Nov 11 2010

This week has been slow.

But I did get to do a really cool thing on Tuesday! My Intro to Deaf Education class had a trip planned up to Gooding, Idaho to visit the School for the Deaf and Blind there. We left early early Tuesday morning and drove up there. (3 hours driving mind you, not fun.) It was the coolest experience though! This is a residential school, unlike the one in Salt Lake, where the kids stay at the school and go home on the weekends. It is the coolest thing. It was interesting for me to actually be there and to see that, because in class I know that that type of school is so much better. However, it made it real for me to see this little 3rd, 4th, 5th graders living on their own basically, away from home. They all loved it, but it was hard for me to see. But I still advocate going to a School for the Deaf as the best, especially if the parents don't sign. It was so fun though! Me and Emily, a girl who I have gotten to know really well up here, were a group so we wandered around the school together and visited the classrooms. At the school, they use the Sim Com or Total Communication method. This means that while they are signing ASL, they are speaking English. It was really really hard to get used to at first, and we didn't like it at all. But as we were there longer throughout the day, and got to know the kids better, we realized that it was necessary. A lot of the kids are hard of hearing, or have hearing aids/cochlear implants and their ASL skills are not very good, if they even have them. So the Total Communication is helpful because they are understanding, and getting that exposure to ASL that is needed. The coolest part was that our van driver, Curt Radford (who is a teacher up here, and went to that school when he was growing up) pretty much hooked me up. :] His roommate from the school in Texas is the principal at the New York School for the Deaf. We were talking about how I would love to go to New York, and he told me that if I wanted, I could have a job there tomorrow. It was exciting, and now I'm even more confused on what I want to do with my life. We will see how this all plays out however.