part. It's against the procedures at the english tutoring department I worked with a while ago, too. There was this case when a student really threw a very embarassing tantrum after I calmly told her I wouldn't EDIT her paper because it is against policy AND I didn't want to do it either, lol... it was a very long research paper, pretty much her senior thesis............... people do get the mistakened notion about what English tutors really do. I caught this student's comment about me, "I am not signing up for her again! Other tutors have edited my paper but not her!" Phfft, thank god. :clit:

Issues shrouding those with good grammar:

1. Fellow hearing individuals being very conscending.
2. Fellow deaf individuals using you as their personal editor.

Anyone wanna add to this list of grievance as an individual with noteworthy English grammar? :whip:
 
I have gone through the same experience, where people are surprised that I write in German. I am aware that I do make mistakes in German sometimes, but I am tired of German people telling me that I speak "perfect German!" It's like they also have a lowered expectation of Americans and even that I am deaf, that they don't care about the mistakes. I do have a deaf German friend who corrects my German from time to time, which is a blessing! Helps me to learn!

Speaking of editing students' work, I rarely do that. Most of the time, I do it for my good friends who already write pretty good English. This past weekend, I wrote five papers for my work, and I had Deaf258 read through it to make sure it made sense and to point mistakes out for me. I do not have MS Word nor WordPerfect in my computer, so I do not have the luxury to these squiggly red and green lines. Deaf258 helped a bit with that. I think that's understandable, but I agree if the paper has so many errors, it's not a good idea to rewrite the paper for them. That is against tutoring policies.
 
I do have my own experiences, all very very similar to everyone else in this thread, just I want to show a different take on things, on what or why we are considered to have lower expectations
Yeah, I've found that quite a lot of people see deaf people as unable to do anything.
I see that all the time, this attitude is omnipotent so we need to challenge the hearing ideology, by this, it means not raving about deaf culture and the efforts needs to be aimed squarely on the Hearing ways of thinking and believing !, Like FIGHT for INCLUSIVENESS in all spectrums of life, workplaces, schooling, recruitments of all kinds of occupation (except for military, police force which IS hazarderous unless someone is exceptional and could do everything, hell we have TXT technology for communications, but then again speed of communication might hold as back.....)
I think it's a shame that some deaf people don't care enough about their own English skills to make the effort to improve so that hearing people can see that deaf people are not illiterate.
Maybe, not all, I think it’s mainly to do with the long arduous failure on part of the insipid education system comprising of moronic teachers (and families, since 90% of deaf students are from hearing fucking families) I could hardly blame these deaf students feeling relunctent, they are simply tired (maybe bored too, but not bored for quite the same reasons we might assume) they are just simply bloody frustrated and probably angered at their loss (not hearing loss, im talking about their educational loss). All the while, as young people as they often are, tend to know 'it's cool to be rebelious and 'cool' thus denying to themselves that they really care about their lack of written English skills - like hearing teens and young adult students acts out the same way too. What I think its sad, deaf students fails to see past this and indeed goes right ahead to act-out to be careless. (so I am not entirely disagreeing with you, but just adding more dimension to this, to get a better perspective on this. Again on top of this, we have 'Deaf culture" that has its place, but I feel it'd overridden so much that it often condones the very 'careless behaviour' we often see in Deaf students with failing English in high schools. The bloody teachers often confuse their own sign language incompetency for their lack of efforts to overcome the cultural barriers, compounded on top of this, lack of empathy to do enough to disregard audiological 'considerations' for 'grasping aural english to even consider 'where to fit in written English' for their students.
I would like to see if there any audiologists who are honest enough to know and voice out on which whatever the audiograms tells us, it does not translate well enough to support the audist’s beliefs and “that understanding of sound perception does not always correspond to total inclusion of a deaf person in a hearing world” I believe there must be a minority of audiologist who’d admit to this, and yet would like to see if they would leave the job in rebellion and somehow go in the middle to hearing versus Deaf Battlefield but on the side of the Deaf.
I admit this is really a pipedream talk; however such a person to jump the fence and empower our advocacy and research would add an enormous strength to our arguments.
I sense that a majority of these [hearing] teachers (of the deaf/Deaf) PRETENDS (they just wants to keep their jobs) to understand deaf culture, my hunch is they THINK deaf culture is just an excuse for not wanting to do with aural English so they (deaf students) do not get or have intrinsic ability to begin with for Written English!
AND I WILL SAY THIS TOO, I FEEL THE FUCKING USELESS TEACHERS USES THE DEAF CULTURE TO THEIR (TEACHERS OWN) ADVANTAGES SO THEY GET EXCUSES FOR FAILING TO TEACH ENGLISH !!
it doesnt matter if it is a hearing or Deaf or deaf or HOH teacher in place, the whole point is, the whole hype is there to warp and DENY the REAL efforts.
Going back to the stereotypes, Deaf culture is a form of stereotype that Hearing people uses against us TOO !!!!!, why havent we thought of what's a Hearing culture? why not make hearing people feel bad about themselves ?! its about time to put the brakes on this and do a bit of re-think on EVERYTHING
This 'everything' I mentioned above have ALOT to do with lower expectations.
 
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