http://www.deafeducation.org/stories/vacuum.html
Sweetmind
SCREAMING IN A VACUUM
This piece is intended to be snippets of my own experience of mainstreaming, and its implications afterwards. Mainstreaming should be taken in the sense of not being inclusive, but integration. Both of which are, meant to be two very different concepts. Secondly, I have not touched on my experiences, years later of how deaf organisations address deaf education (I have been involved with this, on more than one level). I also do not touch on my own personal vision of Deaf education of the future. This is entirely deliberate, in the sense that I want the reader to be free to draw their own conclusions from my own personal experiences, without pressure.
A few years ago, and some years ago after leaving school, I saw my old Teachers of the Deaf again. An encounter that always stirs the most unpleasant of feelings, and throws me off balance. Without even asking my own view, they immediately went off on a tangent how Oralism had proved such a success, and how successful I was. Of course, I wasn't the expert: they knew best. They have a master's degree in teaching the hearing impaired therefore what more do you need!
Let's be clear here. I can speak. In a one to one situation with effort, I can understand what another person is saying. I can scream at someone if I want to. I have graduated from a respected university. Now I can be extrovert, and always seeking to set up new things.
What more could Oralism ask for? One is justified in labelling me a success, aren't they?
Let's rewind the tape. I was mainstreamed, for the whole of my schooling. What a success, one may comment! I'm normal and able to fit in with hearing people: deafness, or rather hearing impairment becomes irrelevant. That's the face value, and where most people stop at. They either don't dig any deeper because they can't or don't want to.
Let's dig a bit deeper.
Mainstreaming? It's a process that the world at large aspires to. It is politically correct isn't it? Its what the disabled movement wants for us as well.
I was mainstreamed for 15 years of my schooling. Within the classroom I had no support whatsoever, and looking back, there's an interesting trend in my grades, depending on how well I could understand the teacher, or rather how well textbooks were written. Take mathematics. One year I get 30 odd percent, and in the 5th year my grade is 99.5%, and this was purely how well I could understand a bit more of what was being said. Chemistry: I had 3 different teachers, coupled with the fact that the lesson is highly interactive. My grades plunged from 77% to a dismal 18% in the 3rd year. This was certainly not from the fact that I wasn't competent of understanding.
It was a lottery. Could one deduce that d/Deaf education is a lottery not a right?
Mainstreaming, you have to fit in. Take the time when a class exercise was: write a radio jingle. A radio jingle? What on earth is one of those? I put it off for a few days, as I was too embarrassed to ask. I then approached the teacher to ask what one was. They explained that it was something that was between slots on the radio. I was clueless? I'd never even heard of one, and I was meant to write one for my O level coursework! Confidence sinks to new depths, and I panic. I don't talk to anyone about this, I'm meant to survive and be normal aren't I? The teacher then suggests I write a song. Songs? Songs left me at nursery rhymes. I have no idea what songs sing, or more to the point what words are contained within. The internet is not heard of, and where am I supposed to find the information re what on earth songs are meant to contain? You don't find this information at the library, and you don't talk to your peers. I struggle. I did pass English, but I sometimes look back and wonder how. However, what will come with this is the usual? Aren't the hearing impaired marvellous at adapting? when its purely an excuse to avoid taking responsibly and acknowledging the need for diversity.
Social life. Or rather time spent communicating with your peers, so you could absorb social niceties in preparation for adult life. Anything from the playground, to after school hours - it was non-existent. Most lunchtimes, I went to the library. It was my only chance to work, and I actually found myself wanting to go there. It was my excuse for not having to pretend to understand. To give my eyes a break from trying to lipread. Conversation in the playground was impossible. Before I was old enough to be allowed to go to the library at lunchtime, I used to spend my time walking, just to look busy and not appear to be out of social circles. I had to wear this veil didn't I? I had to be seen to fit in. that's what normalisation was, that was my passport to my existence and that's what got me a pat on my back by my teachers.
Having a social life. For about 8 years, that is the entire span of my secondary education, there wasn't one. This isn't a figment of my imagination. In fact, I didn't socialise once out of school ours for 8 years. That's 70080 hours. In fact during those 70080 hours, I rarely spoke to anyone within school hours. 70080 hours is a long time to go without an engaging conversation.
By the time I was 18, I had sunk into new depths. Think about it, I had become introvert (when really my personality is quite different), I did not communicate with those around me. The pain I felt within me, was intense, yet no-one seemed to see it. I was meant to ignore it, and get on with it. My broken ears were my problem.
Later I went to university. During my initial years, I was pulling off high grades, due to the inability to socialise. I will quickly stress that this was due to additional reading, and nothing to do with what I had learnt. Tuition fees were largely a waste of money. When I first arrived at university, all I remember thinking, what do people my age talk about? What are conversations? What am I meant to think? It took me many years to work this out, and I probably still have not grasped properly.
When I left university, I went on holiday to France. Picture the scene: Saturday night on the beach in the south of France. The smell of the sea air, the lingering warmth from the sun's heat, a faint breeze? the sort that is supposed to evoke memories of happy times. Sitting in a group circle with about 30 hearing people, who had decided to play Simon Says. Make a mistake, and you have a shot of drink. Needless to say, I made a mistake pretty much on each round, and had to drink. How was I meant to lipread the person next to me, yet alone a large circle of 30 people in the dark? Shots of a drink at every round, it happened to the point where I became unconscious, and was taken to hospital by ambulance. Here I could not assert and embrace my deafness enough, to take care of myself, to take control of how I should relate to such a situation. Within me were the ghosts of normalisation, the fact I should fit in, not to be any trouble at all, and this overrode everything. At this point I had snapped. Years later, I still have to pick up the pieces.
I now live my life they way I want to. Yes ghosts will still haunt me. Deaf organisations still tell Deaf people how we must think, and disregard their own personal experiences of education in favour of those who know best However, I try and approach anything, by going in there as a Deaf person? that's who I am. I don't mean that in the sense of a limiting one, which is one we are lead to believe by certain organisations. I mean it from the premise that this is how I am going to approach this. Walking the world as a pretend-to-be-hearing-as-I-have-to-aspire-to-be-normal, or hearing impaired lets measure the deficiencies of my ears, doesn't get me anywhere. Assertion no. Respect for myself no. Respect for others no. Take control and get the most out of a situation no. Being true to yourself no. You bury your head in the sand. Is that what life is about?
Those who have met me in recent years, would come from the assumption that I'm naturally confident and I've always been like this. The only way I'm like I am today, is thanks to Deaf people themselves. And no, for DELTA's record, the Deaf Community is not a cult, whereby the community cuts people off, and we are exclusive. In fact it's the opposite. I can relate to anyone better now.
I do sometimes get caught out, I get trapped between two states. Take English for example, if I encounter a new word, I have no idea how to pronounce it. All those years of focus on speech, and I cannot be independent! This is not about my ears being disabling, its about a method that I've been subjected to in the narrowest of senses.
Now the tape has been re-played, my old Teachers of the Deaf are out there somewhere still labeling me an oral success. I shall leave you, the reader decide if they are correct in this assumption, and to take away whatever you wish from my experience.
Sweetmind