Two more "Deaf Connections" to the R.O.M.
TeacherNorm About a month ago, I wrote a Blog about my volunteer involvement at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. I included some information about a Deaf staff member there who had two signed podcasts on the museum's website.Now, I want to add two more connections about the Deaf there.Right now, and continuing until July 13th, there is a special exhibition called "Out From Un...
Sun, May 11 2008

Keep Supporting ASL/Deaf Culture
TeacherNorm I have been away from home for the past two weeks, working at scoring tests for the government. This means that I have been away from my home computer and from my web cam and it has been impossible for me to do any Vlogs.Recently, on the pages of DeafRead, people have been complaining that too many postings have been showing up by people supporting cochlear implants. ...
Tue, Apr 22 2008

Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto
TeacherNorm In my last 4 years living in Toronto, I was a volunteer at the Royal Ontario Museum (R.O.M.) downtown Toronto. It's an amazing place, with thousands of things on display. If you haven't been there, or if you haven't been there for a while, since the huge expansion, you really should go. Check out the Website here. A former student from the Ontario School for the Deaf ...
Thu, Apr 10 2008

Tribute to a Deaf Gentleman
TeacherNorm Jim Clelland was the only Deaf Staff member at the Belleville school for many years. First he was the farmer. Later, after the farm was gone, he was the groundskeeper. I have good memories of him. Here is one of my comments about him. Jim died in 2003. The Canadian Cultural Society of the Deaf has an obituary about Jim. You can read it if you click here. Here are s...
Tue, Apr 08 2008

Bermuda "Borrows" a Teacher
TeacherNorm One afternoon in November 1965, I was teaching a Science class in the Senior School at the Ontario School for the Deaf, Belleville. I got a call on the school communication system. The secretary told me that I had to go and see the Superintendent in his office after class! Oh, no! I wondered what was wrong. I didn't think I had done anything bad, but why would the Sup...
Fri, Apr 04 2008

The BIG School; Part Three
TeacherNorm In Part One of this topic, I mentioned that the students in the Toronto school came from various elementary school programs and had different communication abilities. Of course, this meant that teaching these students was a big challenge for the staff. In their first year in the secondary school, the students would have most of their classes in the Deaf and Hard-of-He...
Mon, Mar 31 2008

Teacher Learns a Lesson
TeacherNorm A student taught a hearing teacher (me!) NOT to say "can't" to Deaf people.
Mon, Mar 31 2008

The BIG School; Part Two
TeacherNorm The idea of putting a Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing department inside a huge secondary school was probably intended to make it possible for the students to have access to a wide variety of mainstream courses. It is true that the school in Toronto (with 2,000 students) had a huge selection of possible areas of study. Not only regular "academic" courses were available, but m...
Mon, Mar 31 2008

The BIG School; Part One
TeacherNorm The last sixteen years before my retirement (1991-2007), I taught in Toronto. The secondary school where I worked has close to 2,000 students! It was a school that had a wonderful reputation in the city. The staff were known to be highly qualified and caring. The students were active in a variety of ways; sports, dozens of extra-curricular clubs and charitable work. (...
Mon, Mar 31 2008

My Old Belleville "Home"
TeacherNorm
Mon, Mar 31 2008