All that i can ever be is nothing more than myself
RSSPosts tagged with "deaf"
I love your blog! One of my teachers at school is deaf and she is absolutely lovely. She teaches all kinds of high school science classes plus ASL 1-3. What's it like to teach smaller children? I know as HS students we're really good about facing her when we talk and not mumbling, but what it's like with all these tiny children who just blabber on and on? Much Love, Kayla!
thank you for liking my blog!
thats AWESOME! im happy to see d/Deaf teachers teaching more than just ASL! we arent limited!
ahh! yes! i work with little kids, kindergarten and first grade, they arent the best at realizing and remembering what it means to be deaf and that they need to face me, speak clearly etc..
but what they lack in the aspect they make up for in patience. High schoolers may be better at being aware and conscious of a teacher who is deaf, but they tend to lose their patience and not appreciate having to repeat things (i observed in a hearing high school science class this semester). my little kids however have no problem repeating things 4, 5 even 6 or 7 times for me without getting frustrated. they also have come to the conclusion that if they stand behind me and talk to me im not going to respond so they tap me to get my attention.
when i am teaching, specifically i do all the art teaching in the classroom, i can control who talks and when so then i can go directly over to the child and figure out what they are saying. sometimes i have to ask other children what child A said but they never have problems with it. occasionally i just wont understand so i will bring said child over to one of the other teachers and ask them what child A is saying.
little kids also like to just blabber, they dont really want to have a conversation they just want to tell you all about their pink pony with the rainbow hair and glitter bows that they have at home. you can indulge them by smiling and nodding and laughing and asking, “oh really?” and they are perfectly happy.
when they are misbehaving i establish that IF i SEE anyone talking, even just lips moving i will assume they are talking and get their name on the board. then i will assign 2 students at either end of the classroom to tell me if anyone talks.
basically i work hard, i focus, i pay attention, i have my tricks and i love my kids.
i can do anything i want as long as i set my mind to it!
:)
deaf teacher. hearing students.
you know whats annoying? anytime i talk to people and tell them im a teacher, they assume i teach d/Deaf children. people also like to ask it really awkwardly, they hesitate, and ask, “is that for the…(then they overly mouth ‘deaf’ and point at their ears)” FYI if you are going to ask just come out and say, “hey you teach hearing or deaf?” thats not offensive, just inquisitive.
anyways, i correct them and say, no, i teach hearing kids.
and their first reaction is, “OMG how do you do that??” and then they ask, “oh well you must teach them sign language right??”
is that all im worth?? first my ability to teach hearing children is called into question and then my only valid contribution is to teach them sign language.
i am a deaf teacher. in a hearing kindergarten and first grade class. i communicate with them orally. i am one of three teachers, the other two of whom are hearing.
i hold my own. i work hard everyday. i am just as good as any other teacher and i teach them just like any other teacher. i am not isolated from my students or the other teachers. i am my students favorite teacher, they always ask me to stay longer and to come more often. i am the best student teacher my head teacher, in her 22 years of teaching private early elementary, has ever had.
i do my job. i love my job. and i do it well.
take me seriously.
IS IT JUST ME OR…
Does anyone else love watching youtube videos of little kids hearing for the first time? Seriously those videos bring out the tears. Their little confused faces once they turn on the implants and hearing aids are heartbreakingly adorable. I think its safe to say that if those videos don’t warm your heart than you just don’t have one.
its not just you. its a large percentage of the Hearing population. and this reaction is actually quite frustrating, angering, even triggering to d/Deaf/HOH EVEN other hearing people.
‘confused faces’?!? really? thats cute and sweet?? getting blasted by sound?? its actually not FUN, its painfull, shocking, disorienting, its annoying and frustrating.
i have a heart. i am quite empathetic. i am kind and caring. i put others needs before my own. but these videos dont warm my heart, they annoy me because of the reactions like yours that are worse than the videos themselves.
think next time and educate yourself before spouting ridiculous offensive nonsense.
sincerly, a deaf girl.
I’m not really into girls, but I have always wanted to date a deaf girl. There’s something magical about it, don’y you think?
oh yes so magical i shoot rainbows out my snatch dont ya know??
ewww hearing fetishizing deaf is gross.
it bothers me when hearing people start preaching about Deaf culture.
there is a difference between educating someone and full out preaching.
it bothers me when i see hearing people who think themselves allies write things like, “Deafness is not a disability! and screw all stupid ignorant parents who force their poor deaf child to be isolated and grow up alone!”
some d/Deaf people DO consider themselves disabled. and thats not a bad thing. its a persons identity. and theirs to choose. and yeah, some parents are uneducated about Deaf culture, or even deafness in general, but that means they are just as uneducated as you were at some point its not your job to call them out as being horrible. and growing up oral doesnt mean a child needs your pity. instead advocate for the childs right to equal access to everything.
a better way to say something like that is, “Deaf culture does not view being Deaf as a disability. It is important to educate parents of deaf children on the ways of Deaf culture so that they can provide their child with the best access to language.” then refer them to such and such d/Deaf person.
d/Deaf/ HOH people are all different. and its not your job as an ally to preach, educate and refer yes, but i see ASL students getting all huffy and offended and angry and going over board with out any acknowledgement from any d/Deaf people, and often they say things offensive to deaf and HOH people. You get angry? think about how we feel, we live it.
reasons why its important to teach inclusively about d/Deaf/HOH people in Deaf studies classes. and to teach how students should react to lack of Deaf knowledge in the hearing community.
Here’s a few thoughts:
- Maybe people can have meaningful interactions with others without having to hear them, lets say: through text, sign, and non-verbal interaction.
- Maybe cochlear implants are a rather new science which is imperfect, has a chance of destroying residual hearing irreparably without working, and don’t operate in the same auditory input that the hearing understand it as.
- Maybe getting a cochlear implant is a nuanced decision considering that even though there can be strong positives, there’s also huge downsides
- Maybe there should be less representation everywhere of the poor, dejected deaf people being “fixed” and normalized, and a less ableist/audist focus on holy shit deaf people get by just fine but sometimes technology is cool.
Cochlear implants can be awesome, I know people who have or who are getting cochlear implants who are awesome, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with them.
What is wrong, is the media portrayal and general memetic presence of the pitying narrative of somebody’s life being a bit incomplete by not being able to hear, or the heartbreaking sadness of it, or the overwhelming triumph that is making it so that the deaf can hear. Narratives of normalization in relation to disability denigrate the disabled. Whether or not to seek a cochlear implant or other likewise mitigating treatment in terms of a disability is the choice of the disabled, and often those treatments have downsides just as well. There are those of us who wouldn’t get those treatments even if there weren’t downsides, because there’s solidarity and power in an identity of disabled or d/Deaf.I appreciate the betterment of people’s lives when they want it, and the easing of accessibility, but I do not appreciate being told that there is an aspect of me that needs to be “fixed”, that I am essentially broken, or that there is something missing from my life for the lack thereof of those experiences. I’m tired of self-pity, maybe sometimes I haven’t been able to hear and I’ve been excluded for it, but that’s not my fault and it’s not the impetus of my identity, but those around me who buy into such ableist notions of access.
I don’t need hearing as much as I need a just portrayal of disability. One impairs me in superficial manners, the other marginalizes. I can work around “impairment”. Marginalization meanwhile, seeps in everywhere.
ASL with “FF-want?”
From a recent Skype video chat from a friend of mine, Andrew mentioned he’d like to see ASL as a required language in schools all over the country. Hmmm. He got me thinking (and thinking is something I don’t do often — so pay attention, this is going to be good).
Now that I think about it, high schools offer a lot of foreign languages. Spanish, French, German, Russian, Latin — whoa, waitaminute. Latin? With all due respect to the classics, what use does the average high school student have for Latin?
SIGNLINGOPHOBIA
(Note; this is not an official word but a playword. I originally came up with signphobia. Apparently, it seems signphobia means fear of sign boards or ad boards.)
Now you’re thinking, what the heck is signlingophobia, Mike?! Allow me to explain. I believe all of you know what is phobia. Let’s take a look at SIGNLINGO, shall we?
SIGN- Reference of Sign Languages
LINGO- Spanish noun for Language
Combination: SIGNLINGOPHOBIA. And the meaning? You guessed it right! Signlingophobia is the fear of Sign Language.
If you ask me, why would there be signlingophoia? Because—
- Audism exists
- Audists fear/hate sign language
- Oralism is preventing sign language and an access to understand what’s being said.
- there are so many people who believes sign language would delay English/native language acquisition or speech skills.
- there are also people who does not like sign language
I’m pretty sure many of you have heard about myths and stories about Deaf people (especially black Deaf people). For some reasons, black Deaf people getting insulted because people think they are making “gang signs” . Not to mention, self-pity deaf people blaming the language as the source of illiteracy.
If you’re a proud Deafie from different country (I don’t care where you from), it’s time to show your sign language is the beautiful language. AND tell the world your sign language is nothing to be feared of. Because if you don’t—that’s the end of beautiful sign language as we know it.
Peace and Love,
MikePS: Did you know lexidactylophobia (fear of fingerspelling) exists?
![ewitty:
jannelleisstillalive:
thedailywhat:
Heartwarming Tearjerker of the Day: Four-year-old comic book fan Anthony Smith is deaf in his right ear and has hearing damage in his left. He also refused to wear his hearing aid (which he calls “Blue Ear” because it is blue), because “superheroes don’t wear hearing aids.” So in a long-shot attempt to help her son, Anthony’s mom emailed Marvel for ideas.
“She didn’t know a specific person to write to here at Marvel, and even figured it might get caught in our spam filters, but she sent it in anyway, because that’s the kind of great parent Christina is,” said Marvel editor Bill Rosemann. “And it was her inspiring effort to help her son that touched so many of us here. As a fellow parent of a toddler, I can understand where she’s coming from, so I forwarded the email around the rest of Editorial, asking what we could do to help, and like when Cap yells, ‘Avengers Assemble,’ the gang leapt into action.”
Not only did Anthony receive an image of the superhero Hawkeye, who lost 80 percent of his hearing back in the ’80s and wore hearing aids — Anthony also received a drawing of a brand-new superhero: “Blue Ear.”
Now, with his hearing aid back in, Anthony is able to “fight battles and help people.” His preschool, for hearing-impaired kids, recently hosted a superhero week to inspire the students to overcome their limitations.
DON’T miss the video. It’s the best thing you’ll see all day.
[death+taxes / robot6]
This is a very sweet story, but I have some thoughts.
The emphasis here is on the way in which these comics have encouraged him to utilize his hearing aid- and not about something much deeper, about how deaf children yearn for role models. It makes me sad, and not because without his hearing aid he is somehow deprived (which is the sentiment I get from this news story). It makes me sad because audism/phonocentrism are so hegemonic in our society that a little boy believes that he can’t be a hero with a hearing aid.
I hate this sentence: “His preschool, for hearing-impaired kids, recently hosted a superhero week to inspire the students to overcome their limitations.” First, “hearing impaired” is an offensive term. Second, the trope of “overcoming” is damaging and has been heavily covered in disability studies as reductive and oppressive. And third, what “limitations”? I like that superheroes, generally, are different from larger society- often that which makes them different makes them a hero [ here’s an example of ten that I read about recently: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/76853 ]. Instead of emphasizing THAT message for these children- instead of teaching them that difference is good or powerful and valuable to society, this boy was left staring at drawings of costumed men and feeling like he could never be like them.
Don’t get me wrong. Its beautiful what this mother did for her son. Its great how Marvel created a hero that could be a role model for this boy. But for me, the story reveals a larger problem in how people view deaf children/people and how deaf children/people view themselves.
Well articulated counter argument.
THIS. EVERYTHING. THIS. ^^](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4jd3cjjOf1qzpwi0o1_500.jpg)
Heartwarming Tearjerker of the Day: Four-year-old comic book fan Anthony Smith is deaf in his right ear and has hearing damage in his left. He also refused to wear his hearing aid (which he calls “Blue Ear” because it is blue), because “superheroes don’t wear hearing aids.” So in a long-shot attempt to help her son, Anthony’s mom emailed Marvel for ideas.
“She didn’t know a specific person to write to here at Marvel, and even figured it might get caught in our spam filters, but she sent it in anyway, because that’s the kind of great parent Christina is,” said Marvel editor Bill Rosemann. “And it was her inspiring effort to help her son that touched so many of us here. As a fellow parent of a toddler, I can understand where she’s coming from, so I forwarded the email around the rest of Editorial, asking what we could do to help, and like when Cap yells, ‘Avengers Assemble,’ the gang leapt into action.”
Not only did Anthony receive an image of the superhero Hawkeye, who lost 80 percent of his hearing back in the ’80s and wore hearing aids — Anthony also received a drawing of a brand-new superhero: “Blue Ear.”
Now, with his hearing aid back in, Anthony is able to “fight battles and help people.” His preschool, for hearing-impaired kids, recently hosted a superhero week to inspire the students to overcome their limitations.
DON’T miss the video. It’s the best thing you’ll see all day.
[death+taxes / robot6]
This is a very sweet story, but I have some thoughts.
The emphasis here is on the way in which these comics have encouraged him to utilize his hearing aid- and not about something much deeper, about how deaf children yearn for role models. It makes me sad, and not because without his hearing aid he is somehow deprived (which is the sentiment I get from this news story). It makes me sad because audism/phonocentrism are so hegemonic in our society that a little boy believes that he can’t be a hero with a hearing aid.
I hate this sentence: “His preschool, for hearing-impaired kids, recently hosted a superhero week to inspire the students to overcome their limitations.” First, “hearing impaired” is an offensive term. Second, the trope of “overcoming” is damaging and has been heavily covered in disability studies as reductive and oppressive. And third, what “limitations”? I like that superheroes, generally, are different from larger society- often that which makes them different makes them a hero [ here’s an example of ten that I read about recently: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/76853 ]. Instead of emphasizing THAT message for these children- instead of teaching them that difference is good or powerful and valuable to society, this boy was left staring at drawings of costumed men and feeling like he could never be like them.
Don’t get me wrong. Its beautiful what this mother did for her son. Its great how Marvel created a hero that could be a role model for this boy. But for me, the story reveals a larger problem in how people view deaf children/people and how deaf children/people view themselves.
Well articulated counter argument.
THIS. EVERYTHING. THIS. ^^
About All that i can ever be is nothing more than myself
22.
Feminist.
Deaf.
<3 Tattoos.
<3 Books.
Teacher.
Feminist.
Deaf.
<3 Tattoos.
<3 Books.
Teacher.
