In this vlog entry, the quality of deaf education, the problems surrounding it and the ideas of what can be done to bring a solution to these problems are discussed. Feel free to share your ideas and opinions on the subject.
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10/16/2006 5:42 PM
Very interesting. I'm thinking of various different aspects of this.
First of all, I'd find out more about what was going on in Sweden. It's obviously not "just the Bi-Bi" and it would be worth finding out what else they do.
Second, I'm not sure it's a good idea to have any other signing methodology than ASL and perhaps fingerspell. But I have no signing experience so I don't know.
However, I do know both Spanish and English, and I do think there are aspects of this that should be considered more in a bilingual mode than signing versus speaking (and that may be where Sweden's scoring). There's usually a cleaner definition between the two languages (although I admit the bilingual programs in southern California are not always the model of success either) and I think you mentioned that kind of mixup being a problem too. But many many people are very successfully bilingual, so it should be doable here, too.
As with any education, the solid support of the family is needed, too. I had that as well, and it was a lifesaver. Perhaps classes or better/more consistent information for the parents are necessary as well.
I don't know how feasible it would be to make the entire deaf education the same across the U.S., though :-O I'm thinking that's kind of like herding cats...
Good topic, though. I'll be interested to see any other responses here...
10/16/2006 6:31 PM
Beg, the solid support of the family is definitely an enormous benefit to a deaf child's language development. It's crucial that the child be taught both languages before turning five for a better chance to achieve fluency in both languages.
I agree with some of what you've shared here. Both of us here seem to be successful in being billingual.
Anyway, I should had mentioned more about Sweden in my vlog. At the high school I used to attend, we had an exchange student from Sweden. She was highly intelligent and fluent in both Swedish, English, ASL and more languages. I was informed that the parents of deaf children are encouraged or required to take signing classes if their children are discovered to be deaf.
I think it's possible that it may be a big factor in why it's a success over there in Sweden because they intergrate their sign language and spoken language in their lives. Schools for the deaf in Sweden use Bi-Bi according to a friend of mine who stayed over there for a while.
I'm going to look more into that.
10/17/2006 4:09 AM
Banjo, thanks for your reply to my e-mail. Here's a link to the Swedish Association of The Deaf website - in English. There's tons of info there.
http://www.sdrf.se/sdr/index.php
10/17/2006 4:13 AM
Sorry, the correct link is
http://www.sdrf.se/sdr/index.php?lang=en
10/17/2006 12:30 PM
Wow, that's plenty of information. Thanks for the link!
10/18/2006 12:28 PM
That was cool, so why not teach english as a 2nd language the same way other foreign languages are taught? I know that in Canada they have a french language immersion program for english speaking kids but I don't think it would work the same here beings that deaf kids are already in a english language immersion program...
I think that Sweden is sucessful because of their attitudes towards minority languages whereas in america we are still trying to assimilate everyone into a single culture.
I don't really have a solution, sorry. But I did like your vlog.
10/19/2006 8:12 PM
I grew up in a mainstreamed program like you. However, the difference is I spent a majority of my day practicing my speech. Then I had a class or two that I had to sit in without an interpreter. Being profound deaf and an awful lipreader, I couldn't understand a thing the teacher was saying. My mother did take ASL classes recommended by the deaf community and ASL was used at home despite the threats by my teachers that it would ruin my chances at learning how to be a "normal" person. They also told my mother that I wouldn't learn how to write and read english if ASL was used. My love of reading books helped me learn how to read and write. I finally entered a deaf school at the age of eleven. I was so behind in so many areas and eventually quit high school because I kinda gave up on myself. My wish for all deaf children is to have a wonderful education from the beginning. Sometimes I wonder where I would be if I had a better beginning. I'm a strong believer that a person is responsible for their own education so I'm working at it even though I'm 28 years old. Better late than never. :)
I think it's wonderful that so many people have taken an interest in deaf children education. They all have potential just like the rest of the world and they deserve the right to have an equal education without any barriers.
10/20/2006 2:43 AM
Thanks for sharing your story here on my blogsite. I enjoyed it, and I can understand how frustrating it was for you to be put into a classroom with nobody to help you.
No child should ever go through that, and we should break down every barrier we can find to provide equal education for all.
Yeah, it's better to be late than never. Glad you held onto that philosophy. :-)
10/23/2006 10:06 AM
Deaf education truly starts very early in the home. Many Deaf people are born to hearing parents and they do not know sign. This is the crux of the problem, as this will affect their language development, irregardless of educational methods used later in the classroom.
Have you checked out Cued English? I sincerely believe that if this method was used on a widespread basis, English literacy of Deaf children would improve vastly and rapidly.
10/23/2006 1:11 PM
Todd, thank you for mentioning Cued Speech. I do believe it has the potential to help the deaf children as I happen to know a deaf adult who use it. He's an advocate, and I find the concept to be quite fascinating.
Can't hurt to give it a try. Though the resistance may be difficult to get through. You know how the politics are among the deaf.
Yes, deaf education does truly start at home. I was very fortunate that my hearing parents learned sign language.
10/29/2006 12:54 PM
Echo here.
Isolation can be a funny thing. It can hinder or motivate you. Growing up I was isolated from both the hearing and deaf world. I went to a primary school that specialized in SEE. However, I did not interact with deaf people very much outside of school, so did not learn functional ASL. My parents love me and wanted the best for me, but were not competent signers. Thus I relied on SEE for a long time. SEE helped formulate the grammatical structures of english. By the time I was 7, I surpassed the english reading and comprehension levels of 8th graders.
My parents realized that I would learn more in a public school and transferred me. This time marked a long, arduous assimilation into the "hearing" culture. I was isolated until about 14 years old. At this time, it clicked. I started speaking with defined clarity and making articulate and entertaining conversation. I was able to participate and started my social life. I was never for a lack of a friend, but lacked in intellectual shinnanegans of pushing limits and developing who I am, until this time. Even though I am 95% deaf, I identify myself as hearing and communicate as a hearing person.
Deaf Education is woefully inadequate. You are right Banjo, it does take parents who care and educators who are aware in order to develop a well-rounded and knowledgable deaf individual. One approach is not universally correct for all individuals. The approach for me, though hard at times, was right in the end. Through SEE, an extensive network of people who worked with me daily, and a bit of tough love, I am an accomplished person. I am learning ASL and admit at times it is easier for communication, but the world that I need to function in does not know sign.
10/29/2006 11:24 PM
Echo, thanks for your contribution. I found it to be quite an interesting story. It's always a pleasure to read people's life experiences.
You're right, there's no such an universal approach. Though we do have to find a way to meet their needs and ensure that their families are able to communicate with each other.
Communication is incredibly important in all families.
11/10/2006 2:08 PM
Very, very, very interesting. I was quite interested in your judgment of total communication -- I'd heard of it, and I've seen/heard people on TV and such speaking and signing at the same time, and I always felt that there had to have been something fishy about that. I speak English and French, and I'm currently learning Welsh, and the idea of using any TWO of them at once makes the gears in my head grind. On the one hand, I knew from my own language experience that English and ASL must not get along, and I could not for the life of my imagine how anyone could use both at the same time ... but then I also felt that as a hearing person, it wasn't my judgment call to make and that it probably worked fine for the people who used it. It's interesting to learn that my initial suspicion was quite correct, and that doing both at the same time actually isn't so good.
When you're using any language, you must immerse yourself. One fo the most basic things they teach you is that you must do your best to not even think in your native language, but must use the target language 100% even in your thoughts. Forcing a person to keep one foot in the native language while also using the target language is just ... argh. It's not going to work. It's entirely contrary to every principle of language instruction -- hard-proven principles, too. Forcing deaf students to learn like this is like making them wear ankle weights. Any progress they make is at the cost of enormous effort on their part, effort that could be better spent on ... calculus. Dance. History. The stuff you're supposed to learn in school.
Expending too many cycles on that reminds me of teachers who used to force lefthanded kids to write righthanded. Who GIVES a damn which HAND they used to write soemthing -- is the thing they wrote correct or not? And time spent teaching them to write righthanded is wasted time and effort. Similarly -- just get the math into a deaf kid's head with the most natural, efficient language possible (ASL, I'd wager for most, suplemented with Englsih course books). Worry about English in English class.
Sorry for running on so much ...
11/10/2006 2:30 PM
Janis,
I completely agree with you. The best most people can do with total communication is to sign using a manually coded English method (there's a few concepts)
You can find more information on these methods by clicking on the link below,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manually_Coded_English
I grew up using SEE2 (Signing Exact English). As you can see, I'm fluent in ASL (American Sign Language) but would it had been possible if I used SEE1 (Seeing Essential English) and still become fluent in ASL?
I imagine it would had been a much more difficult task because SEE1 don't use ASL-like signs, they separate words like carpet into "car" and pet". Yes, you sign the words for "car" and "pet" instead of just "carpet". I'm glad I never was subjected to such a method.
Thanks for your contribution to the discussion. :-)
1/28/2007 11:00 AM
You are correct, the bottom line is that we need to educate people that ASL and English ARE two separate languages! And yes, yes -parents of deaf children need to take more responsibility in learning ASL to communicate.
For those who are interested in learning more about teaching ASL and English separately, contact Center for ASL/English Bilingual Education adn Research (CAEBER) at
http://www.nmsd.k12.nm.us/caeber/index.html
Thanks for bringing this up!
1/28/2007 1:53 PM
Joey, thanks for the positive comment along with the addition of the link. :-)
1/29/2007 5:02 AM
Wow. This is great - and most people would think it's common sense, right? I'm hearing, and I used to be a Deaf Education major before I decided that teaching was not my cup of tea, but the serious flaw in the system (I think) is that the hearing people I met in my major were terrible signers. TERRIBLE. That's coming from me, and I'm not that great myself. I struggled to get through your vlog. Had to resort to the captions for some of it. You bring up a good point too that ASL is valuable, but English is just as valid.
I consider myself a deaf-o-phile (like there are anglophiles) and I really never realized how prejudiced I was until I visited your blog. It shocked me. I had never seen a deaf person, not to mention so many of them in the comments, with good writing skills before - fluent English writing skills. I never realized that I looked down on Deaf people having a poor grasp of English. Reading you, so fluent and easily understandable, made me realize that. And if I think that as a Deaf-o-phile, imagine what the other members of the hearing community think! Thanks for opening my eyes.
Sorry if I come of like a bitch.
1/29/2007 5:28 AM
Don’t worry; you’re not coming off as a bitch at all. I'm glad to see that my vlog made an impact on you in a way.
Everybody is prejudiced; only we don’t all share the same prejudices. I'll even admit that I am prejudiced at times. Sometimes, it just take a little insight to realize that there's more to the subject than one could possibly had thought of before.
Thank you for the positive feedback. :-)
1/29/2007 5:46 PM
I happen to live in scandinavia. It's a little funny you say that sweden have a successful bi-bi program, as deaf people in sweden complains about weak results in their schools. They started early with this and that, but results still vary wildly like it does in other countries.
Seems like weak bilangualism among deaf people is still a worldwide problem.
I agree with your view totally. I am a teacher myself.