James.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.org (James Womack) (11/20/90)
Index Number: 11891
[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]
Ann,
Now let's move on to Total Communication. Total communication
is a philosophy and not a method. You can't teach Total
Communication to preschoolers as you suggest. The concept
behind total communication is that an educator uses the
communication method best suited for the child to foster that
child's learning.
If a kid came to you knowing only how to read and write, had
no signing ability , lipreading ability, that is what you
used. If the kid was primarily a lipreader that is what you
used. Total Communication by virtue of what it truly is
unworkable. If we had the resources and teachers to go one on
one with each kid to meet their needs, fine. We don't. We
dump them all in one classroom. Consequently, it is
physically impossible for a teacher to teach all the kids
together by using total communication. Each kid's needs are
different. You can group them together according to
communication needs, but they may be so dissimilar in
academic level that you would be hindering the process of
some, overwhelming others etc. Their social maturity or the
presence of other factors would also make lumping them
together purely according to communication needs prohibitive,
yet this is what happens if you insist on a total
communication approach as defined by your apparent
suggestion.
--
Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!300!14!James.Womack
Internet: James.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.orgJames.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.org (James Womack) (11/20/90)
Index Number: 11892
[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]
The concept behind Total Communication seems noble enough.
However, it is just another way to ignore the fact that the
deaf child needs to have a visually based language to master
before the second language (phonetic in nature) can be used
with any degree of real success. Again and again, I will say
this. The child is deaf! The ears don't work or work only
marginally. The eyes are the logical choice for educational
input. Common sense says a true language (as opposed to
pseudo languages) is what the child needs F I R S T in order
to open the way for the language of his/her dominant
society's language to be mastered. ASL has all the
characteristics of a true language. Its own rules, syntax,
semantics, and even shares certain properties with other
languages that English does not. Deaf people as a majority,
even orally educated ones, SEE educated ones, gravitate to
ASL as years flow by because it is natural to the deaf. It is
visually based. It meets our needs and above all else, it is
OURS.
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Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!300!14!James.Womack
Internet: James.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.orgJames.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.org (James Womack) (11/20/90)
Index Number: 11893
[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]
AT ASDB, we keep getting mainstreamed kids whose parents
finally realize how restricted the educational environment is
for their kids. AT PCC and the UA, I bump into deaf people
who repeatedly say they wish to God they had learned ASL
earlier now that they see how it makes it easier for them to
learn. Too many blame their parents and schools for their
plight. They do not see that these persons did the best they
could the best way they believed was right. They are so
bitter. And their numbers are increasing. Nonetheless, there
will always be that core who never really become a true part
of the deaf culture experience or the deaf community They
will see things contrary to what I have talked about here.
Being a part of the deaf community does not mean closing off
to the remainder of the world. It means having a cultural
identity. Birds of a feather do flock together after all.
What it should also mean is that we deafies start taking
control of our own lives. We should be putting ourselves in
positions in educational programs and other aspects of our
lives and cutting down on the monopoly that hearies have in
controling so many aspects of our lives. We need deaf
superintendents, deaf principals, deaf post-secondary
instructors and program coordinators. We need to be more a
part of the agencies that evoke policy about our affairs.
It is time we began doing that.
--
Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!300!14!James.Womack
Internet: James.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.orgJames.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.org (James Womack) (11/20/90)
Index Number: 11894
[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]
Don't blame ASL for deaf failure. If it is so faulty, why do
deaf people cling to it so tenaciously? Why doe sit refuse to
go away? Why has 200 years of suppression failed to dislodge
it? Because it is our cultural medium, just as any language
is the cultural medium of any people. No people give up this
core identity glue willingly. You'd have to kill each
and everyone of them to terminate it. When bilingual
education should have been taught, it wasn't. Rather English
was crammed down the throat by means of the eyes. Well, 200
years of failure shows it does not work. Now what? More of
the same under a different name? ASL has historically been
denied entrance into the classroom. Whatever you do, do not
blatantly blame ASL for deaf education's failure. Why?
Because in all honesty, ASL had nothing to do with it. It was
not permitted to.
--
Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!300!14!James.Womack
Internet: James.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.orgJames.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.org (James Womack) (03/15/91)
Index Number: 13933
[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]
I have seen theterm Total Communication thrown around as if it was
a method of communication. Itis not. It is aphilosophy. Theidea is
to use the method of communication that best fits the child. If it
is speech, use speech. If itis writing, use writing, and incidently,
if it is ASL, use ASL. But people are usingthatterm as if it was amethod.
Intruth, TC is a failure. If you remain withthe method that a child
brings to school with him or her, it is all you end up using. How far
do you get then? Moreover, in most schools, deaf kids are lumped together
irregardless of communication skills and with a single teacher. Now
you show me a teacher who can sign ASL, Signed English, write, speak
and what not so every kid understand the lesson's content. You have
50 minutes towork with these kids anddepending onthe number, how much
individual time are you really going to have for each unique child?
Total Communication has proven to be a total failure. Many programs
grabbed ahold of it including your maligned residential schools and
the vaunted mainstream programs, yet the deaf kids show no real educational
progress in either tyoe of programs as a whole. Same old formula, deny
the value of ASL, rob the kids of a meaningful education and a sense
of self-worth. Works every time.
--
Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!300!14!James.Womack
Internet: James.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.orgJack.O'keeffe@f26.n129.z1.fidonet.org (Jack O'keeffe) (03/15/91)
Index Number: 13941
[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]
Dear Annie: I suppose it comes with the territory when an echo
becomes as popular and successful as SilentTalk, but I really
regret seeing it become such a conduit for misinformation from
individuals who may be grinding personal economic axes. It is
fine to have SilentTalkers advocate for their personal favorite
methods of communication. But it should be done in a positive
manner. Plenty of positive things can be said about ASL. Thus we
must pity those unfortunate and ill-informed ASL advocates who are
able to promote ASL only by denigrating other methods, or slandering
successful philosophies like Total Communication (TC).
To try to bring a bit of rational balance to the echo, I am posting
below excerpts of an article on Cued Speech (CS), a method with which
I am totally unfamiliar and which I do not recall being discussed
previously on SilentTalk. This comes from the Winter 1990 issue of
"Cued Speech News" published by Gallaudet University.
_______________________________
"Daniel Koo is a freshman at the University of Maryland. He is an
unusually talented young man who is aspiring to become an architect.
Although he was not introduced to the Cued Speech system until the
fifth grade , he expresses a preference for cueing in the classroom.
The following is excerpted from one of his letters to his parents.
"I would like to say one of my favorite quotes from Victor Hugo, the
author of "Les Miserables": 'What matters the deafness of the ear when
the mind hears. The one true deafness, the incurable deafness, is
that of the mind'. My mind hears. My eyes are my ears. My hearing
aids are my salvation from insanity. . . . Yet I am proud to be deaf.
"Being one of the first CS students to graduate and go off to college
is not an easy step. However, having chosen University of Maryland
near Montgomery County, I was able to have a CS interpreter for all
my classes. Lucky, lucky."
_________________________________
Annie, as you well know, there is a wonderful world out there beyond
ASL. You, personally, are a bright and shining example of this.
Neither you nor I will deny that ASL is an important element of
Total Communication. But it is far from the be-all and end-all that
some of our more radical SilentTalkers would have us believe. Could
they be suffering from Victor Hugo's "incurable deafness of the mind"?
I'd like to hear more from upbeat folks like Fran and Vixen who are
able to express the positive aspects of ASL without castigating other
equally valid systems of communication.
... lllegitimii non Carborundum!
--
Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!129!26!Jack.O'keeffe
Internet: Jack.O'keeffe@f26.n129.z1.fidonet.orgRobin.Chronister@f429.n275.z1.fidonet.org (Robin Chronister) (03/15/91)
Index Number: 13986
[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]
I have been quietly reading the messages here for a couple of weeks now,
and have been very interested in the debate over ASL, SEE, etc. I would
just like to take a moment and describe the methods used in the
classroom where I work, and hear what the rest of you think about it.
To give you a little background, I am an educational interpreter,
currently working in the elementary school setting. I work in the
self-contained setting for part of each day, then travel to another
school to interpret first grade math for several students.
In my home school, I am fortunate to be working with a teacher who
believes that our students are capable of high-level thinking skills,
and she pulls the best from these kids every day. We use ASL as the
primary means of communication in our classroom, believing that the
children are better able to grasp concepts through this medium, rather
than just isolated words. Exact English is used for language and
spelling lessons, where it is critical to make the distinctions between
synonyms, tenses, etc. Our philosophy though, is to do whatever it
takes to get the message across. That includes mime, lipreading,
drawing pictures, enlisting another person's help in acting something
out, finding pictures in books and magazines, demonstrating a concept,
or whatever we can think of to make an idea clear.
Many of our students come to us with minimal language skills. Often,
their parents do not sign, or have used another method, such as Cued
Speech, in the home. This makes it difficult sometimes to explain
abstract concepts, so we do whatever we think will work.
I feel that we truly do use "Total Communication" in our classroom,
and I see the benefits to our students. On the average, they increase
two or three grade levels on test scores for each year that they stay
with us.
This turned out to be a longer message than I intended, but I really
would like to hear some other opinions about this. We are all hearing
adults there, and have little opportunity to get feedback from deaf
adults. Please put in your two cents!
Thanks - Robin
--
Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!275!429!Robin.Chronister
Internet: Robin.Chronister@f429.n275.z1.fidonet.orgRobin.Chronister@f429.n275.z1.fidonet.org (Robin Chronister) (03/23/91)
Index Number: 14137
[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]
Hi Tim,
Thanks for your message. Yes, I have seen your name on some of the
other boards, and I know Fran. As a matter of fact, I presented a
sign-language workshop to her son's class last fall.
I appreciate your positive input. It is sometimes very difficult to
know if we are really doing the best thing for our students, especially
when they are very young and unable to evaluate our methods for
themselves. We get very little input from the deaf community, and to be
fair, the school system doesn't seek it, nor encourage us to do so.
Most of the supervisors in special education know very little about
deafness, and aren't even aware that there is a deaf community with a
distinct culture. It makes our job difficult, sometimes!
I hope to be talking to you again - Thanks!
Robin
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Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!275!429!Robin.Chronister
Internet: Robin.Chronister@f429.n275.z1.fidonet.orgRobin.Chronister@f429.n275.z1.fidonet.org (Robin Chronister) (03/23/91)
Index Number: 14138 [This is from the Silent Talk Conference] > Robin, I'm not deaf, so my input may have limited value for that > reason, but I am involved in education, and one of the notions > that is currently popular, is 'outcome-based education' and with > what you say, your outcomes are excellent. I don't think anyone > can argue with success, they're communicating AND increasing their > English language skills both--I think I'd continue to do exactly > what you are doing--it works! :-) > Fran, Thanks for your very encouraging reply! I'm interested in feedback from anyone who has knowlege of the field, and your remark was very helpful. I have always felt that the result you obtain is a very good way to judge the quality of your work, but there are many administrators who don't seem to see it that way! <grin> In our system, we (meaning those of us who work directly with the children) are trying to convince the "powers that be" that we need some deaf role models for these kids, perhaps in the role of regular visitors, classroom assistants, or just "class buddies" if we can't find any deaf teachers to enter the system. That need was pointed out to us by a student who asked how old we were when we stopped wearing hearing aids, and when she was an adult she would be able to hear, right? We realized that this child had never met an adult who was deaf and didn't know that she could succeed in life if she couldn't hear. That was scary! I really think that no matter how successful we are with these kids, they need more. It would help us too, because none of us have deaf family members or close friends, and I know we are missing the mark in a lot of areas. I have enjoyed reading many of your messages on here, and I think this echo will be a big help to me. Thanks for taking the time to reply - I'll go in to work tomorrow with some new energy as a result! Robin -- Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!275!429!Robin.Chronister Internet: Robin.Chronister@f429.n275.z1.fidonet.org
Robin.Chronister@f429.n275.z1.fidonet.org (Robin Chronister) (03/28/91)
Index Number: 14519 [This is from the Silent Talk Conference] > Robin, if all programs followed along the lines that your program > does, a lot more would get done in educating the deaf child. > James, You just made my day! I do have to say, however, that our method in the classroom is not part of the city's program. There is very little in the way of guidelines here, and so we do what we feel works best. Our principal is very supportive, and most of the big shots in the system know very little about our work, don't visit the classrooms, and don't pay much attention to what goes on unless there is a problem. In our case, that is to our advantage, because the classroom teacher is one of the best I have ever seen, and we don't have to operate under someone else's restrictions. It can be a problem when other teachers are not as creative or dedicated as she is, though. I feel very lucky to have been assigned to work with her. On the other hand, I also interpret in another school for part of every day, and in that situation I feel very frustrated. I have 4 young children who have never been mainstreamed with an interpreter before, and one of them is inappropriately placed in the mainstream class. I find myself wearing many hats with these children; not only do I have to interpret the material presented in class, but I have to teach them how to work with an interpreter, act as a tutor when the children don't understand the material, act as a liason between the mainstream teacher and the teacher of the deaf students, and as an advocate for the children when necessary. Please don't misunderstand me, most of these things are part of the job of an educational interpreter, and I don't really mind them. What I do mind is the lack of support from people who profess to know what they are doing, yet their attitudes are the very thing that keep these kids behind all the others! I just recently made an appointment with my supervisor to discuss some of the problems I have encountered, and am going to suggest to her that the city develop a philosophy for mainstreaming, that we begin mainstreaming children with an interpreter at the preschool level for non-academic classes (P.E., library, etc.) and that we develop an evaluation procedure for all involved in the mainstreaming experience - the student, interpreter, and mainstream teacher, so that the child who is inappropriately placed will get what he or she needs, the mainstream teacher will understand her role and get the support she needs, and the interpreter can be evaluated on effectiveness as well as being able to feel that he or she is truly part of the team and not all alone in a difficult situation. Whew - enough of my blathering on...but I did want to thank you for your comment. We are very proud of what our kids learn with us - because they are great kids and it is a wonderful feeling to know that we did something worthwhile for them. They give an awful lot back, too, and that keeps us going. Robin -- Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!275!429!Robin.Chronister Internet: Robin.Chronister@f429.n275.z1.fidonet.org
Robin.Chronister@f429.n275.z1.fidonet.org (Robin Chronister) (03/28/91)
Index Number: 14526 [This is from the Silent Talk Conference] > It is for us they are doing this for.. WHY not let us have some inout > in it?! It really IS sad that the special education dept. knows > nothing about who they help educate. Tim, Unfortunately that seems to be the case in most of the public schools here. In Chesapeake, we have a wonderful supervisor who DOES know something about the kids, and she goes out of her way to get us the help we need to do the job right. She is not the "boss" with the last word though, so she doesn't always win the battles she fights for us. I would really like to see more deaf adults involved with the system. Our kids don't have an opportunity to see that deaf people do grow up and succeed in life, and that worries me. If we could have the input and support of the deaf community we could do so much better. The administration doesn't see it that way, though. Maybe they think deaf people can't do anything...it ticks me off, too! I don't feel sorry for these kids because they are deaf - I feel sorry that so many people don't bother to know them. Robin -- Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!275!429!Robin.Chronister Internet: Robin.Chronister@f429.n275.z1.fidonet.org
Robin.Chronister@f429.n275.z1.fidonet.org (Robin Chronister) (03/28/91)
Index Number: 14542 [This is from the Silent Talk Conference] > My God! An educator who wants input fromthe Deaf Community rather than > playing Lord of the Deaf! God Bless, you and your students, my > dear!!!!!! You sure are good for my self esteem! Seriously though, I never thought things could be any different until I began to work in the school system, and saw how the hearing people with lots of letters after their names acted. I was shocked! I didn't get into this because I wanted to "help poor little deaf children," although that is what I have been praised for by all kinds of well-intentioned people. I have wanted to be an interpreter or a teacher since 5th grade, because signing always fascinated me. The biggest problem I have is really understanding how to express an abstract concept when I can't really put myself in the "listener's" shoes. If the deaf community can help the educational system to accomplish that, then we can do our jobs better, right? I'm not expressing myself very well here, but the main point I am making is that I *do* realize how very little I know, and the best way to learn something, in my opinion, is to go to those who have the knowledge and ask for their help. These children won't be completely assimilated into the hearing world - they can't be. There will always be some kind of barrier no matter what we do, and God forbid we should deny them access to a culture of their own! Robin -- Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!275!429!Robin.Chronister Internet: Robin.Chronister@f429.n275.z1.fidonet.org