A collection of interviews of Deaf and Hard of Hearing people.
Feel free to submit your biography, story, or interview:
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Bienenstock, Michael
Bonheyo, Bridgit
Ehrig, Brent
Galien, Terol
Kelsey, David
Rubery, Connie
Senter, Kim
Vicars, Belinda
Vicars, William
Note to readers:
This next bit of discussion is a bit of a touchy topic.
To put it in perspective, you need to remember that other people's students are constantly
requesting that I help them do their homework for them (instead of them
doing their own homework). Often they contact or approach me
because their instructor has "required" them to interview a Deaf person.
I try to always be available to every student (both mine and the students of
other instructors), but, you can understand, after
the first thirty or forty interviews a person starts to ask himself if the
problem isn't the student, but rather it is the instructors who are assigning
their
students to go interview Deaf people -- instead of arranging for Deaf people
to come to the classroom.
Putting the burden on the student to find a Deaf person to interview is a lazy and cheap way to teach.
In any case, below are several questions recently asked of me by somebody
else's student and my answers. They sent me the questions as an email.
Question:
Do you feel that sign language should be used with handicapped people? Why
or why not?
Response:
Yes. Sign language enhances communication by either augmenting spoken
communication or replacing it when it isn't available. Sign language
encourages and expedites cognitive development, especially if and when used
prior to acquisition of verbal (spoken) language skills.
Question:
Should there be boundaries set with this communication?
Response:
Oh sure, there should be a few boundaries. No using sign language while
standing naked in line at the supermarket. No using sign language while
holding on to a vial of nitro glycerin. No sign language while holding TWO
cups of piping hot coffee. No sign language....
Jeez! That question is whack. Plus, you misspelled "boundaries" (but I
corrected it for you).
I mean, that is like asking, "Should there be boundaries set on women?"
Nobo folks nobo. That means "No Boundaries."
Question:
Do you fell that the hearing community has taken advantage of sign language
to communicate with HC people?
Response:
Do I "fell?" Oh you mean "FEEL!" (When you turn in this paper make sure to
leave it spelled "fell" okay? Advice: If you want people to
take you seriously, use "spell check.")
Sure, I fell, er, I mean feel Hearing people have "taken advantage" of ASL. The question
itself though smacks of cultural bias. When did using ASL become a crime?
Oh that's right--it was about the time that the Deaf Culture Police (DCP) started carrying tasers and mace. What are we so afraid of? Ooh the bad hearing people are
going to benefit from "our" language? A tragedy indeed. Tsk, tsk.
Okay you Deaf Power People (DPP), let's all lower our fist from it's
position high in the air and remove the other hand covering our ear and--GROW
UP!
Question:
Any other comments.
Response:
Tell your Deaf Culture Teacher he owes me $20 for helping him teach his
class. (Requiring students to interview Deaf people is a form of "asymmetric
instruction." (Shifting the instruction to a different time, place, or
person). It is no different really from having a guest instructor come
to your class and spend twenty (or more) minutes of their time with your students.
Your (college) instructor typically gets paid $60 an hour or so for student/teacher
contact. So, now I've invested 20 minutes (longer actually) in contact with one of his students, he should come teach my class for 20
minutes or pay me $20. [Or stop requiring students to request unremunerated
(unpaid) donations of time and expertise from the Deaf community].
----------------
Note: Readers of this newsletter may feel ("fell" heh) that I've been
overly harsh or rough in my replies to this student. Ask yourself.
How much time did the student put into this situation? Did he or she
offer to take me to lunch for my time? Did he or she even bother to spell
check? But that is not my real point. The sharpness of my
comments is more directed toward the instructors out there who give their
students assignments without providing appropriate avenues and methods to
complete the assignment.
I knew an instructor once who required her ASL 2 students to each interview
a deaf person and RECORD IT ON VIDEO as proof that they did it. That
means 25 students are now going to go waste the time of 25 Deaf people and glean only a very, very small fraction of the information they could
have gotten had they read a decent Deaf Culture book instead. While
many of these Deaf individuals won't mind doing the interview, many will do
it out of guilt or some sense of not wanting to be a bad person. Can you see
it from the point of the Deaf person? Sitting there patiently waiting
for the Hearing student to struggle through sentence after sentence.
And it happens semester after semester. My opinion is that if the ASL
instructor wants his or her students to meet a deaf person, the instructor should HIRE a Deaf
guest speaker and PAY the
guest for his or her time, (and include mileage!). If the instructor
wants his students to have one-on-one time signing back and forth with a
Deaf person then the instructor should set up a lab and PAY a lab assistant
to come sign with his students. Sending students to go out and "find" Deaf
people is a cheap and lazy teacher's method of creating an ASL lab.