Tim.Smith@f429.n275.z1.fidonet.org (Tim Smith) (06/17/91)
Index Number: 16074
[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]
THE BEACON June 9, 1991
"Deaf senior finds ways to be heard"
Tim Smith has the most enormous grin on his face. He throws back
his head with laugher, shaking a shaggy head of black hair and a bearded
face.
But he doesn't make a sound.
Tim is Deaf; he talks, laughs and yells with his face and with
his hands.
He has no room for pity in his life. He dispenses with scorn the
argument of "the hearing" that would label his world painfully
quiet.
After 19 years of living in the world of the hearing and
attending so-called regular schools, Smith plans to abandon this life
for one filled with deaf culture and deaf language. He will attend
Gallaudet College in Washington D.C., next year, a liberal arts school
for the deaf.
He always has attended Virginia Beach schools and will graduate
this month from First Colonial High School.
But he never has felt a part of the student body. He doesn't
particpate in after-school activites, and he's never learned to speak
out loud. He never wanted to: he gave speech classes up entirely this
year.
"I just can't talk, so why force the issue", he says with his
hands.
In classes, an interpreter always stood between him and a
teacher. Since third grade, he's always been in classes with only
hearing students.
Smith, deaf since 1 1/2 with spinal meningitis, is friendly; his
smile is real. In the halls at First Colonial, he has a hello and a hug
for many people. But the language barrier has blocked the path of deeper
friendships.
In the last year, he has sought liberation among other deaf:
other people who can scream, yell, cry and laugh with hands alone. And
among the computer-literate: at the keyboard, he speaks as quickly and
easily as any other hacker.
Smith sees the teaching and even the extra help offered by the
city's special education department as inadequate. He says he's gotten
this far, mostly because "I'm stubborn." He thinks the school system
should hire some deaf teachers and teach others how to use American Sign
Language.
He loes his computer: he uses it as a canvas, creating all sorts
of artwork electronically. On the keyboard, he has still another
language with which to communicate with the computer-literate.
"I want to be the Picasso of computers."
He only began to learn more about deaf culture after a hearing
friend introduced him to some clubs and other activities in the
community this year. On his first visit to Gallaudet, he was
overwhelmed: everywhere, everyone was signing.
"It's like the world isn't quiet anymore."
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Dat's me!
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