While revisiting "Breaking the Code," an educational video on Cued Speech produced by Jennifer Bien, I went through the recent comments on the YouTube page and realized just how much negative comments there were in comparison to the positive ones. I wasn't surprised at the fact that there were negative comments, after all Cued Speech was created at Gallaudet University by Dr. Orin Cornett in the middle of a bastion of ASL Culture.
What's interesting though is the content of those negative comments. None of these comments indicate that Cued Speech has had a harmful impact on any of the commenter's lives, yet all these comments are derogatory in that ignorance allows them to claim Cued Speech is not an "official language" or that it is an "oppressive method." Another claim made was that Cued Speech and ASL "cannot exist in harmony."
I'll just quote the most recent comment, made by Tar2006.
"If I were Board of Education for that school. I will throw Cued Speech program out of the window in big time. I DEMAND put ASL in that program period! This is just disgusted me to see how much you abused their Deaf children's education by using Cued Speech which is unofficial recognized as language. Someone please delete this video.."
This comment reeks of ignorance and extreme prejudice. Unfortunately, this is a common theme that repeats throughout most of the negative comments posted over the course of the past year. Jennifer Bien, the producer and director of the video, responds to those comments in a polite manner, indicating that in the video an ASL interpreter is visible for those who prefer sign over captioning. Also, quite a number of the individuals in the video know ASL.
I have observed a pattern in the negative comments. A large number of these comments seem to be ridden with grammatical errors, suggesting that those detractors could have had an arduous academic experience, harboring resentments against those who had a role in their education. On the other hand, they may have deep roots in the ASL culture and resent any thing that might seem to present a threat to their culture. Either way their comments reiterate the need to improve the literacy levels of deaf and hard of hearing children, which Cued Speech addresses specifically.
Myths:
1. "Gallaudet does not support Cued Speech."
Cued Speech classes are offered each semester, with the primary audience being speech language pathology students (HSL 690 Introduction to Cued Speech and HSL 712 Cued Speech Seminar). Dr. Carol LaSasso, a faculty member of the Hearing, Speech, and Language Sciences department, leads the research on Cued Speech with published articles in various journals related to deaf education. There is also a virtual library of bibliographies hosted by Gallaudet's library with a link to the R. Orin Cornett Memorial Cued Speech Collection.
2. "Cued Speech and ASL cannot exist in harmony."
At each board meeting for the National Cued Speech Association, both transliterators and interpreters are provided for the deaf board members. Quite a number of native cuers also know ASL. In fact, at the last board meeting three other deaf board members and I went out to eat at a nice Italian restaurant. We all switched between signing and cueing, often cueing a word that we didn't know the sign for (or didn't want to fingerspell). At Cue Camp New England, I saw a native cuer interpreting Cued American English into ASL for a child who did not know Cued Speech. Native cuers that also sign learned ASL in different ways. Some chose to go to Gallaudet or RIT, while others grew up in a large community of signers. The rest learned ASL either in the classroom or through later exposure in the community (like me).
3. "Cued Speech is torture."
Where this came from, I do not know. Growing up, I don't remember feeling tortured. Waterboarding is torture in my opinion, but that's a debate for Congress to take up. Speech therapy can be troublesome for children who have therapists that focus on negative reinforcement instead of positive. Yet, Cued Speech is something to be learned for parents and something to be absorbed for young children. Torture is defined as "infliction of severe pain as a means of punishment or coercion" or "excruciating physical or mental pain." Doesn't seem like a definition that could be applied to Cued Speech.
4. Cued speech is "one of the most oppressive teaching methods."
Unlike AVT, where children are urged to utilize their speech to the fullest and communicate verbally, Cued Speech doesn't require a child to utilize his speech. It is simply a visual mode of expressing spoken language. At the same time, cuers can utilize their speech while cueing simultaneously. I cannot recall a case where a native cuer was admonished for using sign language or refusing to cue. Another point to make is that Cued Speech certainly isn't a widespread method like AVT and ASL are. In Minnesota, there are a few programs that incorporate both Cued Speech AND ASL together, as showcased in an episode of Reading Rockets, titled "Signs of Literacy."
5. Cued Speech is "not a language."
Well, Cued Speech is not a language, but a visual communication system that expresses spoken language verbatim. Instead, we refer to "cued languages" as the visual languages that native cuers are exposed to. Consider cued languages as a visual mirror of spoken languages. The concept of Cued Speech is to break down spoken language at the phonemic level so that each phoneme is visualized consecutively as a "cuem" to create a cued language. My first language was Cued American English in a Southern Dialect (i.e. my parents were from the South so they would cue to me the way they pronounce it in their distinct accent).
In the end, there'll always be animosity from people who don't understand or fear Cued Speech. The reality is there's no excuse to leave unsubstantiated derogatory remarks for people to see. These negative comments are a reflection on the detractors' character, and everyone can see plain and clear that those individuals are ignorant and prejudiced.
"The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance" - Socrates
Cued Speech on YouTube
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Sunday, November 4, 2007
AGBMS/AEHI Gala
Today Mary-Beth and I went to the AGBMS/AEHI Gala at the Hilton Northbrook Hotel.
AGBMS (Alexander Graham Bell Montessori School - www.agbms.org) is supported by AEHI (Alternatives in Education for the Hearing Impaired - www.aehi.org).
Ben Lachman's parents (a deaf native cuer) had struggles with the public school systems with the core of the issue mainstreaming Ben in the local elementary school. The school system won the lawsuit, which indicated that the school system had the right to place a deaf child in the appropriate program regardless of location. Essentially Ben had to ride a special bus or have arrangements to be dropped off at a school further away which had a deaf and hard of hearing program.
As a result of this lawsuit, Ben's parents went on to found AEHI and help found AGBMS. Ben is one of many cuers that graduated from AGBMS and moved on to mainstream education. I saw the school myself and realized that the school was in a commercial-type building originally intended for an business office. While sitting in on the AEHI's board meeting (I was in town for business), I saw the board members at work ensuring that AGBMS had all the support it needed and preparing for the big transition to a new location. At this time a new school building is being built next to the Chicago Executive Airport.
This was my first experience meeting people who have a deep connection to AGBMS. For instance, I met two deaf cuers who went through the program. They both seemed really interested in getting involved in advocacy and taking part in the Adult Deaf/HoH workshop. Now MB and I have found more motivation to get the ball rolling in terms of starting monthly events for cuers. I just need to get back to my project with the Adult Deaf Cuers Committee, which is proving to be more of a challenge than I expected.
Another item on my list of things to do is take the CAECS-E and the national certification exam. If I pass both, I'll officially be certified as an instructor in Cued Speech. The next certification exam is in Cleveland, Ohio, where the next NCSA board meeting takes place. That reminds me of yet another task to carry out: creating amendments to the bylaws. The life of a board member. At this point, people should be part of a pool to see how long it takes for me to get burned out.
AGBMS (Alexander Graham Bell Montessori School - www.agbms.org) is supported by AEHI (Alternatives in Education for the Hearing Impaired - www.aehi.org).
Ben Lachman's parents (a deaf native cuer) had struggles with the public school systems with the core of the issue mainstreaming Ben in the local elementary school. The school system won the lawsuit, which indicated that the school system had the right to place a deaf child in the appropriate program regardless of location. Essentially Ben had to ride a special bus or have arrangements to be dropped off at a school further away which had a deaf and hard of hearing program.
As a result of this lawsuit, Ben's parents went on to found AEHI and help found AGBMS. Ben is one of many cuers that graduated from AGBMS and moved on to mainstream education. I saw the school myself and realized that the school was in a commercial-type building originally intended for an business office. While sitting in on the AEHI's board meeting (I was in town for business), I saw the board members at work ensuring that AGBMS had all the support it needed and preparing for the big transition to a new location. At this time a new school building is being built next to the Chicago Executive Airport.
This was my first experience meeting people who have a deep connection to AGBMS. For instance, I met two deaf cuers who went through the program. They both seemed really interested in getting involved in advocacy and taking part in the Adult Deaf/HoH workshop. Now MB and I have found more motivation to get the ball rolling in terms of starting monthly events for cuers. I just need to get back to my project with the Adult Deaf Cuers Committee, which is proving to be more of a challenge than I expected.
Another item on my list of things to do is take the CAECS-E and the national certification exam. If I pass both, I'll officially be certified as an instructor in Cued Speech. The next certification exam is in Cleveland, Ohio, where the next NCSA board meeting takes place. That reminds me of yet another task to carry out: creating amendments to the bylaws. The life of a board member. At this point, people should be part of a pool to see how long it takes for me to get burned out.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
First Blog
Even though I already have a Xanga account, I wanted to create something more formal where I can publish my thoughts in relation to hearing loss and all the issues that swirl around in the realm of deafness. I recently wrote a blog published on www.DeafDC.com summarizing keynote presentations and interesting turn of events at the AG Bell Summer Conference. Go figure, the discussion devolved into a debate over cochlear implants, when the point of the blog was to highlight the connections between language and reading.
My story:
My parents adopted me at 5 months old after a long wait for my biological mother to sign the adoption papers handing me over to them. Soon my mother began to notice some things, but it wasn't until I was 18 months old when I was diagnosed with profound bilateral hearing loss.
Of course, this was a huge shock to my parents as their typical first impression was that I would never grow to be a normal individual, with intelligible speech and average intelligence. My mother was the one who went all out in doing her research into what the options were, listening to professionals and parents tell them the facts. I would never have a normal life. I would never go to college. I would never be able to speak.
My mother met with teachers from the county school system, asking them how many deaf people graduated from Johnston County schools. To that point, only one graduated. She met with representatives from the school of the deaf in Wilson, less than a hour drive from home. She wasn't crazy about either of these paths.
All this put much stress on my mother, driving her to the brink of depression. Then someone from Beginnings, a non-profit intervention agency in North Carolina, referred my parents to Cued Speech. After meeting with Mary Elsie Daisy, the mother of the first child to learn Cued Speech, my parents started learning to cue when I was 19 months old.
5 months later, I became an expressive cuer. At 3 years old Barbara Lee, a teacher of the deaf, tested me, placing my language level at 18 months. Granted, I had a late start because my parents didn't learn of my deafness until later. By the time I was 5 years old, my parents debated whether to move to Raleigh or Wilmington for both cities had a community of cuers. They made the decision to move to the booming coastal town of Wilmington, NC from rural Johnston County, since my father landed a job there with the state.
I remember going through preschool with a transliterator, which was a first since I had never had any services of the kind back in Johnston County. When the time came for me to make the transition to kindergarten, I'll never forget that day where I saw my mom brisking walking down the hallway rushing to tell me the news that I'd be going to elementary school. The next year, I would remember spending most of my time in the special education class with other children who had obvious physical disabilities and not so obvious mental issues. I always sensed I was different from them, yet the teachers didn't make a distinction between deafness and mental disabilities then.
Then came the day I defied every one's beliefs and exceeded their expectations. My mom tells me the story of how at 6 years old in First grade, I was tested to read at the 4th grade level. I should have been with my peers who were currently in the Second grade. Despite having any quality auditory input from my analog hearing aids, I was able to increase my language by a matter of 7 years in just 3 years. Cued Speech had saved me from a life of being illiterate and behind my peers academically.
There's a twist to this part of my story. My resource teacher believed that I should still remain behind in First grade, yet my mother stuck to her beliefs of mainstreaming me. She discovered that it was not the resource teacher's decision, but the First and Second grade teachers who came to the consensus that I should join my peers. Apparently, my resource teacher was having an affair with the principal and abusing her position as his mistress to use funds in ways that did not necessarily contribute to our continuing education, so I'm told. In the end, she was fired and the principals of the elementary schools in the county were rotated so that the new principal was a father of a deaf cuer, advantageous to the Cued Speech program which continues to this day as a success with much support from the board of education.
Just before I turned seven, I went through surgery for the cochlear implant in Greensboro with Dr. Krause as my surgeon, one of the first surgeons to do implants in NC. I don't remember much about the process leading up to the surgery, but I do remember that they would be doing something for my hearing. There's small memories of videos of surgery, pictures of the inner ear, and the blood tests. I was always a happy-go-lucky kid so I didn't really have any fear going into the operation room. My first speech therapist was there in the operation room cueing instructions to me, telling me to count backwards from 8 to 0 as they put the anesthetic mask over me. My eyes closed and I saw the darkness.
I woke up in much discomfort and pain, most of it in the back of my head. I had a shunt attached to the base of my head to drain the blood from the location of the incision. I was stuck with a large plastic cup that held my bandages in place. I drifted in and out of consciousness, with memories of vomiting into a plastic receptacle in front of family and friends. I felt the humilation of sitting in front of those people, sick to my stomach and not being able to hold down my food. Thankfully I don't remember them pulling my shunt out. A few days later, I was on my way home from the hospital. I slept for most of the 4.5 hour drive to Wilmington east on I-40.
Some time later (a few months perhaps?) my parents and I went back to Greensboro so my implant could be activated. I remember little about that day, but I do remember the ride home and everything being so loud. Gosh, I never heard so many things before. The next few years would be a process of me asking my parents what that noise was and figuring things out for myself. I remember the birds chirping for the first time outside my house.
Going back through my records that my mom managed to save for me, I came across a 6-month post-activation report. It indicated that my speech intelligibility had improved 50% from practically nothing. I still had a ways to go before my speech was fully understood, which wouldn't occur until the end of high school.
As I went through the same records I found an audiogram done by Carolyn Brown, a renown audiologist at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill hospitals. The date of this audiogram was April 3, 1997, 5 years after my activation. My thresholds were at 35-40 dB and a note was marked "Wow!" next to percentages of word recognitions. Apparently I got 97% of CID (Central Institute for the Deaf) sentences right, a standard used by audiologists at the time for speech perception.
The years went on as I grew up, blacking out most of my middle school years since they were the worst years of my childhood. It was typical for me to get into scruffs with other boys on the blacktop during recess and lunch time. Most of it came from a lack of clear communication since I never had a handle on what everyone said. Clearly I was different from everyone because I had a transmitter attached to my head with a wire running down to the processor, slightly bigger than a deck of cards in my pocket. It sure didn't help either that I had a transliterator in the classroom all day long following me from class to class.
High school came and it was clear the rules were somewhat the same, but the playing field was different as there were new faces and I had a chance to start over. After a month or two of having transliterators in my classes, I came to the point where I said "Enough. No more Cued Speech." For the past few years, I was beginning to realize that I was paying more attention to the teacher than the transliterators, and they had become a nuisance rather than a necessity. I also had vanity issues since I didn't want to attract so much attention with their presence.
My mother gave in and signed off on the IEPs that indicated the changes to be made in the classroom. Of course my IEP required that I sit up front and that I wouldn't be held accountable for educational videos that did not have captioning. High school still was a social jungle with its cliques and the natural cycle of dealing with peer pressure and the desire to belong. I went through many phases before settling into the surfer clique, taking part in the ways of the beach bum as I got stoned and defied the law in many ways with friends that I have not heard from since high school.
I was a straight-A student before this period of rebellious activities, yet I still managed to stay in the top 25% percent with consistent A's and a few B's here and there. Life at home wasn't the best since my parents were basically separated, yet living under the same house to raise me together. It wasn't easy dealing with my mom with her overbearing and hard ways of raising me. Some people may call it tough love, but at the time I thought it was borderline abuse.
Being a surfer, I had my sights set on meteorology as a career so I applied to North Carolina State as an early decision. I had no doubt about my acceptance so I had no motivations to apply to any other schools. I just simply knew what I wanted and knew I would get it. For the next four years, I went through college just like any other typical average joe, skipping classes and doing kegstands at wee hours of the night. However, even though every professor had to announce the disclaimer for disability services the first day of each semester, I never bothered registering. Without the use of note takers or transliterators, I managed to graduate with a Bachelors of Science in Marine Sciences in four years with a GPA above 3.0.
In the last year of my college career, an event took place that would change my life forever. In October of 2006 I read an email sent by a friend from my old days of radicalism, with a link to a news report of protests at Gallaudet University. Apparently Jane K. Fernandes had stirred up everyone with her installation as the next president of Gallaudet, replacing I. King Jordan. I read news reports on the internet and in magazines, with sound bites such as "she's not deaf enough" and "she doesn't sign well." I was shocked to see this kind of response from the deaf community. I was confused and I had no idea that there were all these people out there that grew up with hearing loss.
Yet they all were signers. There were no signs of cuers anywhere. This prompted me to do some searching to see how large of a presence cuers had on the internet. Frankly, it was small. All the cuers I knew were all from the East Coast, between Maryland and South Carolina. I only saw those cuers once or twice a year at Camp Cheerio and occasional parties I would have for deaf people in the Raleigh area.
During all this I was in the midst of searching for grad schools to apply to, yet my heart wasn't it. Even though I had the luxury of having a prestigious research summer fellowship at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, I wasn't motivated to continue down the path of scientific research. As I did more research into the presence of Cued Speech in the educational setting, I came to the conclusion that there was still much work to be done. I had found my calling.
In March of this year, I spent my spring break between North Carolina and New York City. I made arrangements to have interviews at Teacher's College of Columbia University, considered the best graduate school for deaf education (by professional standards that is). I stopped along the way to spend the night at Gallaudet where I would meet a group of people for the first time. Those individuals were graduate students in the Hearing and Speech Language Sciences department. I made contact with one of them through Myspace as part of my search in learning more about the protests. She learned that I was a cuer and informed me that she was taking a Cued Speech class. What a small world, indeed.
That weekend would change my life forever. I would make a great friend in Jose, an audiology grad student from Oregon. He was a very fluent signer and made a great effort to help me learn ASL. I had much learning to do, yet Jose was very patient with me. We saw "Through Deaf Eyes" together and went to Cues on Tap: DC and Deaf Professional Happy Hour. That weekend would mark the beginning of a new journey in my life.
The next month I flew to Boston for the BIWS (Beginners Instruction Workshop), one step in the process of getting certified to teach Cued Speech. That weekend, the National Cued Speech Association also held their board meeting. Before that weekend, Ben Lachman asked me if I wanted to be Director of Adult Deaf Cuers, and not realizing what I would get myself into, I said yes. I was voted in by the board the first day of meetings, and I stepped into my role quickly as I participated in discussions and made my votes.
Fast forward to now. I left Teacher's College a few weeks into classes because I didn't get any financial support in the form of scholarships or grants, and I didn't feel as if I was in the right place. I also wasn't happy about the fact that I was the only deaf individual in the entire incoming class of students across all the disciplines. I'm now living in Chicagoland searching for a job while I take time off before returning to school, most likely at Illinois State University, the only deaf ed program in the state.
Since this is my first blog, I wanted to share my story with everyone and give everyone an idea of who I am as I go on blogging about various issues related to deafness and the need to improve language and literacy for all deaf and hard of hearing children. If you've made it all the way to the end of this blog, props to you.
I look forward to keeping the next blog short and sweet.
My story:
My parents adopted me at 5 months old after a long wait for my biological mother to sign the adoption papers handing me over to them. Soon my mother began to notice some things, but it wasn't until I was 18 months old when I was diagnosed with profound bilateral hearing loss.
Of course, this was a huge shock to my parents as their typical first impression was that I would never grow to be a normal individual, with intelligible speech and average intelligence. My mother was the one who went all out in doing her research into what the options were, listening to professionals and parents tell them the facts. I would never have a normal life. I would never go to college. I would never be able to speak.
My mother met with teachers from the county school system, asking them how many deaf people graduated from Johnston County schools. To that point, only one graduated. She met with representatives from the school of the deaf in Wilson, less than a hour drive from home. She wasn't crazy about either of these paths.
All this put much stress on my mother, driving her to the brink of depression. Then someone from Beginnings, a non-profit intervention agency in North Carolina, referred my parents to Cued Speech. After meeting with Mary Elsie Daisy, the mother of the first child to learn Cued Speech, my parents started learning to cue when I was 19 months old.
5 months later, I became an expressive cuer. At 3 years old Barbara Lee, a teacher of the deaf, tested me, placing my language level at 18 months. Granted, I had a late start because my parents didn't learn of my deafness until later. By the time I was 5 years old, my parents debated whether to move to Raleigh or Wilmington for both cities had a community of cuers. They made the decision to move to the booming coastal town of Wilmington, NC from rural Johnston County, since my father landed a job there with the state.
I remember going through preschool with a transliterator, which was a first since I had never had any services of the kind back in Johnston County. When the time came for me to make the transition to kindergarten, I'll never forget that day where I saw my mom brisking walking down the hallway rushing to tell me the news that I'd be going to elementary school. The next year, I would remember spending most of my time in the special education class with other children who had obvious physical disabilities and not so obvious mental issues. I always sensed I was different from them, yet the teachers didn't make a distinction between deafness and mental disabilities then.
Then came the day I defied every one's beliefs and exceeded their expectations. My mom tells me the story of how at 6 years old in First grade, I was tested to read at the 4th grade level. I should have been with my peers who were currently in the Second grade. Despite having any quality auditory input from my analog hearing aids, I was able to increase my language by a matter of 7 years in just 3 years. Cued Speech had saved me from a life of being illiterate and behind my peers academically.
There's a twist to this part of my story. My resource teacher believed that I should still remain behind in First grade, yet my mother stuck to her beliefs of mainstreaming me. She discovered that it was not the resource teacher's decision, but the First and Second grade teachers who came to the consensus that I should join my peers. Apparently, my resource teacher was having an affair with the principal and abusing her position as his mistress to use funds in ways that did not necessarily contribute to our continuing education, so I'm told. In the end, she was fired and the principals of the elementary schools in the county were rotated so that the new principal was a father of a deaf cuer, advantageous to the Cued Speech program which continues to this day as a success with much support from the board of education.
Just before I turned seven, I went through surgery for the cochlear implant in Greensboro with Dr. Krause as my surgeon, one of the first surgeons to do implants in NC. I don't remember much about the process leading up to the surgery, but I do remember that they would be doing something for my hearing. There's small memories of videos of surgery, pictures of the inner ear, and the blood tests. I was always a happy-go-lucky kid so I didn't really have any fear going into the operation room. My first speech therapist was there in the operation room cueing instructions to me, telling me to count backwards from 8 to 0 as they put the anesthetic mask over me. My eyes closed and I saw the darkness.
I woke up in much discomfort and pain, most of it in the back of my head. I had a shunt attached to the base of my head to drain the blood from the location of the incision. I was stuck with a large plastic cup that held my bandages in place. I drifted in and out of consciousness, with memories of vomiting into a plastic receptacle in front of family and friends. I felt the humilation of sitting in front of those people, sick to my stomach and not being able to hold down my food. Thankfully I don't remember them pulling my shunt out. A few days later, I was on my way home from the hospital. I slept for most of the 4.5 hour drive to Wilmington east on I-40.
Some time later (a few months perhaps?) my parents and I went back to Greensboro so my implant could be activated. I remember little about that day, but I do remember the ride home and everything being so loud. Gosh, I never heard so many things before. The next few years would be a process of me asking my parents what that noise was and figuring things out for myself. I remember the birds chirping for the first time outside my house.
Going back through my records that my mom managed to save for me, I came across a 6-month post-activation report. It indicated that my speech intelligibility had improved 50% from practically nothing. I still had a ways to go before my speech was fully understood, which wouldn't occur until the end of high school.
As I went through the same records I found an audiogram done by Carolyn Brown, a renown audiologist at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill hospitals. The date of this audiogram was April 3, 1997, 5 years after my activation. My thresholds were at 35-40 dB and a note was marked "Wow!" next to percentages of word recognitions. Apparently I got 97% of CID (Central Institute for the Deaf) sentences right, a standard used by audiologists at the time for speech perception.
The years went on as I grew up, blacking out most of my middle school years since they were the worst years of my childhood. It was typical for me to get into scruffs with other boys on the blacktop during recess and lunch time. Most of it came from a lack of clear communication since I never had a handle on what everyone said. Clearly I was different from everyone because I had a transmitter attached to my head with a wire running down to the processor, slightly bigger than a deck of cards in my pocket. It sure didn't help either that I had a transliterator in the classroom all day long following me from class to class.
High school came and it was clear the rules were somewhat the same, but the playing field was different as there were new faces and I had a chance to start over. After a month or two of having transliterators in my classes, I came to the point where I said "Enough. No more Cued Speech." For the past few years, I was beginning to realize that I was paying more attention to the teacher than the transliterators, and they had become a nuisance rather than a necessity. I also had vanity issues since I didn't want to attract so much attention with their presence.
My mother gave in and signed off on the IEPs that indicated the changes to be made in the classroom. Of course my IEP required that I sit up front and that I wouldn't be held accountable for educational videos that did not have captioning. High school still was a social jungle with its cliques and the natural cycle of dealing with peer pressure and the desire to belong. I went through many phases before settling into the surfer clique, taking part in the ways of the beach bum as I got stoned and defied the law in many ways with friends that I have not heard from since high school.
I was a straight-A student before this period of rebellious activities, yet I still managed to stay in the top 25% percent with consistent A's and a few B's here and there. Life at home wasn't the best since my parents were basically separated, yet living under the same house to raise me together. It wasn't easy dealing with my mom with her overbearing and hard ways of raising me. Some people may call it tough love, but at the time I thought it was borderline abuse.
Being a surfer, I had my sights set on meteorology as a career so I applied to North Carolina State as an early decision. I had no doubt about my acceptance so I had no motivations to apply to any other schools. I just simply knew what I wanted and knew I would get it. For the next four years, I went through college just like any other typical average joe, skipping classes and doing kegstands at wee hours of the night. However, even though every professor had to announce the disclaimer for disability services the first day of each semester, I never bothered registering. Without the use of note takers or transliterators, I managed to graduate with a Bachelors of Science in Marine Sciences in four years with a GPA above 3.0.
In the last year of my college career, an event took place that would change my life forever. In October of 2006 I read an email sent by a friend from my old days of radicalism, with a link to a news report of protests at Gallaudet University. Apparently Jane K. Fernandes had stirred up everyone with her installation as the next president of Gallaudet, replacing I. King Jordan. I read news reports on the internet and in magazines, with sound bites such as "she's not deaf enough" and "she doesn't sign well." I was shocked to see this kind of response from the deaf community. I was confused and I had no idea that there were all these people out there that grew up with hearing loss.
Yet they all were signers. There were no signs of cuers anywhere. This prompted me to do some searching to see how large of a presence cuers had on the internet. Frankly, it was small. All the cuers I knew were all from the East Coast, between Maryland and South Carolina. I only saw those cuers once or twice a year at Camp Cheerio and occasional parties I would have for deaf people in the Raleigh area.
During all this I was in the midst of searching for grad schools to apply to, yet my heart wasn't it. Even though I had the luxury of having a prestigious research summer fellowship at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, I wasn't motivated to continue down the path of scientific research. As I did more research into the presence of Cued Speech in the educational setting, I came to the conclusion that there was still much work to be done. I had found my calling.
In March of this year, I spent my spring break between North Carolina and New York City. I made arrangements to have interviews at Teacher's College of Columbia University, considered the best graduate school for deaf education (by professional standards that is). I stopped along the way to spend the night at Gallaudet where I would meet a group of people for the first time. Those individuals were graduate students in the Hearing and Speech Language Sciences department. I made contact with one of them through Myspace as part of my search in learning more about the protests. She learned that I was a cuer and informed me that she was taking a Cued Speech class. What a small world, indeed.
That weekend would change my life forever. I would make a great friend in Jose, an audiology grad student from Oregon. He was a very fluent signer and made a great effort to help me learn ASL. I had much learning to do, yet Jose was very patient with me. We saw "Through Deaf Eyes" together and went to Cues on Tap: DC and Deaf Professional Happy Hour. That weekend would mark the beginning of a new journey in my life.
The next month I flew to Boston for the BIWS (Beginners Instruction Workshop), one step in the process of getting certified to teach Cued Speech. That weekend, the National Cued Speech Association also held their board meeting. Before that weekend, Ben Lachman asked me if I wanted to be Director of Adult Deaf Cuers, and not realizing what I would get myself into, I said yes. I was voted in by the board the first day of meetings, and I stepped into my role quickly as I participated in discussions and made my votes.
Fast forward to now. I left Teacher's College a few weeks into classes because I didn't get any financial support in the form of scholarships or grants, and I didn't feel as if I was in the right place. I also wasn't happy about the fact that I was the only deaf individual in the entire incoming class of students across all the disciplines. I'm now living in Chicagoland searching for a job while I take time off before returning to school, most likely at Illinois State University, the only deaf ed program in the state.
Since this is my first blog, I wanted to share my story with everyone and give everyone an idea of who I am as I go on blogging about various issues related to deafness and the need to improve language and literacy for all deaf and hard of hearing children. If you've made it all the way to the end of this blog, props to you.
I look forward to keeping the next blog short and sweet.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
