Oct 21 2010

Happy one year to Cameron!

Happy Birthday to Kyle! (Yesterday. :/)

Yesterday I got to do the coolest thing ever!! For our Intro to Deaf Education class we have to take two trips to Deaf Schools. Yesterday we got to go the the Jean Massieu School (JMS) for the Deaf in West Valley. (Part of the new totally ridiculous Utah School for the Deaf and Blind. For those that don't realize the ridiculousness of this, look at the title for a while, and ponder what that truly means.) Anyway, we got to go. :] It was the greatest experience of my life. I was amazed at the intelligence and signing capability of these kids! What has taken me years to learn, and granted I am far from mastering the art, these kids just seem to know! It was amazing. We started with a tour of the whole school (which was basically just one long hallway they called Death Row.) It was so cool to see each classroom. There is nothing special about the decor, it seriously is just like every elementary classroom I ever attended in my life. However, the numbers are so few. There are only about 5-6 kids tops in each classroom. The desks are arranged in a small square, with the teacher on a chair in the middle. After our tour we broke off into small groups and went and observed each of the classrooms. My favorite and first class we visited was the fourth grade teacher. She was amazing with those kids. She used books, not to read, but to teach the kids real life concepts and signs. She had a way of using classifiers (which I never saw a point for before this moment I'll have you know) to get the kids to recognize the signs and concepts for themselves. She was amazing! I was so fascinated with the way she signed to those kids. There was a really problematic student and the way she handled him was amazing. She would get right down on his level, and not give up until he signed what she wanted him to, no matter how distracted he got. All at the same time of giving her attention to the other kids. After this, we went to the math class and watched the students learn math. This was also really cool, because the teacher incorporated hidden English and Reading into her math lessons to help the kids learn as well. It was cool, and she was my second favorite teacher. :] We got to go outside for a couple of minutes and watch the kids interact with one another during recess. It was really fun. We visited the Pre-K class, and they had us laughing so hard. These little three and four year olds were fascinated with us, and would sign full blown conversations with us. They knew more words than any other three or four year old I have ever met, and they were Deaf! It makes me even more mad at the statistics and facts that the hearing world labels these kids with. Why do they believe these Deaf kids are disabled? I spent an entire day with 70 or so of them, and never once did I notice a disability. They learn in a different language. They are not learning slower than the average hearing child. They are not learning less. The third graders I visited could speak 2 languages! They knew the correct English grammar and the correct ASL grammar. I know I couldn't do that when I was in third grade, and I was intelligent! This is not me saying I hate the hearing world, audiologists, oralists (kind of), or speech teachers. I hate the fact that everyone of those kids in that school is labeled as disabled in a hearing world where correctly functioning ears are a necessity. The only thing these kids can't do, is hear. And I don't believe that is going to stop them from doing anything they want. The only that will stop them is the people that can hear and can't understand. Now who is the less intelligent? If we can send someone to the moon, see Mars, build an iPhone and every other strange technology, why can't we believe that someone who can't hear can do anything we can? It's totally stupid. We believe in so much, why can't these kids be believed in too? It is really humbling to me. I value everything I have that much more now, because although I worked hard to get where I am, I know those kids will have to work ten times as hard to even get accepted to college. Let alone get the freedoms and scholarships I have in my college experiences. I am proud to say that I will get to teach these gifted individuals.