Respect for all

[vallee]

Can I ask you if segragation is the answer? I am not infavor of private schools. If they choice to pay for private schools that is fine. I have a friend who pays 800 a month to send her child to private Christian school. Can that be done for all deaf children? Will all families be able to support 800-1000 a month in education fees? Plus if you provide any support services like speech therapy or assistive technology either the familes pay or federal government has to pay. If the federal government pays for anything related to the school then the school is under federal regulations.

What happens if the all deaf school board only hires all deaf teachers with blond hair? What happens if the school decides to use only ASL and no speech therapy? A family wants their child to get speech therapy or SEE, they pay 1,000 a month in fees. There are never ending questions.

What about parents like say Jillio, who has experience and knowledge to sit on the school board, will she be denied based on the fact she is hearing? That is wrong. We (Jillio and I) may not agree with everything, but I do not agree that she should not be allowed to hold a seat on the school board based on her hearing. She could provide a valuable resource to this school.

Okay, I hope you view this as respectful. I just have more questions than answers. I battle everyday with federal regrations and NCLB junk. For those who don't like public education, there is homeschooling.

 

[vallee]

Sorry, no. It is not online. I had a 1969 copy that my mother saved. She got it from NAD and it is a reprint from the Deaf American.

okay thanks I did read the part you printed. I get the idea.

 

[Buffalo]

See the bolded...I wouldnt be surprised if deaf people couldnt find jobs as teachers for the deaf in the future. Many deaf people who thought about becoming teachers are changing their minds and changing their major due to the fear that they wont be wanted nor hired as teachers in the future due to oralism. I think it is very unfortunate cuz those children need deaf role models. I grew up without one which caused me to think I wouldnt be able to live independendly.

I agree with you. I heard about a group of deaf teachers-to-be trying to get a job at some school (AZ?) and a hearing person got the job.

 

[jillio]

Yes, different for different people.

I had a full ride to Harvard. And was accepted at Yale. And I had my foot in medical school before becoming a teacher. Success? It depends on how you look at it.

I had 3.8 GPA in tenth grade in a full-inclusion environment. I didn't even go to speech training at that point anymore. I didn't have an interpreter...I was in a true oral-only environment, relying on speechreading and speech only. (I was born profoundly deaf, both ears). I was enrolled in all those clubs, being a vice-president here, a secretary there, etc; I was friends with nearly every kid in the school. I was on the homecoming court a few times and won numerous awards, etc. People was constantly telling me they couldn't believe I was deaf - my speech was nearly perfect - perfect at times but with a slight accent. Success?

I was very skilled at one thing - hiding how much I didn't know...or understand...and felt.

It is EVERY parent's right to choose what is best for their child...period. I have no right to judge what decisions the parent makes. It is MY job to make sure the parent is fully informed of all options. And once the parent decides, then it becomes my job to fully equip the parent with all the resources and tools needed. To be fully honest with you- when I hear the words circling around the oral approach - I cringe. Yes, success happens. But what success may mean to one person...may mean different to another.

I was A.G. Bell's poster oral child.

My mother made the choice of oralism based on research and recommendations of medical professionals... and based on doing what she truly thought was best for me. For that - I applaud her.

But this poster child was dying inside. One thing about most of us (no, not all) who experienced oralism will tell you...it is crucial to learn how to fake it...to make it. If you don't understand, don't you DARE tell anyone...they'll know you didn't try hard enough. If you don't understand, it's your fault. You didn't speechread or pay attention hard enough. If you don't know how to say that word, find another word that is easier to say. And for god's sake, keep your mouth shut as often as possible. Nod a lot. It looks like you understand everything. And smile a lot. Be polite. Be a good girl. Fake it - you are just like "Them." And that was okay for a while...what else was I supposed to do? I don't understand a lot of things, but that's normal, right? Then one day I decided - I didn't want to take the hard way anymore just to make other people's lives easier. That's what oralism did for my family - it made THEIR lives easier. And mine harder. I didn't want to just have speech...I wanted a voice. And through ASL - I found my voice.

It would seem that it is easier for some to look no deeper than the surface. It rarely tells the whole story. Unfortunatley, those that need to take your well said post to heart will be the very ones that continue to browse the surface and believe they have a complete picture.

 

[jillio]

See the bolded...I wouldnt be surprised if deaf people couldnt find jobs as teachers for the deaf in the future. Many deaf people who thought about becoming teachers are changing their minds and changing their major due to the fear that they wont be wanted nor hired as teachers in the future due to oralism. I think it is very unfortunate cuz those children need deaf role models. I grew up without one which caused me to think I wouldnt be able to live independendly.

It has happened before. And it would appear that we are doomed to repeat history because there are those that refuse to learn exactly what that history has been.

 

[shel90]

I agree with you. I heard about a group of deaf teachers-to-be trying to get a job at some school (AZ?) and a hearing person got the job.

One of the deaf teachers at my work said that our days are numbered. Who wants to hire deaf teachers who dont have perfect speech?

When I read stories to my son, I alternate between ASL and spoken English. With signing, I feel comfortable and I can exaggerate but with spoken English, I always feel out of breath like I am reading the story too fast. It is just not comfortable for me and I cant imagine teaching all day using my voice..it wouldnt feel natural. Then there is the issue of understanding what the kids are saying to me. No thanks for me. I would rather quit and find another job in another field.

 

[jillio]

Give me time to read the paper. Without reading it, I am against anything segragated.

I am not sure how to create a new school board, my guess would be that it might be impossible given public funding and federal laws.

Going to read it now.

We are not talking about segregation, vallee. We are talking about full inclusion, in its intended definition.

 

[vallee]

See the bolded...I wouldnt be surprised if deaf people couldnt find jobs as teachers for the deaf in the future. Many deaf people who thought about becoming teachers are changing their minds and changing their major due to the fear that they wont be wanted nor hired as teachers in the future due to oralism. I think it is very unfortunate cuz those children need deaf role models. I grew up without one which caused me to think I wouldnt be able to live independendly.

I know it applies for the TOD, but many many people are leaving teaching or not going into it. There is a drop in qualified teachers in all areas. We can't get enough teachers in special education in our area. I was asked to go on wavier as I was working on my masters since they could not get a special education teacher.

We have a teacher with a masters in special education who happens to be deaf. She can only get a job as an educational assistant because of being deaf. She won't say it, I do! It is terrible that a qualified teacher can't teach because she is deaf.

 

[jillio]

Great we aren't strangling each other

That question was a hard one! My idea is that I trust deaf and hoh people, with and without CI, more than doctors that only know how a cochlear looks like.

But let me try..

1. 99 percent of deaf people I have talked with, even those with CI, agree that early ASL is a good thing. This means we perhaps would have to ban the practice where deaf children are restricted from ASL after diagnosis. Refusing to exposure children to early ASL would then be criminalized and defined as child abuse.

2. Oral charity organizations should be banned/restricted. A suggestion is to require them to have a majority of deaf or HOH board members or change their missions. Incompetent, poor and insecure parents are easy prey for those organizations today.

3. I do not agree completely on informed decisions. People can know everything about drugs and still choose to hit that smack. From what I have seen, there is often personal feelings and experiences that make parents choose speech or ASL or both. For example, a hearing mom that experiences great disapointment from the rest of family when the child is deaf, is much more prone to choose oral only, than a hearing that perhaps have an ASL interpreter in the family. A deaf family with bad experiences with oralism, perhaps needs to get forced to exposure their children to speech therapy to see if the child can benfit from that. Some rules here could make it easier for parents with great resistance in their family or prejudices that are hard to overcome. We need to give the deaf children some extra protection and rights so they can get early access to a full lanuage on the same level as hearing children. It should be banned to experiment with CI and restricting deaf children to oral languages.

4. Advertisement for drugs are quite often strict. The same should apply for CI. The brouchures I have seen looks like advertisement for toys, and feel they confuse more than clarify.

5. Regarding FDA approval, deaf people with CI should be a part of the teams evaluating rules, to avoid sellers giving false information. Those could be selected by NAD and HOH organizations.

Ok, this was just some suggestions, that perhaps can help control the use of CI. I belive US can handle laws like this as they already have some strict laws on gay marriage, use of recreational drugs and sex behavior compared to some other countries

It all goes back to the old saying "Nothing for us without us."
Policy needs to be decided with the deaf perspective available for input.

 

[vallee]

We are not talking about segregation, vallee. We are talking about full inclusion, in its intended definition.

Buffalo is discussing a school that is only for deaf. At least that was my reading into it.

 

[jillio]

I know it applies for the TOD, but many many people are leaving teaching or not going into it. There is a drop in qualified teachers in all areas. We can't get enough teachers in special education in our area. I was asked to go on wavier as I was working on my masters since they could not get a special education teacher.

We have a teacher with a masters in special education who happens to be deaf. She can only get a job as an educational assistant because of being deaf. She won't say it, I do! It is terrible that a qualified teacher can't teach because she is deaf.

I know some deaf schools that would love to have her. Is she fluent is ASL?

 

[shel90]

I know it applies for the TOD, but many many people are leaving teaching or not going into it. There is a drop in qualified teachers in all areas. We can't get enough teachers in special education in our area. I was asked to go on wavier as I was working on my masters since they could not get a special education teacher.

We have a teacher with a masters in special education who happens to be deaf. She can only get a job as an educational assistant because of being deaf. She won't say it, I do! It is terrible that a qualified teacher can't teach because she is deaf.

Yes, it is terrible and another form of discrimination at its best.

I am not surprised...I have seen that in so many of the public schools I have worked or interned at. Deaf people are always the teacher aides. My friend who is deaf and is a teacher at a public school may lose her job this May cuz her students who use sign will be going to high school and the next class of deaf kids are oral. She paged me 2 weeks ago bawling her eyes out when she was informed of that. She said she loves teaching and cant believe that this is happening to her. I told her that even deaf teachers working at the deaf schools are starting to feel the same fear.

 

[jillio]

Vallee, your stomach turned flips whenever there are private Catholic schools???? Whenever there are private Jewish schools???? Does that means you think that the private schools ought to be illegal???

I just remember where I read this. It came from a booklet from NAD and it is a reprint from "The Deaf American", Vol. 21, No. 11, July-August 1969, pages 3-6. Authors are McCay Vernon, Ph.D. and Bernard Makowsky, MSW. I'll read some parts.

......
"Of prime importance in this endeavor is an understanding of the factors present that permit minorities such as Jews, Mormons and Orientals to attain prominence and success in American society whereas other groups such as Puerto Ricans, Negroes and American Indians do not."
......
"By contrast Jews, Mormons and Orientals have either developed their own educational instituations, influenced public ones or combined these programs. In addition these minority groups are appropriately represented by their own in the overall political system assuring them of reasonable power and control over their basic socio-economic circumstance."
....
(It goes on about how "the Indians schools were dominated by white bureaucrats secure in well-paying civil positions" and that African-Americans and Puerto Ricans were put in ghetto schools "where the control is in the hand of the dominant group power structure." There is no deaf person in top administrative positions. Remember this paper is dated 1969. It is about time for the Deaf President of Gallaudet!!!!)
......
(This part talks of teachers who cannot fathom their students' life circumstances.) "Frequently there are low expectations or else a 'Lady Bountiful' milieu which is depreciating to minority group children and attack their self worth. The imposition of a value system in the best way may be undemocratic and in the final analysis is a reinforcement of an already poor self image."
.....
"The deaf youngster faces an analogous situation in many respects [Sanderson, 1969]. The National Association of the Deaf has long supported the use of the language of signs and finerspelling. Yet the child is taught that these modalities, the only ones he can master for purposes of full communication with other deaf persons and with his family, are bad. This negative value is transmitted by its being forbidden to him and his family by the school, His teachers rarely know the language and frequently refuse to use it if they do. Convertly and openly he and his parents are told that it is better if he chooses non-deaf friends, By contrast the Jew, the Greek Orthodox and the American Oriental teach their ethnic languages and relate them to English, the end result being a better mastery of both and a more healthy communication between child and family [Schlesinger 1967]."
....
"The discrimination against the deaf as a group may be observed on many levels. Most public school program for deaf children, as for example in Chicago, forbid the hiring of deaf teachers. There are many teacher preparation centers which will not accept deaf candidates [Newman, 1969]"
....
"Gallaudet, the world's only college for the deaf, has a policy of selection and requirements for educational certification that discourages and/or eliminates many deaf young people from becoming teachers." (Since Shel90 is a teacher so this must have been dropped since then.)
....
"Needless to say the 'in group' educational power structure has resented the change in established procedures which has given more authority to deaf leadership. In reaction it has moved through other governmental agencies to create organizations and programs where control is not with deaf persons, but where the activities are termed 'for the hearing impared', yet where power and key positions are denied deaf persons."
....
"By analogy what has happened quite often is that majority group misconceptions and values, for example the limiting of teaching to just 'oral' methods alone are being imposed on a minority. This ignoring of minority group sensitivity to minority group needs has inherent in it damaging, sociological and psychological effects on deaf students.
It is improbable that the educational establishment and its governmental bureaucrats will yield of their own accord to needed changes. Education is enormously clever at avoiding self examination and it is a full of an impentetrable web of vested interest. If progress is to come about, it will probably result from aggressive deaf leadership, new knowledge gained from psychology and sociology and from new professionals entering the field of deafness. Until this occurs there will continue to be an inapproprate and insensitive impostion of majority group values on a minority, a process which is undemocratic which fails to respect the rights of others and which as a damaging effect upon the individual."
.....
(This goes on and it is 5 pages long. I am reminding you again that this paper is from 1969. It may be old but it does speak to me deeply.)



Vallee, now do you see where I got this idea that there should be a separate deaf school with all deaf members of the school board? Jillio told me that my alma mater do get together with a hearing school for social times. I thought that was a great idea. I also know that my alma mater opens their door to hearing kids with aphasia. I thought that was a perfect school for them as hearing kids will make fun of them for sure. The deaf kids won't make fun of them as they won't know if they are speaking badly.

Jackie, this post is in keeping of your thread as well. I know you and Vallee won't agree with this paper but this paper was written by two hearing guys with degrees. It is hard for us to respect you (pro-oral) when we weren't being respected at all. Now, do you see why many of us deaf people are upset with oral only methold and even CI??? We weren't even respected at all and in fact we were being oppressed ever since the 1880 Milan Conference. No fighing, please. I am not using nasty words or things like that. I am just pointing out why many of us were upset at the education.

I like this paper very much even though it is old. Hey, I was still in that oral day school when this came out.

No fighting, please as I want to learn all I can about how to get to that school board. Elect to a school board and I bet that the school board is for hearing schools and deaf school, right??? How do one create a new school board? Tell me, Vallee.

It may be old, but it is relevent today. Thanks for the post, Buffalo.

 

[Buffalo]

One of the deaf teachers at my work said that our days are numbered. Who wants to hire deaf teachers who dont have perfect speech?

Did the teacher tell you the reason why?

From what I hear from you that the Bi-Bi method is going so good.

 

[vallee]

I agree with you. I heard about a group of deaf teachers-to-be trying to get a job at some school (AZ?) and a hearing person got the job.

It happens and I hope they sued. I interviewed with 7 schools before I was hired. I had a great GPA, portfolio and references. It was a struggle to get hired. I was hired by a Principal that is fanastic. When I was hired there was already one HOH teacher teaching ELL. Now we have one deaf teacher who using ASL teaching computers as an educational assistant, a HOH guidance counselor, and me. It depends on the school system and support the system gets. I know of two teachers who are in wheelchairs and many others who are HOH/deaf in my system. Our school system is very supporting of all teachers. That is not the case throughout the educational system.

I know I sued on school system through EEOC.

 

[shel90]

Did the teacher tell you the reason why?

Cuz one implant center is telling the parents of newly implanted babies that our program is not appropriate for their kids. That implant center is very very powerful and well-known. They said they wouldnt recommend our program unless we go oral all the way.

There are other things going on that I cant reveal yet but changes are coming and that was when that teacher turned to us in the auditorium and said "Our days are numbered."

 

[jillio]

Yes, it is terrible and another form of discrimination at its best.

I am not surprised...I have seen that in so many of the public schools I have worked or interned at. Deaf people are always the teacher aides. My friend who is deaf and is a teacher at a public school may lose her job this May cuz her students who use sign will be going to high school and the next class of deaf kids are oral. She paged me 2 weeks ago bawling her eyes out when she was informed of that. She said she loves teaching and cant believe that this is happening to her. I told her that even deaf teachers working at the deaf schools are starting to feel the same fear.

This is an excellent illustration of how oralism handicaps not just deaf students, but deaf professionals as well. How can one say it is not an opressive practice?

 

[vallee]

Yes, it is terrible and another form of discrimination at its best.

I am not surprised...I have seen that in so many of the public schools I have worked or interned at. Deaf people are always the teacher aides. My friend who is deaf and is a teacher at a public school may lose her job this May cuz her students who use sign will be going to high school and the next class of deaf kids are oral. She paged me 2 weeks ago bawling her eyes out when she was informed of that. She said she loves teaching and cant believe that this is happening to her. I told her that even deaf teachers working at the deaf schools are starting to feel the same fear.

That is terrible. What can she do?

 

[shel90]

Did the teacher tell you the reason why?

From what I hear from you that the Bi-Bi method is going so good.

It is but it is parents who say that they dont care for it and want oral all the way. Since children are being implanted from left and right, those parents want oral all the way.

 

[Buffalo]

Can I ask you if segragation is the answer? I am not infavor of private schools. If they choice to pay for private schools that is fine. I have a friend who pays 800 a month to send her child to private Christian school. Can that be done for all deaf children? Will all families be able to support 800-1000 a month in education fees? Plus if you provide any support services like speech therapy or assistive technology either the familes pay or federal government has to pay. If the federal government pays for anything related to the school then the school is under federal regulations.

What happens if the all deaf school board only hires all deaf teachers with blond hair? What happens if the school decides to use only ASL and no speech therapy? A family wants their child to get speech therapy or SEE, they pay 1,000 a month in fees. There are never ending questions.

What about parents like say Jillio, who has experience and knowledge to sit on the school board, will she be denied based on the fact she is hearing? That is wrong. We (Jillio and I) may not agree with everything, but I do not agree that she should not be allowed to hold a seat on the school board based on her hearing. She could provide a valuable resource to this school.

Okay, I hope you view this as respectful. I just have more questions than answers. I battle everyday with federal regrations and NCLB junk. For those who don't like public education, there is homeschooling.

What is NCLB? Can you give me some examples of federal regulations? I can always talk with professionals like Jillio for opinions and ideas but the decisions rest entirely with the school board (votes). What are the rules for homeschooling if any? What do you know of charter school?