So, tomorrow I start the summer reading program and I will be working with a little boy who probably cannot read well, if at all. Today I went to the library to pick out some picture books and I was totally stymied. I don't know if the library professionals who read my blog have different experiences in their libraries, but my local library's children section was a MADHOUSE today. A complete cacophony of chaotic children. I didn't even see that it was storytime or anything. These children were just running around like cuckoos. I couldn't hardly take it. I was not surprised to see that the mother of some of the children was wearing an orange sports bra with NO over-shirt. Even if it were appropriate to go out in public wearing only a sports bra and no shirt, which it is MOST CERTAINLY NOT APPROPRIATE, this was one of the last women on Earth who should have been going about town dressed like that. If one's mother goes out in public clad only in underwear, is it a surprise that her children will run around the library like idiots? It wasn't only this woman's children, though. I was perturbed to see that several other children were running around, shrieking. I don't care if it is the children's section and that we are on a separate floor from the rest of the library, WE ARE IN A LIBRARY! FOR PETE'S SAKE!! Shut up and act with some decorum.
My other beef with the children's section? The complete lack of order in the bookshelves. That is to say, the picture books, which is what I was browsing, searching for materials, were a disaster. Supposedly, they are shelved alphabetically according to the author's last name, but within each letter the books were a mess. There were several that the card catalog said were on the shelf, but I could not locate. WE ARE IN A LIBRARY! FOR PETE'S SAKE!! Let's get some order to these books!
Monday, June 30, 2008
The Spectrum
Tomorrow morning I start the summer reading mentor program our school district hosts for deaf and hard of hearing students. I will be working with a little boy who is about kindergarten/first grade age. I have not yet met this student but I've been told that he is "oral", which in our district really means that no one at home signs and he has not yet learned how to sign for himself. Our district doesn't have any strictly "oral" profoundly deaf students; the people in charge downtown have at least figured that out, as much as they are clueless concerning other topics. I say this because I've seen oralism in a school district that ran a strictly oral deaf education program. Needless to say, I was horrified by the whole experience.
So, when people in my district say that a deaf student is oral, I know it to mean that the student has not yet started signing as a means of communication, not that the student's parents want to raise the student to be an auditory/oral-only communicator. Tomorrow should be interesting because I have no idea what this child's communication skills will be like and I don't know what to expect when we sit down to start reading a book together. I have prior experience working with a different boy, around the same age, who had no communication capabilities. Seriously. Imagine a six year old child who cannot even pick out a red crayon if asked.
How do I get to work with students who have no language? Well, it's a long and complicated answer, but a good deal of it concerns parents and the professionals they are introduced to at the onset of their child's deafness. Detection of deafness in infants is getting better, but there are still many children who are not diagnosed as being deaf until they are a year or more old. Traditionally, parents have not even thought that their child could have been born deaf until they realize that their child is not learning to speak. By the time the child is diagnosed, a huge delay in language learning has occurred. Often, when parents learn their child is deaf or hard of hearing they are only introduced to professionals who have a medical view of deafness. This means that these professionals view deafness as an ailment that needs to be treated and cured. The child is then fit with hearing aids, possibly with the aim of undergoing surgery for a cochlear implant. Learning sign language is usually not a priority, because professionals with a medical view of hearing loss tend to believe that relying on a visual language hinders the development of a spoken one.
However the process unfolds, it is not uncommon for these deaf and hard of hearing children to arrive at school with NO language base. They have nothing with which to build concepts and apply new knowledge. These children cannot communicate even simple needs.
Of course, that is one extreme. Unfortunately, I've only worked with two students who came from the other extreme. They were brother and sister and were born deaf to deaf parents. I had the experience of interpreting for the sister in her Spanish III class and her English class where they were reading Dante's Inferno. She graduated a few years ago and is attending KSU, majoring in nursing. The brother graduated this year and is going to attend NTID which is part of RIT. He plans on majoring in civil engineering. Oh, the advantage that having access to language from birth gives one.
Most of the deaf and hard of hearing children I know fall in between those two extremes. Most of the kids are pretty fluent at signing (not necessarily in ASL, though) and they do alright when they're at school.
So, when people in my district say that a deaf student is oral, I know it to mean that the student has not yet started signing as a means of communication, not that the student's parents want to raise the student to be an auditory/oral-only communicator. Tomorrow should be interesting because I have no idea what this child's communication skills will be like and I don't know what to expect when we sit down to start reading a book together. I have prior experience working with a different boy, around the same age, who had no communication capabilities. Seriously. Imagine a six year old child who cannot even pick out a red crayon if asked.
How do I get to work with students who have no language? Well, it's a long and complicated answer, but a good deal of it concerns parents and the professionals they are introduced to at the onset of their child's deafness. Detection of deafness in infants is getting better, but there are still many children who are not diagnosed as being deaf until they are a year or more old. Traditionally, parents have not even thought that their child could have been born deaf until they realize that their child is not learning to speak. By the time the child is diagnosed, a huge delay in language learning has occurred. Often, when parents learn their child is deaf or hard of hearing they are only introduced to professionals who have a medical view of deafness. This means that these professionals view deafness as an ailment that needs to be treated and cured. The child is then fit with hearing aids, possibly with the aim of undergoing surgery for a cochlear implant. Learning sign language is usually not a priority, because professionals with a medical view of hearing loss tend to believe that relying on a visual language hinders the development of a spoken one.
However the process unfolds, it is not uncommon for these deaf and hard of hearing children to arrive at school with NO language base. They have nothing with which to build concepts and apply new knowledge. These children cannot communicate even simple needs.
Of course, that is one extreme. Unfortunately, I've only worked with two students who came from the other extreme. They were brother and sister and were born deaf to deaf parents. I had the experience of interpreting for the sister in her Spanish III class and her English class where they were reading Dante's Inferno. She graduated a few years ago and is attending KSU, majoring in nursing. The brother graduated this year and is going to attend NTID which is part of RIT. He plans on majoring in civil engineering. Oh, the advantage that having access to language from birth gives one.
Most of the deaf and hard of hearing children I know fall in between those two extremes. Most of the kids are pretty fluent at signing (not necessarily in ASL, though) and they do alright when they're at school.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Hooray! I'm back online!
Well, after two weeks of technical difficulties, I'm finally able to log onto the Internet from home! The cable/Internet provider of northeast Ohio finally came through and I am back to receiving the services for which I pay $97 a month. It remains to be seen if they will accurately credit our account for the 14 DAYS when we were unable to watch our television or use our computer for the Internet.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Alice Cooper: Only partially correct
Yes, school's out for summer...unfortunately, it's not out forever. *Sigh* One could hope.
Let's see, yesterday was my first official day of summer break, and I actually accomplished some things. I stayed in bed until 8:30 (my version of sleeping in). I don't consider myself a morning person, seriously, if you've ever seen me at school, you would know that first period and I are not friends. But, when one is used to the alarm going off at six a.m., sleeping in till 8:30 is wonderful. Even by mid-summer I will probably not sleep in much past 8:30 or 9:00. I like getting up then because it is still (usually) cool outside and fairly quiet. Also, if I sleep in much past 10:00, I feel like too much of the day has gone by.
So, anyway, yesterday, I got up at 8:30 and packed lunch for someone who DID have to go to school. Haha! Then I sat outside on our balcony and read a library book for a while. A little later on, I drove over to the library and returned a book, signed up for the adult summer reading program and won a prize. The library has three reading programs going on (Sis, are you taking notes?); one is to write down every book you've read and enter them into weekly drawings for tickets to various local activities, i.e. tickets to the zoo, botanical gardens, baseball tickets, etc. At the end of the summer there will be a grand prize drawing for a $100 gas giftcard. The library is also hosting a "book adventure" game where patrons ask for clues and fill out a clue sheet. The third way to win a prize is to locate a hidden passport amongst the stacks. I found one, which is how I won a prize yesterday, and turned it in to the info desk. I got to pick a prize from the prize basket and I picked a water bottle (my other choices were pieces of candy and pencils, so I picked the best prize I could).
After I went to the library, I went over to Target and did some shopping, then I went to the grocery store to pick up milk. After that, I went home and sat outside to do some more reading. I played some games on the computer and did a load of laundry. All of this in the same time that I would normally have been at school.
Ahh, I love summer vacation.
Let's see, yesterday was my first official day of summer break, and I actually accomplished some things. I stayed in bed until 8:30 (my version of sleeping in). I don't consider myself a morning person, seriously, if you've ever seen me at school, you would know that first period and I are not friends. But, when one is used to the alarm going off at six a.m., sleeping in till 8:30 is wonderful. Even by mid-summer I will probably not sleep in much past 8:30 or 9:00. I like getting up then because it is still (usually) cool outside and fairly quiet. Also, if I sleep in much past 10:00, I feel like too much of the day has gone by.
So, anyway, yesterday, I got up at 8:30 and packed lunch for someone who DID have to go to school. Haha! Then I sat outside on our balcony and read a library book for a while. A little later on, I drove over to the library and returned a book, signed up for the adult summer reading program and won a prize. The library has three reading programs going on (Sis, are you taking notes?); one is to write down every book you've read and enter them into weekly drawings for tickets to various local activities, i.e. tickets to the zoo, botanical gardens, baseball tickets, etc. At the end of the summer there will be a grand prize drawing for a $100 gas giftcard. The library is also hosting a "book adventure" game where patrons ask for clues and fill out a clue sheet. The third way to win a prize is to locate a hidden passport amongst the stacks. I found one, which is how I won a prize yesterday, and turned it in to the info desk. I got to pick a prize from the prize basket and I picked a water bottle (my other choices were pieces of candy and pencils, so I picked the best prize I could).
After I went to the library, I went over to Target and did some shopping, then I went to the grocery store to pick up milk. After that, I went home and sat outside to do some more reading. I played some games on the computer and did a load of laundry. All of this in the same time that I would normally have been at school.
Ahh, I love summer vacation.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Thank You Mom and Dad
Thank you Mom and Dad for being sensible, responsible parents and raising sensible, responsible children. Children who did not attend middle school dressed like total streetwalkers. Children who did not attend middle school acting like complete hooligans. Actually, now that I think about it, Mom and Dad, you should really be thanking the three of us, your children. Thank us because we did not act like imbeciles. Thank us because we did not dress like idiots. Thank us for being only mildly annoying and embarassing. Thank us for not becoming drug addicts. Thank us for earning excellent grades. Thank us for knowing the proper way to behave in public. Thank us for respecting our teachers. Thank us for NOT making your lives hell.
True Story: Today was the second to last day of school. I am ready for summer break. The kids think that they are ready for the summer, but they have no idea how happy the staff members are to see them go.
True Story: Today was the second to last day of school. I am ready for summer break. The kids think that they are ready for the summer, but they have no idea how happy the staff members are to see them go.
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