Language Learning While Deaf

Many Deaf people I know are like me and grew up in a multilingual family which was told to speak only one language - English - in the home, in order to make me speak English. In my case, I began to learn Spanish and Arabic as a small child, then my family changed - and as a result, I learned no ASL or other foreign languages for a while.

In school Spanish, French and German were offered. Until my last year in a hearing school, however, none of these were available to me. Instead, I was taken out of classes for speech 'lessons' - and I learned to speak English as well as read and write it. I also learned some signing, because audiology's dirty secret is that a little ASL goes a long way towards making English comprehensible. We're used to working with very little, we Deaf children. In the end they let me take some French classes - one of the languages I had no family connection to!

So when my friends introduced me to Duolingo, an app for iPad and iPhone, I had reservations - but was quickly overjoyed. The app is designed to help people learn six languages, mostly European (I'm hoping they add more in the future, but it's a start.) Users play decoding games where you're forced to figure out how words work together. It's a strategizing process that makes you learn and remember not only new vocabulary but declensions, grammar and phrases. You have the option of using a microphone or speaker if you like, or turning them off, and questions and types of questions will adapt themselves to your needs. And it's ENTIRELY FREE. I am now able to read and decipher many articles in El Diario, a popular New York newspaper. (In any language, the news is depressing, but at least I'm learning!) I hope to one day go to Puerto Rico and be able to converse with my relatives, who are an interesting mix. Best way, people say, is to go there and learn–but a foundation won't hurt.

Compare this to Rosetta Stone, which is a commercial program costing anywhere from $100-$500, depending on what elements you purchase. . I have tried this program and found it unusable. Other writers, like Louise Sattler, have tried to simulate using the program "from the Deaf perspective" and found it usable; maybe I should give it a second try. Sattler says there's continual text and captioning, but hearing people are often able to fill in blanks which we Deaf people don't even know exist, so I'm hesitant to take her word for it.

I still have some issues; I am Puerto Rican, not Spanish, so some of the words, grammar etc. are different. Like many Puerto Ricans, I am part Taino, and their language has blended somewhat with Spanish to create a new hybrid, so I am going online to make up for these gaps and differences.

How do you learn foreign languages?

Reclaim Deaf Power: Interpreters

I saw a post on facebook through Facundo Element; they suggest a fantastic idea: a website to evaluate ASL interpreters and interpreting agencies.

I think this is a fantastic idea because, unfortunately, when it comes to interpreters, we aren't the consumers. The consumers are the colleges or employer who pays for the interpreter. The agency creates a contract with those employers, and interpreters show up to work with the Deaf client. But how much say do Deaf clients have in who they work with? What happens when the interpreter isn't doing too well?

Theoretically, a student ought to be able to complain and tell their college or employer the interpreter's not qualified. Theoretically, you ought to be able to change that interpreter. Practically, however, agencies etc. create contracts with specific services. Often they look for the cheapest possible, and don't want to give this cheapness up.

I remember in college earning my BA I was called into a provost's office and asked to teach other students fingerspelling. They were having problems finding interpreters for chemistry. I protested, successfully, but I was so amazed they'd stoop so low to save a few bucks. (Imagine taking organic chemistry and having lectures.... spelled.)

Another time, ten years or so later while getting my Master's in New York, two interpreters I worked with sadly told me they'd have to stop. They were amazing, highly qualified, but their agency hadn't paid them for two solid months. I complained to the administration, but the hiring of those interpreters was subject to contract with the specific agency. I might have been able to steer them to a reputable agency who treated both clients and interpreters well, but we both lost that opportunity.

The point is there's a missing link in the consumer chain. I think it's time for Deaf people to reclaim their power: we need some medium for evaluating interpreters and especially their agencies. A professional website with professional, polite but honest reviews could make this happen, and go some way to repairing the missing link.

Thoughts?

Reflections on Zimmerman: What does SYG mean for Deaf people?

Whatever you feel about the Zimmerman case and its outcome, Stand Your Ground presents some scary possibilities for the Deaf community.

Every year several Deaf people are shot because of misunderstandings between the Deaf person and police/store owner/restauranteur/someone who saw them signing and thought they were using gang signs/perceived rudeness. This often happens with police officers.

Right now, as Stand Your Ground is interpreted, I'm concerned Deaf people trying to communicate will be perceived as resisting or attacking–and more Deaf people will be shot or killed. Amy Cohen Efron wrote a great piece about how Deaf people can experience deadly challenges when dealing with the authorities, and pointed out that the TV show Switched at Birth addressed this issue to some extent.

Take this story about a 72 year old man in Texas shot by cops who went into the wrong home. Never had a chance to really know what was happening and seems to have thought they were burglars.

Or the story about the NC man stabbed because people thought he was gangsigning.

I'm not claiming every Deaf person is innocent. But the dynamics of this, and the way the law seems to be written and interpreted, would seem to invite misunderstandings. One day it'll be a Deaf person being chased by an unmarked man in an unmarked car: that's my fear.

How about BOTH marriage AND the right to vote? *gasp*

I know it's important to defeat DOMA and Prop 8. But a huge percentage of the gay community are racially or ethnically not white, meaning that when the VRA was shot the other day, what basically happened was rights were traded. Some people both gained the right to marry AND found their right to vote jeopardized. This is a patently ridiculous situation - but also makes me wonder, because a big part of the Tea Party Agenda has been to create situations forcing their opponents against each other - such as the National Organization for Marriage, which sought "to drive a wedge between gays and blacks" by promoting "African American spokespeople for marriage", and to "interrupt the assimilation" of Latinos by making the stance against same-sex marriage "a key badge of Latino identity."

But some of us are both or all or many of these things. Quite a few of us, in fact. I wonder how many people are concerned we've just traded one right for another. We ought to be fighting for BOTH marriage and the protection of the right to vote. The one doesn't make sense without the other, and in many ways right-wing proponents have created this subtext of "robbing Patricia to pay Pilar"–but there are not a finite amount of "rights" out there, that we have to portion them out bit by bit. Deaf rights and gay rights and Latino rights and women's rights aren't pieces of a limited pie and don't need to come at the expense of each other–unless we allow that narrative to drive us.

All of which isn't a shout out to make anyone feel guilty: but it's a reminder the fight isn't yet done, and while we may be winning on one front we can easily lose on another. The worst thing we can do is to allow ourselves to forget where the real fronts are. That kind of misdirection is deadly.

Their names were Marc and Eddy.

In Brussels on December 14th, two deaf men were euthanized. They were real people who were sick with spinal problems, heart issues, glaucoma. They were deaf and yes, becoming blind. Being real, their situation's complex. We should be concerned and talking about this-yes. But let's not turn them into simplified poster children. From the UK Telegraph, eight hours ago:  

Neighbours and friends in the village of Putte said that the twins had to overcome strong resistance from their elderly parents to their demands for a mercy killing.

The twins were going against the national grain here. This wasn't something supported by their family or many doctors. They had to fight for support for their decision: 

...their local hospital refused to end their lives by lethal injection because doctors there did not accept that the twins were suffering unbearable pain, the criteria for legal euthanasia under Belgian law.

"There is a law but that is clearly open to various interpretations. If any blind or deaf are allowed to euthanise, we are far from home. I do not think this was what the legislation meant by 'unbearable suffering'," doctors at the first hospital said.

Note the phrase 'far from home.' That can be interpreted as 'far away from what was intended.' This was not the point of the law, to euthanize deafblind people. So I'm wondering what else is going on? 

Eventually the two brothers found doctors at Brussels University Hospital in Jette who accepted their argument that they were unable to bear the thought of not being able to see each other again.

Marc and Eddy were signers and did not likely have bad images of deafblind people. Their brother certainly did not. As the Telegraph reports:

Dirk Verbessem, the older brother of Marc and Eddy, had defended the decision of his brothers to die.

"Many will wonder why my brothers have opted for euthanasia because there are plenty of deaf and blind that have a 'normal' life," he said. "But my brothers trudged from one disease to another. They were really worn out."

Whoa! Blind and Deaf are categorised here as normal. Two things are targeted by the third brother as the true cause of Marc and Eddy's wish for an ending: diseases and psychic trauma as a result of these diseases. In this light, the glaucoma and blindness looks slightly different: it looks like the last straw. The one that broke the proverbial camel's back. And I wonder if there's other things we don't know about.

Mr. Verbessem said his twin brothers were going blind with glaucoma and that Eddy had a deformed spine and had recently undergone heart surgery.

I agree with having the right to euthanasia. Do I agree with *this* euthanasia? No. Well, not yet. Personally, I'm concerned about the psychological state of Marc and Eddy at the time they made the decision. I also note they were in their 40's–when men typically have a period of stress and self-assessment known as the mid-life crisis. I know people who've dealt with worse pain and wanted life: but this isn't a competition and numbers are the wrong way, I think, to look at it. And so is 'these deaf men... found out they were becoming blind and wanted to die.' The ... hides a lot. But ... doesn't look good in the news. 

To me, their obsession with dying was significant. Here's what I wonder:

-What counseling support and treatment did Marc and Eddy have? 

-Was it in their primary language?

-How long a period did it last? 

-Were their doctors apprised and informed of it?

I do know that local organizations for blindness like Ligue Braille were "surprised at the case." I worry that these guys were going through depression which led to obsession–something I've seen myself–and well, we don't know. Even in the US, Deaf people often struggle accessing psychological care. And sometimes that care can not be satisfactory or helpful for those who need it because of cultural and linguistic differences that complicate communication. I think counselling should have been part of this process. I'm not seeing any discussion of that in any of the articles.

I see people are saying right now How terrible, what a poor decision! If only they knew it was OK to be deafblind they wouldn't have made that decision! I think the story is showing a lot more dimensions than that. I want to give Marc and Eddy credit for being aware, from their lives and community, that being deafblind is a different state of existence, and not bad. I feel they definitely had a mountain fall on them and could only handle so much. I wonder how much support they had dealing with it. The media is focusing on the deafness and blindness. There's so much more here. There's Marc and Eddy. Some of the articles I've seen haven't even mentioned their names.

Note: The Limping Chicken also discussed this issue. 

When Saturday Night Live makes fun of your language...

SNL has made fun of everything American–from Tim Tebow's personal relationship with Jesus to Sarah Palin's moose-shooting skills–and now they make fun of Deaf Americans and Deaf ASL. To me it means you're one of the boys, that we're finally part of the American consciousness. When do you know you're accepted by a group? When they tease you. Marlee Maitlin is frustrated at the signing– and she probably has reason; we've all been at that event where the host waggles his fingers around lamely and thinks he's funny.

But this is different. SNL is a show dedicated to mocking everything weird, from Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor playing racist word association games to Sinead O'Connor tearing down the Pope. This is an important part of being American: we can't take ourselves too seriously. Here's the video:



I laughed (well, snorted.) Many did–and when people laugh at you, you develop a connection. Everyone who laughed at this is going to remember, for example, that ASL interpreters exist (yes, this is still not universal knowledge.) So I'm not going to complain much. I enjoy being part of the national consciousness. Except for one tiny thing.

Don't you think it was classless for SNL to make fun of an interpreter who was sharing disaster preparedness information?

And don't you wish we saw more interpreters on TV–or, you know, actual Deaf people signing–more than just when there's the occasional hurricane and serial killer on Law and Order? Maybe if we had more positive views of ASL-using Americans on TV, we wouldn't be bothered by this at all.

Crushable.com did its own breakdown of what was funny–and what wasn't–about the ASL parody (noting it was followed up by a Spanish parody, and giving Marlee's views the credit they deserve.)

P.S. SNL: Can we have a skit where the ASL interpreter is actually making fun of Bloomberg? Subtitle: Old White Man didn't have time to write speech, is reading from Hallmark card–and still lying!

Fun List: Top Ten Shocking Moments on SNL!

UPDATE: Tons more videos and opinions from DeafYouVideo–most of them against the skit. 

33: Dirty Words: Deaf Wages and Smutty ASL

Should we be fighting against someone publishing an ASL book with smutty words? This can of worms has expanded to a petition on change.org claiming that just such a book, compiled by a non-Deaf novice signer, exploits the Deaf community and American Sign Language, and beseeching St. Martin's Press to cancel publication of the book.

First of all, I do think that the outrage is appropriately placed. It makes me think of the Deaf Wage discussion in the UK, where their Deaf community is beginning to realize how many hearing people earn a wage from the Deaf community. Hearing people throughout American history have taken advantage of Deaf Americans and American Sign Language to make money. How many ASL dictionaries, for example, have been composed by hearing people with little or no ties to the community? I can point to many examples of online dictionaries with very little if any Deaf input. How much of the profit goes back into the Deaf community? How many Baby ASL books have been produced? How many millions have been created by leeches who latch onto the fact that ASL, even half-assed ASL, is so fucking beautiful that it'll make money no matter what?

The Deaf Wage is everywhere. How many schools for Deaf people or programs are run by people who don't know anything about Deaf people or work with our community? How many people prefer to hire interpreters than hire Deaf workers? How many people work in Deaf schools and programs but give nothing back? Meanwhile, there's Deaf people fighting just to gain a toehold in employment.

Kristen Hensen is making a Deaf Wage. She's been profiting from attention to her YouTube videos (which by the way aren't captioned... effectively cutting off the Deaf community from the opportunity to give her real criticism, perhaps on purpose) and now a book... But.

(You know me, there's always a but.)

Maybe a better response, instead of censorship, is to produce a better, more accurate book, created by Deaf people with a Deaf focus. Not because I think that's more fair–money will still be sucked away from our community. We do need a clear example of what differences would arise in a Deaf-centric publication.

For example, "Fuck you, you fucking fuck" should not be translated into ASL as "Middle finger you, sex fuck!" I mean it comes across as a psychotic individual saying "Fuck you, let's have sex!" We just don't have that expression in ASL. (We have others.)

It's like translating "ça me fait chier" as "please do pee on me" instead of "that pisses me off." (The French wouldn't be amused, either.)

I invite everybody to find interesting Hensenizations of ASL on her youtube (google, I won't link to that stuff)! And: go sign the petition.

31: Is American Deafhood different from British Deafhood?

And no, I don't mean the philosophy.

I mean: Is the American Deaf experience or process of coming to understand oneself by virtue of properly assessing one's place in society, and how that place came to be, different from the British Deaf experience of the same?

And the answer, once you put the question that way, has to be: Yes. Of course it is, because we have different societies, different histories, and different myths, even different influences. And because of that divergence our process and our realization and our understanding of self necessarily has to be somewhat different, even though the principle is the same. This is true for every other Deaf culture in the world, just as it's true that globalization is changing the game for all of us yet again.

To really understand our own Deafhood, we have to understand our society, our history and our myths (the harmful and the harmless and the helpful ones. All of them.)

We have to understand that a lot of our dialogue about ourselves is directly influenced by American society and its own history and myths (and probably French too, and Native American, and German, and all the little iconoclastic cultures which made up the beginnings of the American Deaf experience as they make up, to some extent, the etymologies and histories of our own language.)

I love the book "Deaf History Reader;" regardless of your opinions about Van Cleve, the windows it provides into Deaf American history go past Clerc and Gallaudet to far earlier events. It gives me insight, say, into the true beginnings of American Deaf culture, and why Gallaudet happened here, not in Europe where Deaf people had already been going to college and Deaf exceptions (artists, writers) were known.

What that book reminds me of is that, much like the Pilgrims, early America was all about forming unique communities to escape oppression. And this seems like something elementary schoolish when you put it that way–but it is in many ways a profound realization. Martha's Vineyard's Deaf element was founded by a Deaf man who had achieved unusual success in his career. We don't usually give him the same status we give to other American founders of cities in the wilderness, but isn't that a possible interpretation of Jonathan Lambert's whitewashed life?

Today even Wikipedia says he was nothing but a simple farmer and carpenter. Research has shown he was, instead, the captain of his own ship, a slave ship-the brigantine Tyral (although it's not clear to me that these were racial slaves imported from Africa; it seems that these "slaves" were British prisoners, perhaps a mixed group.) He was a military man and served in the British military for several years as part of expeditions. He did all this as a Deaf man, speaking very little and using signs; visiting dignitaries reported being offended he didn't speak to them–until someone whispered the illustrious leader was Deaf and mute! He bought his own land in 1694 and he passed on his Deafness, culture, and hereditary Kentish sign language to his children, who were brought up in Martha's Vineyard, a place where people apparently had no trouble believing Deaf people could vote and hold political office!

Compare this to the fleeing Puritans who were prevented from practicing their religion or being involved with legal office. They did what - came to America and made sure they had a place where such an opportunity was possible! America has this story again and again: people coming to America to make places for themselves. (Of psychological interest: it may be that Lambert was part of a long line of Lambert captains and sailors which continued in England after Jonathan Lambert's departure. If so, is there a story here of a man who felt less equal in his family, striking out for a new world and new possibilities?)

From as early as the 1700's, then, we had evidence of Deaf leaders in business and politics who fought to establish places where Deaf people had equality. Superiority, perhaps. Does this help us inform the story of Gallaudet? Was the Gallaudet protest part of a long cycle of fighting for equality that began before most even dreamed?

(Note: We might judge Lambert for his involvement with slave activities. I did, at first. But it's important to remember that he too was a child of his time and place. History is an easy place to judge.)

13: deafhood and the process of education

Parent-teacher night brings interesting experiences. You meet parents the twin of their child; parents nothing like their child; parents you wish didn't have a child; parents you envy. Sometimes experiences echo your own. Here's one:

Hilda became Deaf as a child, like I did. Because (like I did) there was a period in which she could hear (however brief) doctors and advisors insisted to her mother that she be kept from signed languages (ASL, in this case, although the well-intentioned have paved similar stones in other countries.)

She reminds me very much of myself at that age. She enjoys the written word, and just finished reading the fourth Harry Potter book. She has a personality, but she is ultimately withdrawn, always uncertain in communication, still struggling to figure out the rules for interacting with the world. She has a few friends, but most of them are domineering loners who don't mind her lack of comprehension and just rattle on about their own issues. She's developing her grammar skills in English, although she shows several errors, particularly with subject/verb agreement. However, my sense is that many of these mistakes are careless ones, made because she has something else - a book, a project, or the pleasure of someone's company - to which she must return.

I've tested her in a few ways. When she is sitting with other Deaf people in small groups, such as during tutoring, she feels more comfortable and becomes more animated. This is to be expected - for her entire childhood she's gone to school in similar segregated groups of children, some of whom probably signed. When sitting in the regular classroom, she sits alone, looks isolated, hunted by the support staff assigned to work with her, ashamed to look at interpreters, and not sure that doing so would help, in any case.

The thing which sucks is that she's only taking ASL class one day a week. I'm going to work at amplifying her exposure. But it isn't easy, even in a school with two languages, to give everyone what they need: especially when you consider the topic of my next post: How Do You Teach Them To Learn It For Themselves?

But what is she? (What was I?) Deaf or deaf or hard of hearing? After much thought I still call her Deaf, with a capital D. I suppose some people will take notice, or umbrage. I suppose even she might. But Deaf, to me, is an umbrella term covering a huge variety of people (look at the diversity under the term American, or Jewish, if this perspective makes you protest.) Which counts, the experience or the person? Once you turn away from a medical view of Deafness to a sociocultural view, the answer becomes less obvious.

I was not culturally Deaf when I was a child. But I was a Deaf person going through my own process of Deafhood. My experiences were like Hilda's. We both went through a period where we had to define our identity as Deaf people. In our case, we did it in the New York Public School system, measuring ourselves always against the actions and words (those we could perceive) of others. In the case of other Deaf people, they did it in Deaf schools. (She is now; I did, a few years older than she.) Some Deaf people who are culturally Deaf now, performed the exploration which formed their own Deafhood in oral schools, and would not countenance being told that they are not Deaf. (Culture is part of Deaf people, not the other way around. It could not be otherwise: all people have more than one culture.)

I believe in this definition while, simultaneously, believing that all Deaf people should have the opportunity to learn their national signed language as well as the spoken language they will no doubt be rigorously exposed to, in an almost-tyrannical way, for their entire educational life. I believe these things with all my heart. Is that too sentimental a construction for an academic paper? It is based on my conviction of the human need for independence and the challenges that independence brings. Languages and the ability to use them are what give human beings the freedom to grow and change - to be human, in short.

Was I human, before I learned language? Caliban learned language and his only profit on't was that he learned to curse. Perhaps one day I shall also: I look at Hilda and am split. Half of me wants to cradle her, teach her all the lessons I've learned about being a Deaf person and a human being, share what I can so she can avoid or deal with the frustrations I had with more aplomb than I did. The other half of me thinks that would only make it worse, and the best thing I could do would be to let her find her own way, and take what she will of me.

And maybe help get her a few more ASL classes a week. (It's far too easy to forget the best solutions are practical ones.)

12: Reflecting on Sameness and Difference

I'm lucky. As a teacher in a school with both deaf and hearing children in a bilingual environment, I get to begin my career with a damned clear picture of what 'problems' are really Deaf peoples'-and what problems are visible in ALL children.

Case in point. I'm now co-teaching a 'special-ed' class, a self-contained classroom of Deaf kids who've been put there because of either behavior or academic problems. I'm not sure I agree with this placement. It seems to me that the school's made a commitment to integration and special classes like these should either include hearing kids (they don't) or be restructured into the general population. When I gave these opinions to the teachers in question, they were adamant that the kids couldn't function in a regular classroom. It's true their English skills are far below grade level. But... They CAN read and write, and so many of my 'regular' students are CODAs or ELL's. The writing these 'special' students produce is arguably comparable in some cases to the hearing kids.

I showed examples of this writing to the teachers. They were astounded. Separated from the general population, they weren't able to make this comparison. I got the feeling they'd developed this view of Deaf students as inferior to the hearing, and saw every mistake as confirmation of the fact. Whereas I came into it with, honestly, very little idea of what to expect.

Perhaps my 'dangerous idea' has more to it than even I suspected. Maybe we need integrated classrooms to help get rid of these ingrained prejudices. But, given that these prejudices exist, how do you separate those who really need help-from those laboring under the limits of false expectations? And is this even harder than usual, in a bilingual environment?

Teaching raises far more questions than it answers.

11: what is my dangerous idea?

The good folks at Edge in 2006 asked scientists all over the world to identify and write about their dangerous idea. This concept was turned into a book, which you can now purchase on Amazon, and being the product of scientists, is sometimes wildly insane, sometimes coolly prophetic.

So what is my dangerous idea? In the interests of progress for the Deaf community, I'll share it.

Imagine a school five years in the future. From the outside the school looks like any other.
On the inside, however, it's a technological marvel. Gleaming, wafer-thin silver screens cover the walls. These screens display videos, obviously made by children but with a certain level of sophistication which speaks more of commitment than skill. It's on these screens that you notice a difference, whether you are hearing or Deaf: for not only are these children signing, they are speaking, and though you may at first believe the signers Deaf and the speakers hearing, it will soon become clear that this is not necessarily the case.

Walking through the hallways reveals more differences. The communication methods in each classroom differ, although they always revolve around the two poles of English and American Sign Language. In some, the teacher signs than speaks; in another, she speaks, then uses an ASL interpreter; in a third, he speaks, but asks the interpreter to stop so he can use his limited ASL skills to express directly to the students the concept he is trying to explain.

Signs adorn the walls. "The goal is fluency in ASL and in English for all students. The road is what we are walking." Projects in ASL and English adorn the walls. Smaller television screens, protected behind plastic encasements, showcase video projects.

The future promises the Deaf community nothing but change. This is a difficult concept for both Deaf and hearing people to deal with. Deaf people get frustrated with change, because change is usually accompanied by the continual process of re-education. "Yes, I'm Deaf. No, I can't hear. Yes, I can read, drive, and dance. No, I don't miss music, tweeting birds, or the screaming wails of distempered infants." I do not believe we are necessarily disabled, but we do have something in common with the blind: we like to have our world ordered for ease of passage. (A friend pointed out that oppressed minorities often choose similar paths, preferring the ease of communities, even devalued, impoverished communities, than the continual struggle associated with the loneliness and stress of traditional forms of Success.) Hearing people dislike the concept of change associated with deaf people because perceive that group often as something to be protected, helped and served. Taken care of, like fragile china dolls; they Deaf people in closets and keep the door shut and because they look so nice, so clean, behind the golden locks, they let appearances deceive. When two such self-serving desires come together, the result is often disastrous. These artificial islands of existence come out. They look like safe places, but they are, equally, cages...

If we are to confirm that claim of ours that we are not disabled, we need to resist these seductive attempts to create these artificial worlds for us. We need to create coalitions. And the foundation for these coalitions is staring us in the face:

• ASL, and bilingual education in general, has been proven to have beneficial effects on developing minds.
  
• Deaf school populations are (for now) shrinking, but the schools and faculty need to be kept in place because history shows us that the Deaf population shrinks and grows with time, as new causes of deafness in the general human population appear or re-appear.
• There is a huge national interest in learning ASL.
• There are a large number of careers in television, media, education, science, etc. etc. which involve signed languages and Deaf people.

Put these four facts together, and what kind of future do you see for Deaf school environments? What is a reasonable solution for keeping open schools for Deaf children, filling these roles nationwide, utilizing the results of three decades of research into ASL, and preserving the heritage of the people?

Integrate the schools. But do it artificially. And do it in such a way that students are equal, that the languages of instruction have equality.

This is the 'dangerous' part of the idea, the one neither Deaf nor hearing people entirely like. This discomfort, however, encourages rather than discourages me. Bernice Johnson Reagon says again and again that coalition building is not going to work if you feel too safe. Her advice has always struck me as sound. Deaf people will have to give up the "safeness" of their spaces. Teachers and administrators may have to adjust to different standards and methods of instruction. Hearing parents might have to adjust to having their child in a boarding-school environment. But the potential results of having two living languages - in what would be essentially an artificial Martha's Vinyard - would be beneficial for the whole population of this dangerous idea. Alone, Deaf people do not see English as a living language, and embrace ASL with the fervor that musicians embrace notes. Alone, Hearing people do not see ASL as a living language, and preserve their misperception that it is somehow inferior to English. Together, they can develop mutual trust and respect for both cultures.

What are some practical applications of such a concept? Some other dangerous inferences?

• Language fluency. It is almost a truism in concepts of Deaf education that all staff must be fluent in ASL. In this model, staff could be at various levels of ASL fluency, but must adhere to a universal model of instruction. To clarify: a hearing child with no ASL should be able to come to the school and see an adult at a similar stage of learning. A Deaf child with perfect ASL who needed work on English should be able to come to school and see a comparable model. Various in-between stages - which are much more numerous - should also be represented.
  
• Environmental visibility of both languages. Resources and visible decorations involving both languages in all core subjects should be present.
• Model should be to learn ASL/English for fluency, not "for Deaf people" or "for the Hearing world." This will be the quickest way to destroy a students' natural love of learning language. Excellence in both languages should be respected and recognized.
  

These are just some elements of my "dangerous idea." Perhaps it isn't really dangerous at all, just new. But I do seriously feel that if we as a community want to improve our lives we need to look to the future.

6: What standards should Deaf people use to decide at the polls this Fall?

What issues should Deaf people be concerned about this fall? Here's a roundup of what I think we need to be concerned about:

EDUCATION

I fear the No Child Left Behind Act has been a disaster for the Deaf community which will find its legacy written only after many years have passed. It must be changed. Why do I have this gloomy outlook?

The NCLB Act came around the same time that many children who'd had cochlear implants while young hit schooling age. As a result a huge amount of these have been reassigned into mainstreamed classrooms, and cuts to Education in spending bills have meant less and less for services. The effects of this on the Deaf community will be felt; Deaf students will graduate with little to no understanding of how to advocate for themselves, their educational level may be less than average, or there may be some other problem due to the student not having had support of some kind or another which was never addressed. Also, the focus of NCLB on high-stakes testing - such tests already biased towards those whose first language is English - does a disservice to the true assessment of Deaf students.

I think we also need to come together as a country and build a vision of what the future will look like for the Deaf community and for Deaf children. National Deaf organizations need to create a vision for policy regarding Deaf education for the future. Yes, the Deaf population is currently on the decline - but history shows it waxes and wanes in waves. We can set up a system to handle this cycle and take advantage of most recent research regarding Deaf children and all children's education. I'd love to see Deaf schools around the country become bicultural as well as bilingual and start to admit hearing children with a full ASL and English curriculum.

CIVIL RIGHTS

The ADA will not be a battleground for our politicians this year, but it's already suffering after years of attrition from Bush officials. We need a politician who's going to repair the damage that's been done to it by the current administration with the goal of a country that provides an equal opportunity for all its citizens. I still believe Deaf people belong under the umbrella of the ADA, despite being a discrete community with a culture of its own. We have a social disability seriously affected by social prejudice.

We also need to spread rights like closed captioning and access to new areas such as the Internet. The Writer's Guild of America just fought a protracted, many-months battle to get paid for work shown on the Internet. We must not assume that people will "do the right thing." We, too, should begin advocating that Internet materials be made accessible.

HEALTH CARE

Deaf people have specific health care needs, including ASL interpreters at hospitals, which are not being addressed and which are tearing our community apart. We desperately need leadership and support on this issue, as well as to ensure that health plans are unbiased and allow Deaf people to choose what kind of services they need.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

You can check out NAD's list of advocacy issues for other things we should be thinking about when we go to the polls this fall...

5: A week in the reading life of a deaf teacher of english

When you teach, your reading life is necessarily a tangled mix of subjects: I read books my students should read at their age so as to build connections and help them find books they will personally like, which requires sometimes reading things I don't normally find interest in (but young teen books are often far more positive than adult books, which is a plus.)

I read the theory-books of education and Deaf Studies that feed what I do in the classroom and shape how I teach reading and how I involve American Deaf culture and ASL (the same way, I imagine, a school which specialized in a bicultural Spanish/English environment would try to involve works by Latino/Latina authors and explore the relationship of Spanish to English.) I also read the books you read because... well, when you're an English teacher, you like reading, and that's reason enough.

THIS WEEK'S PROFESSIONAL READS:

THIS WEEK'S PERSONAL READS:

There's an interesting story behind that last book. It was left to me by my great-Aunt Gloria when she died; I was 13. For some reason I decided there was a reason she left it to me, so I took to reading every short mystery contained in the book. The list is considerable; I think it must comprise most of Christie's Hercule Poirot short stories. It was picked up one day by sticky fingers (or an accidential cleaning lady) in the MSSD cafeteria, and I never saw another copy until I hit the Church rummage sale with MS this past Sunday. Of course I picked it up right away, and it's startling how much of the structure of the stories I still remember, and how much it reminds me of childhood.

Reviews will be forthcoming, as the books get done.

4: blogging while deaf - should we sub?

There's an argument currently going on among some elements of the Deaf blogosphere about whether or not Deaf people creating video logs (vlogs) in ASL ought to subtitle their films in English. I tried finding one to link to, because the topic was interesting to me, but most of the blogposts online seem like grandstanding without much true, focused, on-point discussion: irrelevant. Most of what you'll see here is personal opinion, but I tried to explain why I have this opinion.

I would like to see all videos in one language be subtitled in every other language, but I know this is not the case and probably will never be the case (unless we get a Babel Fish, or a Universal Translator from Star Trek. One can only dream... and wonder if, with a Babel Fish, a Deaf person would be able to instanteously lipread any individual and continue to be happily Deaf?)

Not too many Spanish T.V. programs have subtitles in English. They have subtitles in written Spanish, which is encouraging, but doesn't advance us much.

Most translation websites don't consider ASL or signed languages at all, only spoken languages. (An exception to the English to ASL translation service was TESSA, an avatar unfortunately limited to the language of the British postal service. Moreover, some T.V. programs don't have captioning or subtitles, a result of mixed efforts at government enforcement and elimination of captioning requirements in the form of "relief." Nearly all online services still don't have subtitling available in English. They claim frustration at the high cost and time involved - although Deaf bloggers themselves have proven the cost is far lower than they claim! (Of course, who knows what they charge in L.A.?) In fact, representatives from our community are begging Presidential candidates to caption their videos! (Interestingly, a look at Project ReadOn shows that while Democratic candidates have set up captioned videos, Republican candidates have yet to do so.)

So, based on this evidence, there is no a priori reason for Deaf people to subtitle their own videos. Why? The people who have the money to do it don't want to spend that cash on us. Who do we owe, exactly? The Corporation for Public Broadcasting? There has been no agreement with hearing people, cool as that might be. ("We here sitting at this treaty make this pledge that every video in this great land of America will hereby be subtitled and made accessible by its people to all peoples in our great American quest for unity as we walk our individual paths to fulfillment...") So, yes, in a way, it's true: forcing Deaf people to do this would be oppression, because nobody else has to.

There might, however, be a reason to decide to do this, as a community, for the future. We need to ask ourselves: is that dream a future we want? If so, being the people who see the attractiveness of the destination, we might just have to be the ones to light the way. But if we as a community agree this is a good idea, then those who agree can't just stand around and lambast the rest of the community for not agreeing with their high-minded ideals. We have to provide pathways to help people deal with inevitable problems in language, translation and idiom. I'm sure every blogger posting on the Web wants to reach as wide an audience as possible! But they want to do it while looking good, also, and that requires training and support, much of which is far more easily available to hearing bloggers.

I don't imagine it's going to be easy, but there are solutions and possibilities for intelligent members of the Deaf nation. In fact, in England, many Deaf people were struggling with English captions. But the process of learning how to deal with struggle is how businesses and fields get set up in any community. Spanish-speaking people can go to workers who help them translate into clear English. British Deaf people who were skilled in English offered their services at translation. I imagine the same could be set up for Deaf people here. We could also use interpreters, who, as students, could use the time as credit in their classes and, as professionals, could benefit from learning to understand as many Deaf people as possible - and of course our community benefits from their development in turn!

More importantly, such videos will be very valuable especially for bilingual educational environments. An adequately-captioned video could teach a Deaf child more about constructions in ASL and in English than two or three hours of instruction in a mainstreamed classroom. It could teach a hearing student of ASL more about the depth and richness of our language than six drinks at DPHH in Washington, DC.

Sometimes answers require creativity. Remember, the Internet takes away distance. It should bring us together, not throw us apart. (Of course, so should the education of children, but that's a whole 'nother blog...)

VP and who we are:
or, the effects of the videophone on the deaf world

It takes a lot to make a videophone work. A 20-minute videophone call requires the transmission of roughly half a gigabyte of information, the equivalent of half a DVD: information that once filled rooms of machines operated by punch cards, now reduced to the processing power contained in a machine the size of a hardcover book. A small, expensive miracle.

Which is free, at least to the Deaf community. This little machine which allows Deaf citizens of America to make video telephone calls to each other or through an American Sign Language Interpreter is often called an equalizer; the videophone is provided by a third-party manufacturer, Sorensen, to any qualifying person with a hearing loss, and similar hardware can be purchased from other computer suppliers around the country - and there's always video conferencing. Subsequently the only cost to the individual is the cost of their internet service, and of course the hidden cost of the government taxes assayed to all taxpaying Americans in order to provide the equipment.

And, too, the sign language interpreters provided, free of charge to the users of the videophone. A far greater cost, which is continually assessed. I was a vegan for a long time, and still believe in thinking about and understanding the cost of the things we use to the world around us - and to ourselves. You think about who you are, what that means in relationship to others, the person you want to be. Some people see goodness in religion, or art, or service, and the pursuit of those paths gives them happiness, because they've decided the meaning of their life is embodied by those pursuits. Other people see meaning in independence, from others and from society; still others see freedom from the mundane trappings of life, and attempt a return to nature. This is what humans do to establish that vital little twang in the human song we call ourselves: the wiggling middle finger of humanity.

And I have to wonder, what does it mean to be the recipient of this much charity, and not see the cost? Not just the cost of the interpreters. Our community rarely discusses the physical and environmental cost of this 'free' equipment, the cost to the Deaf community that comes from taking such value for granted. We talk about the benefits, yes, the freedoms, the sharp intake of power which comes from being able to communicate. With all such power, though, should come responsibility; with all such gifts comes price. "The only fair I know is what you pay to ride the bus," a great character once said on Showtime.

What's the fare on this bus? What's the environmental cost of the videophone? Environmental Science and Technology reports on the research of Eric Williams in 2004:

Williams found that manufacturing, using, and disposing of one desktop computer with a Pentium III processor and a 17-inch cathode ray tube (CRT) monitor uses at least 260 kilograms of fossil fuels and 6400 megajoules of energy.

260 kilograms of fossil fuels - for a computer; about six times the weight of a single man. What does it take to send that half-gigabyte of communication leaping across a world in a blazing half-second with a sharpness and clarity the engineers of Star Trek would envy?

What does it cost us to have this removal from humanity? In the writings of Isaac Asimov he describes a world called Solaria, in which people communicate when necessary by the use of screens. I remember an early teacher of mine at MSSD talking about the distancing effect of technology and e-mail, back in 1996. In which direction does this send us?

What is it doing to our use of language? Is it having a standardizing effect on ASL, creating a wider knowledge of language, allowing dialects to spread? What effect does the continual use of interpreters at varying levels of skill have on our community?

And do we have the choice to do things any differently, now we have taken the bait and found it tasty? Are we stuck running down whatever path we've started on? If we decide the ends don't justify these means, will we still be paying the price whether we like it or not? And - perhaps more interestingly - are there ways we can guide the use of this technology for the better development of us all? The innovations created by both Sorensen and Apple (in their standard iChat program) are heartening and fascinating. Yet still I find myself strangely reluctant to use my VP.

I guess I'll always be reminding myself, in the back of my head: there's a cost. One day we may be forced to pay. Or maybe I just don't like looking 10 pounds heavier...