Forgive my technical rambling, and my civil disobedience
When people ask me what I do for a living and I say that I teach students who are deaf/hearing-impaired, I almost always am asked: "Oh, so you sign?"
But, no, I don't sign. And there's no quick way to explain the hundreds of years of history in deaf education and the competing philosophies that are out there. For the purposes of this post, I'll just say that there are two main camps: the Total Communication method, and the Oral method (there are many more methods out there, I'm just over-simplifying here!).
The Total Communication method advocates the use of sign language as well as some speech/lip-reading to educate students with hearing loss. The Oral method involves teaching students (with hearing aids or cochlear implants) to use spoken language by listening.
So when parents are informed that their beautiful newborn baby has a hearing loss, they should theoretically have a choice (the choice offered really depends on where you live in this country). Do they want their child to learn to sign, or do they want their child to be able to talk and hear as best as they can? There are advantages and disadvantages to each choice.
I mention all of this because I'm at an Oral campus within a Total Communication district. There are three T.C elementary schools in our district, and just one Oral campus. I'm teaching at the Oral campus, and while I believe that sign language is a beautiful language, I personally think that we should be giving children with hearing loss every skill they will need to function in a hearing society.
I have deaf ed colleagues who strongly disagree with the Oral philosophy and I'm still wondering why they're working at my campus (as much as I like them as friends!). I wince when I see them signing on the sly to the kids. Because, bottom line, we need to respect the choice that the parents have made. In California, I worked with a lady who was all about sign language--but she was able to put her personal feelings aside in the classroom and respect the methodology that the school campus and the parents subscribed to.
So all year I've been feeling like a black sheep on my own turf, and sometimes I resent it. But, I thought, at least my deaf-ed administrators have my back! They understand!
Until recently. Our speech/language pathologist (who is refreshingly neutral on the methodology issue!) came into my room after school and handed me a bunch of papers to send home with the kids. Papers for SIGN LANGUAGE CLASSES. After some probing, I discovered that this directive was coming from none other than the Big Cheese herself. Yep, the HEAD of the entire district's deaf education program is sending fliers for our ORAL kids to learn sign language.
Oh the ridiculousness. Would you buy Chinese textbooks for your Spanish classes? Would you substitute salt for sugar in a cookie recipe? Would you use a football in a basketball game? OF COURSE NOT.
So I distributed the fliers.... in the trash can.
But, no, I don't sign. And there's no quick way to explain the hundreds of years of history in deaf education and the competing philosophies that are out there. For the purposes of this post, I'll just say that there are two main camps: the Total Communication method, and the Oral method (there are many more methods out there, I'm just over-simplifying here!).
The Total Communication method advocates the use of sign language as well as some speech/lip-reading to educate students with hearing loss. The Oral method involves teaching students (with hearing aids or cochlear implants) to use spoken language by listening.
So when parents are informed that their beautiful newborn baby has a hearing loss, they should theoretically have a choice (the choice offered really depends on where you live in this country). Do they want their child to learn to sign, or do they want their child to be able to talk and hear as best as they can? There are advantages and disadvantages to each choice.
I mention all of this because I'm at an Oral campus within a Total Communication district. There are three T.C elementary schools in our district, and just one Oral campus. I'm teaching at the Oral campus, and while I believe that sign language is a beautiful language, I personally think that we should be giving children with hearing loss every skill they will need to function in a hearing society.
I have deaf ed colleagues who strongly disagree with the Oral philosophy and I'm still wondering why they're working at my campus (as much as I like them as friends!). I wince when I see them signing on the sly to the kids. Because, bottom line, we need to respect the choice that the parents have made. In California, I worked with a lady who was all about sign language--but she was able to put her personal feelings aside in the classroom and respect the methodology that the school campus and the parents subscribed to.
So all year I've been feeling like a black sheep on my own turf, and sometimes I resent it. But, I thought, at least my deaf-ed administrators have my back! They understand!
Until recently. Our speech/language pathologist (who is refreshingly neutral on the methodology issue!) came into my room after school and handed me a bunch of papers to send home with the kids. Papers for SIGN LANGUAGE CLASSES. After some probing, I discovered that this directive was coming from none other than the Big Cheese herself. Yep, the HEAD of the entire district's deaf education program is sending fliers for our ORAL kids to learn sign language.
Oh the ridiculousness. Would you buy Chinese textbooks for your Spanish classes? Would you substitute salt for sugar in a cookie recipe? Would you use a football in a basketball game? OF COURSE NOT.
So I distributed the fliers.... in the trash can.
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