The "Mainstreaming" Experience: "Isolated cases"?

[deafskeptic]

That was a very poignant piece you wrote. I am not advocating mainstream. I am saying that for some parents, mainstream is the only option. What I would like to see (and the reason im so interested in this thread) is what the problems are and what we can do to address them. I think its a useful conversation to have. Why? Because I am a force to br reckoned with when it comes to giving kids an even playing field. But in order for me to be the advocate I think I am, I need to be realistic and positive.

I am tired of defending myself every day because I have hearing. Sometimes I want to reach through the computer and smack people and yell, "Oh yeah? You don't know shit because you're Deaf!" Come on. We all have brains.

I come from a background in which everything is to be questioned. I question everything I believe in and I encourage my students to do the same.

With the way I see education going these days, mainstream will be the norm. If that's the case, then I want to take these " isolated" cases and multiply them by ten thousand fold.

The reason why you're on the defensive is that you're discounting our experience with the mainstream. Our experience has caused us to question the value of pure oralism. We are not anti speech or even anti mainstreaming- just that given the tenets of oralism, it's a given we don't get the support we need to thrive in the mainstream.

 

[TheOracle]

The reason why you're on the defensive is that you're discounting our experience with the mainstream. Our experience has caused us to question the value of pure oralism. We are not anti speech or even anti mainstreaming- just that given the tenets of oralism, it's a given we don't get the support we need to thrive in the mainstream.

I'm sorry you feel that way. I've never supported pure oralism. I don't really know what to tell you except that if you want to know how I feel about deaf ed, you can ask or re-read the thread.

I'm rarely an optimist, but what I bolded is what I'd like to see changed. Some kids do have great experiences in the mainstream. I'd just like to know what those factors are that made it so. Again, mainstream is on the rise. If you want to participate in an organization that fights to stop it, I support you. It's not my cause. My academic interests might be language, but my cause are the students that come through my door. This year I have it easy, but in the fall I'll be in a whole new situation and 360m budget cut (provided my head makes that cut!).

Deaf ed was glossed over in every sped and teacher ed course I had. It's not even a focus in general educational linguistics unless you're talking about L1 acquisition, and even then it's a footnote. The only reason why I found AD is because I'd like to get out of teaching theory and into research. In all of the 208034938394830498304938 stupid teacher trainings I've been to, not one mentioned deaf issues. None.

I ask questions because I like learning. I also anticipate questions that oralists would ask. I need to know those answers. If you want to change how things are done, then go do something. Go to an educational conference. Speak to a school. Write a letter to the editor. People on this board are pretty smart. Teachers like shel and dd make a difference, but most parents don't have access to what they can provide.

Baja said she wished someone had spoken up for her. I think that says a lot. I'm more than happy to speak up for a child if I see something wrong. But I have to see it first. And then I have to know what to do about it.

I didn't want to be a teacher. I studied politics and history. I was in love with international relations. I wanted to be a pollster and researcher before getting my Ph.D. at DU. I hated kids. I cared about economics and war theory.

This was never in the game plan. But after so many seizures, hospital trips, etc etc, I had knocked myself about dumb. I could barely read. And after a year of feeling sorry for myself, I changed my plan. And I just remember thinking when I applied to a teaching program, "Being without language is the worst thing."

Three years later, I still feel the same way.

Some people here are anti speech. Some people here are anti CI. Some people here are anti mainstream. That's OK. But "mainstream" is where I am. It's not like I can (or would) ever tell a kid, "Sorry, Timmy, you can't be in my class because you're deaf and you can't hack it. It sucks here." I also take serious offense to the idea that just because I'm hearing, it means I can't teach, be caring, be innovative, or do anything positive in a deaf child's world.

Sorry if I sound a little sensitive. But after three weeks of this, I get tired.

 

[TheOracle]

If there were an established location of teachers/ staff who were knowledgeable and understanding of what it means our students would be in a better position.

Parents like me wouldn't have to worry about what goes on at school when we're not around. Unfortunately, I worry every day.

Parents like that are gold.

 

[KristinaB]

Well - how about this scenario:

A child has severe speech and language delays due to a weird type of hearing loss that HA's or CI's will not help. She doesn't qualify for the deaf school since her hearing loss is not enough, just the speech recognition. She gets put into public school. After seeing a child psychologist due to SSDI, she is listed with 32 different developmental disabilities and disorders. Main ones being, mild autism, borderline mental retardation, speech and language delays and fine & gross motor skill delays. The IEP is set up and she is is ECSE preschool for 3 years, then due to parental pressure, she gets promoted to Kindergarten. Time goes on, and she struggles and struggles. A note gets sent to the parents, "This child is unteachable and needs to be institutionalized for her safety and that of her peers." Never once did this child act out, hit, bite or anything like that. They just could not find a way to teach her. Consequently, she is removed from the public school system and home schooled. In the first 2 years, she completes 4 years worth of instruction. She is at that point up to the same level with her ex-classmates. However, the school still says she is unteachable and they cannot accept her back and she still should be institutionalized. She rotates now over a 5 years educational level, having to constantly repeat them. The family moves and the new school district is so strapped for money and services, that they tell the family up-front, that they will abide by the ruling of the previous public school from 7 years ago and say she needs to be institutionalized. She is now 17, she can read, cook, clean and do basic math. She loves animals and children. She recently got a volunteer position at the animal rescue league and may soon have a position with Toys R Us in the housekeeping department. She has been kicked out of churches, schools, clubs and all kinds of things. The family has tried to let her be a child and have fun and learn in the process. She had to be dropped out of the school system due to the fact that she can no longer handle the bookwork required by the home school laws. So, as a penalty, due to her dropping out, she can not apply for a driver's license. She cracked up laughing and sent the State a letter back stating that her reason for dropping out was due to her learning problems and that she was never intending on getting a driver's license and for them to have a good day and to pick on someone else.

Now, this long recitation is in regards to my daughter. I apologize if people feel that I talk about my family too much. Seems that part of what goes on with AD is people talking about a variety of things including family or self and getting helpful suggestion or such. In my mind, the public school system "abused" my daughter by saying she is unteachable. I can understand that yes, she should have gone to a school for special needs students, however, there were none within driving distance while we were in Missouri and the one here in our current town was closed down due to lack of funding.

I am not asking for sympathy or anything, I just want some people to realize that yes, children and their families can be totally "abused" by the public school system.

Now, I learn that in Florida, teacher salaries increases are going to be based on whether the students do well on the FCAT testing. That's asinine. This NCLB law has totally "raped" the school system and is what is behind the educational decline in so many students and the decline in a teacher's appreciation in their job. That's my 2-cents on this.

 

[TheOracle]

no one bitches more about public schools than public school teachers. i promise you that.

 

[faire_jour]

Wirelessly posted

A study about kids making academic progress.

Who cares?!!!!!

Many kids fare well academically in the mainstreamed more than the deaf school because the curriculum is watered down and instruction is so heavily modified that it barely resembles the original materials. And the deaf schools don't fare well because they don't usually accept kids who are on grade-level.

More importantly, we are expressing concerns of the overall well-being of children, especially emotional and mental health. I had a 4.0 gpa -with NO modifications whatsoever and I was reading above grade level- when I finally broke down and dropped out of school.

The mainstreamed education setting was cruel. Lonely. Painful. And my story isn't even unique. How many more were like me?

call me a "tiger mom" but i would rather have a child who can read and write, who didn't like school than a popular child who looked forward to school and graduates illiterate.

now, i'm not talking about a suicidal child, or something like that, but it's the truth. Sometimes things are tough, and we have to suffer through them for our own good.

but, for the record, i am against mainstreaming without accomidations and the assumption that the mainstream is the right placement for anyone, just because it is the mainstream.

 

[faire_jour]

Wirelessly posted

Where did you get that information? It is inaccurate.

From what baja said. I was musing on what she just said...

anyway

imho what you need is a class action lawsuit against a school district that forces the courts to declare a constitutional right to learn one's own natural language.

THAT is a game changer.

who says that ASL is every deaf and hard of hearing child's "natural language"?

 

[faire_jour]

Wirelessly posted

Is it okay for a teacher to not ever talk to a child, day in and day out? No, it's not. But many deaf kids endure it.

Is it okay for deaf kids to have incompetent interpreters, whereas they are only getting less than 60% of access to instruction based on the interpreter's low qualifications. Many states allow this to happen as they do not have mandates in place or have high standards for educational interpreters.

Is it okay for the child to eat lunch alone or play with his peers with no access to direct communication because the school doesn't think an interpreter is needed outside of instructional time? Many people seems to be okay with this.

Is it okay for deaf children to gradually become more and more socially impaired as they have less opportunities for social interaction to develop social skills.

It's not okay. It's not. There's more to school than reading, writing, and doing math. Standardized assessment scores are a crock of peas.

At this present time, ASL is not respected as being equal to English. If it were, we would have tons of data on how well the students are doing with ASL. If we did, I bet you that many of our deaf students who are exposed to ASL from a young age excel as much, if not higher, at their language as their hearing counterparts do with English.

The whole "it's a hearing world and you gotta learn English" cliche doesn't fly with me. Our society is now so accustomed to making Spanish accessible to people (hell, half the time I have to look hard for the English translation in my hometown), that there's no reason they can't do the same for ASL. Yet ASL isn't respected as language in this so-called mainstreamed society.

Read across the board. Many, many deaf adults share my view about mainstreaming education. It seems like the hearing people are the ones with the listening problem.

is it ok for the same schools to churn out kids who can't read, every single year? For kids who have potential to be held back because other people in their class don't understand? To have kids graduating unable to read a newspaper or write a coherent sentence, and to call that fine, because their ASL is great? To expect a child to never succeed more than that because that is all they have ever seen?

 

[faire_jour]

Wirelessly posted

And I have teacher friends who in no way ignore their deaf students and there are deaf kids in mainstream who don't miss sixty per cent of the material.

do you dispute the facts that there are teachers who ignore/neglect their deaf students in mainstream school?

do you dispute that most deaf schools have had accusations of sexual or physical abuse?

it happens every day too.

 

[faire_jour]

Wirelessly posted

oh, and don't accuse me of being "anti-deaf school" my daughter has never attended anything else

 

[posts from hell]

Wirelessly posted



who says that ASL is every deaf and hard of hearing child's "natural language"?

A lot of research.

 

[AlleyCat]

Wirelessly posted

do you dispute that most deaf schools have had accusations of sexual or physical abuse?

it happens every day too.

It isn't limited to the deaf schools, though. It's in the news all the time. It shouldn't be an issue for contention if you're trying to decide between deaf school vs. public school.

 

[posts from hell]

Heh, and not to mention, I was a part of a discussion with 3 deaf school kids, 3 mainstream kids...

Guess what?? All this BS by hearing people here in this very thread was disregarded....

 

[Daredevel7]

A lot of research.

"Can you kindly point out the research? A link? A name?"
"Google is your friend."
"Cant even provide the research. I see."
"I posted a link somewhere on AD. Its not my responsibility to dig it up. Search it yourself."
"Can you at least guide me? Whats the topic of the thread?"
"I'm not going to do everything for you. Im sure you can figure it out."
"You can't even give me ONE little hint. Implies that you have nothing to show."

And blah blah blah. Hopefully, now that I've said everything, we can save maybe 3-4 pages of this kinda crap and go back to the topic.

 

[Reba]

Wirelessly posted
call me a "tiger mom" but i would rather have a child who can read and write, who didn't like school than a popular child who looked forward to school and graduates illiterate....

Are those two extremes the only options?

 

[AlleyCat]

Are those two extremes the only options?

Good point. As I was saying last night, I had friends who were mainstreamed at other schools, and they loved it. They graduated with excellent grades, AND loved school (or at least liked -- I should be careful about saying how much they might've "loved" it. ) I was on the other end, where I graduated with excellent grades, but HATED school. I was bullied like nothing else. There can be a lot of in-between that works.

 

[Reba]

Wirelessly posted
do you dispute that most deaf schools have had accusations of sexual or physical abuse?

it happens every day too.

What are the actual statistics of frequency, and during what years?

 

[posts from hell]

"Can you kindly point out the research? A link? A name?"
"Google is your friend."
"Cant even provide the research. I see."
"I posted a link somewhere on AD. Its not my responsibility to dig it up. Search it yourself."
"Can you at least guide me? Whats the topic of the thread?"
"I'm not going to do everything for you. Im sure you can figure it out."
"You can't even give me ONE little hint. Implies that you have nothing to show."

And blah blah blah. Hopefully, now that I've said everything, we can save maybe 3-4 pages of this kinda crap and go back to the topic.

It's common knowledge that visual language is the best. :roll:

 

[TheOracle]

Oh, yeah, real productive. Excuse me while I spew bs all over this thread.




Since I can hear, it's probably extra potent.

 

[GrendelQ]

It's common knowledge that visual language is the best. :roll:

A child's natural language is whatever language he or she is immersed in on a daily basis, what he or she acquires in the home, in school, in the community. If in an ASL-rich environment where that language is dominant, then yes. If in an English language environment, able to access that language, then English is natural. That's what studies and common language show. (source: Google, RIT, Oxford Handbook of Deaf Studies, etc.)

edit: common language ==> common knowledge