The Grand Scheme of Things

I am a member of a little understood, often misunderstood, profession: the education of deaf children. I've been interpreting for deaf children in the education setting for over three years now and it still never ceases to amaze me when teachers or other professionals say or do things that run contrary to the goal of educating said deaf children. I know they mean well, and they haven't been trained and/or educated on deafness and issues related to hearing loss, but sometimes I just want to tell them to stop and just think logically about deafness and the impact it could have on a child's education. Or sometimes, the teachers will be so intent on the little things that they lose sight of the bigger picture. The bigger picture being these kids gaining some kind of an understanding of the world around them and becoming independent.

Case in point: Monday in language arts the teacher was talking about the seven continents. I don't remember the reason behind this discussion (we were in language arts, not social studies) but the teacher kept singing this ridiculous song about the continents to try to get the students to memorize all seven. Now, censure me if you will, but I did not interpret the song; instead I employed the ASL technique of listing and I presented the continents several times in list form. At the end of this rigmarole of the teacher singing the song about eight times (and me listing the continents about thirty times), the teacher turned to me and asked if I thought that the student heard any of the song.

****Side Note: I cannot tell you how many times teachers have turned to me in the middle of class and asked me if so-and-so student has heard them. And about 99.975% of the time I will say, "No." That's my rote answer; the real answer is much more involved than a simple "no." Keep in mind that we're in the middle of class, a time when teaching/learning/thought processing, etc., is supposed to be occurring. Teachers ask me stuff all the time in the middle of class and I'm never quite sure how I'm supposed to respond. Like, am I supposed to drop my hands and answer them? Or am I supposed to try to interpret what the teacher just asked me and then reply using some janky form of SimCom (simultaneous communication=talking and signing at the same time and is literally impossible to do)? On days when I'm feeling particularly peckish, I just interpret the question straight and let the moment hang there, uncomfortably, until I finally turn and answer. I also hate it when teachers tell me not to interpret something, but I'm getting away from myself, that's a topic for another day. Anyway, back to the question of whether or not the student can hear the teacher...

First of all, depending on the student, yes, he/she can hear you. But I can't just say that to the teacher; teachers generally don't understand hearing and listening and comprehension. Hearing is not listening, listening is not comprehension. Also, hearing is not discrimination, meaning yes, the student hears noise and sounds, but he doesn't know what any of those sounds are. The ability to discriminate speech sounds can be quite difficult. Basically, some of the students who have some hearing ability hear Charlie Brown's teacher when you, the teacher, speaks. Now, you and I know what that sounds like. Yes, we can hear it, but does it have meaning?

Second, factor in all of the other noise in the classroom, which is more than just the students talking and making noise. EVERYTHING makes noise: writing, turning pages, moving one's chair, dropping a pencil, the heat register, etc. Interestingly, even though hearing people don't have the ability to NOT hear something (we can't turn our ears off, like deaf people can close their eyes), we're pretty good at tuning things out. But hearing aids amplify everything, not just the speech sounds. I've heard simulations of what hearing through amplification is like and it's difficult to pick out what is being said.

Third, I am not in that student's head. I can look at said student's audiogram and tell you what I think he can perceive, but as to what the student actually hears and then actually understands, I can't tell you. I don't know.

Those three points are what I really want to answer when teachers ask me if the student can hear them, but when we're in the middle of class I don't have time to expound on all of the finer points of listening and hearing, so I just say, "No."

****Side Note over, let's get back to my story.

Anyway, the language arts teacher asked me if the deaf student heard any of her song naming the continents. I, as I've just explained, said, "No." And then the teacher went on to express disappointment that said student had to miss out on it (believe me, kid, you weren't missing anything) and wondered if there wasn't some way that we could convey the rhythm of the song to him. I was flabbergasted by this teacher. And this is a teacher who is on the higher end of "getting it" when it comes to deafness. I just felt like we took a huge step backwards in our progress. And I felt like scratching my eyes out (but not really because then I couldn't do my job...well, I guess I could still voice-to-sign interpret, but learning new vocabulary would be super difficult). Normally, I wouldn't react so strongly to a statement like that, but this teacher was so earnest in her desire to get this kid to learn this song. Forget the fact that due to my stellar interpreting, utilizing the ASL linguistic feature of listing, this student now knows the seven continents, thus receiving the same understanding that the hearing students have.

I just wonder where the teachers' priorities are sometimes. Is it important for this boy to learn a silly song about the continents in language arts class? This boy reads at a first grade level but he's in the sixth grade. This boy struggles with multiple-meaning words. This boy has difficulty answering direct questions. He cannot always tell you the cause and effect of things. He will sign a beautiful answer to me but when it comes time to actually write the answer on his paper, he cannot. And you, language arts teacher, are worried that he didn't get to hear your song about the continents?