Today we visit a New York landmark - the annual Deaf Exposition - at another landmark, the South Street Seaport in downtown Manhattan. We take time to meet local organizations.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Many Tribes Episode 2: Internet Captioning and HR 3101
The impact of limited captioning on the internet and the importance of H.R. 3101 is discussed in this vlog.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
27: What do we want the future of Deaf schools to look like?
I think this is an important question which the Deaf community doesn't want to answer because such an answer would be extremely difficult. We complain about schools closing, but there is little proactive thought, based in historical analysis, on what would be a practical future for Deaf schools, and why.
First we have to admit that there is little doubt that the old model of Deaf school is not capable of surviving in the current environment. More importantly, I am not sure we want it to. There are many reasons, some of them to do with both of these factors. Financial reasons are one; there simply aren't the funds available to support two Deaf populations, and this country has made a decision, without Deaf people's involvement, that mainstreaming is the way to go. On a deeper level, we as a community have rejected the old formulation of Deafness as a functional disability, preferring to view it, at most, as a socio-cultural disability, choosing to believe follow the pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuing to accept funds based on the old formulation of Deaf people as disabled charity cases poisons this more hopeful formulation of the future.
But the rejection of such funding forces us to face a horrible truth: that there is a prevalent disability among Deaf people. This disability is called language deficiency. It poisons Deaf peoples' ability to communicate in any language, whether it be A.S.L. or English or Swahili. It is a disease caused by lack of coherent, organized exposure to language. (One has, after all, to be able to discern a system within language, to recognize it as language, in order to use it as language.)
One of the reasons, poorly articulated, why the Deaf community harbors a smoldering resentment against cochlear implants, is because those who work in the core of the Deaf community, are the ones who work most often with the victims of such a disability. Ranging from mild (difficulty comprehending organized language and producing coherent sentences) to severe (bordering on heavy aphasia), these victims often work with Certified Deaf Interpreters, social workers, case managers, and volunteers.
What does this have to do with cochlear implants? The answer comes from the aforementioned historical perspective. We came from such a linguistically deficient position. (Think: the wild boy of Aveyron.) Once population numbers rose enough to develop our own languages, a distinct grammar, structure, and tradition arose. (Look at what researchers are discovering today in villages and towns in Nicaragua, for example, and Israel.) The rise of manual education, education using signed languages, minimized this condition by ensuring Deaf children had exposure to a language. The subsequent success of Deaf people led to the development of oral education. Deaf people, obviously, could be intelligent. Perhaps if one simply prevented them from using signed languages, they would begin to speak. This led to a rise in language deficiency, and a subsequent return to manual education.
The pattern has continued throughout history; the cochlear implantation situation is the latest such iteration. I will not go into all the arguments for or against here. I think what has not been said is that, at minimum, the Deaf community can be said to desire a guarantee that the children involved will not face linguistic deprivation. Since there is no guarantee of a cochlear implant's effectiveness, the only way to ensure such a thing is to use a bilingual form of education. This is the only way we can guarantee a child will not suffer from this terrible disability. And teaching A.S.L. is the only way we can guarantee independence for the individual in case of device failure.
It is hard to explain this to hearing parents because they do not see the distinction, often, until it is too late, and they meet signing Deaf adults - sometimes the very adults who wind up helping take care of their child.
Deaf schools have been trying for such a form of education. Bi/Bi education is one result of such efforts. In my own research, I've criticized such attempts, comparing them with attempts by other cultures. Schools which teach French and Spanish, for example, involve students from both cultures. Shouldn't a successful model of bilingual education for Deaf students also involve students from the hearing "world," who use English as their primary language?
"But that's mainstreaming!" people gasp.
Except for the fact that we are still involving Deaf adults in the process - yes. A bilingual program only succeeds if it is bilingual at all levels. A mainstream school has no adult models for the Deaf child. In New York, a program called Hearing Education Services sends Deaf or signing adults to different programs with mainstreamed Deaf students. They see a Deaf adult once a month. The hearing students in the school never do, and learn and have no respect for the Deaf child's primary language and culture. (Meanwhile, they celebrate as many as they can think of, and conveniently ignore our stripe in the multicultural rainbow.)
Equally true is that a truly bilingual program requires commitment from all participants, which means Deaf adults in the program, as well as being skilled in A.S.L., must show and maintain their skill in the second language, whether it's English or Spanish or what have you. Just as we demand excellence from hearing staff, we all need to demand excellence from ourselves.
And having a population with students from both groups has many obvious advantages - not least that, by asking Deaf students to compete with hearing kids, we're telling them we believe they can. (In my school, which is slowly studying bilingualism and deciding what's best for our program, we still separate Deaf and hearing kids during state tests, because I.E.P.'s demand it. The Deaf kids are continually comparing themselves to the hearing kids, and often do as well if not better. I imagine the kind of subconscious psychological boost this offers is extremely powerful.) Deaf and hearing kids have role models for Deaf and hearing behavior and interaction.
But without dealing with that horrific disability - the disability which hearing parents cannot see - we cannot reach this stage, and we cannot begin to remake not only how we see ourselves, but how the world sees us. I hope this offering has given people some idea of how future Deaf schools might look. I intended only to give people some thoughts...
First we have to admit that there is little doubt that the old model of Deaf school is not capable of surviving in the current environment. More importantly, I am not sure we want it to. There are many reasons, some of them to do with both of these factors. Financial reasons are one; there simply aren't the funds available to support two Deaf populations, and this country has made a decision, without Deaf people's involvement, that mainstreaming is the way to go. On a deeper level, we as a community have rejected the old formulation of Deafness as a functional disability, preferring to view it, at most, as a socio-cultural disability, choosing to believe follow the pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuing to accept funds based on the old formulation of Deaf people as disabled charity cases poisons this more hopeful formulation of the future.
But the rejection of such funding forces us to face a horrible truth: that there is a prevalent disability among Deaf people. This disability is called language deficiency. It poisons Deaf peoples' ability to communicate in any language, whether it be A.S.L. or English or Swahili. It is a disease caused by lack of coherent, organized exposure to language. (One has, after all, to be able to discern a system within language, to recognize it as language, in order to use it as language.)
One of the reasons, poorly articulated, why the Deaf community harbors a smoldering resentment against cochlear implants, is because those who work in the core of the Deaf community, are the ones who work most often with the victims of such a disability. Ranging from mild (difficulty comprehending organized language and producing coherent sentences) to severe (bordering on heavy aphasia), these victims often work with Certified Deaf Interpreters, social workers, case managers, and volunteers.
What does this have to do with cochlear implants? The answer comes from the aforementioned historical perspective. We came from such a linguistically deficient position. (Think: the wild boy of Aveyron.) Once population numbers rose enough to develop our own languages, a distinct grammar, structure, and tradition arose. (Look at what researchers are discovering today in villages and towns in Nicaragua, for example, and Israel.) The rise of manual education, education using signed languages, minimized this condition by ensuring Deaf children had exposure to a language. The subsequent success of Deaf people led to the development of oral education. Deaf people, obviously, could be intelligent. Perhaps if one simply prevented them from using signed languages, they would begin to speak. This led to a rise in language deficiency, and a subsequent return to manual education.
The pattern has continued throughout history; the cochlear implantation situation is the latest such iteration. I will not go into all the arguments for or against here. I think what has not been said is that, at minimum, the Deaf community can be said to desire a guarantee that the children involved will not face linguistic deprivation. Since there is no guarantee of a cochlear implant's effectiveness, the only way to ensure such a thing is to use a bilingual form of education. This is the only way we can guarantee a child will not suffer from this terrible disability. And teaching A.S.L. is the only way we can guarantee independence for the individual in case of device failure.
It is hard to explain this to hearing parents because they do not see the distinction, often, until it is too late, and they meet signing Deaf adults - sometimes the very adults who wind up helping take care of their child.
Deaf schools have been trying for such a form of education. Bi/Bi education is one result of such efforts. In my own research, I've criticized such attempts, comparing them with attempts by other cultures. Schools which teach French and Spanish, for example, involve students from both cultures. Shouldn't a successful model of bilingual education for Deaf students also involve students from the hearing "world," who use English as their primary language?
"But that's mainstreaming!" people gasp.
Except for the fact that we are still involving Deaf adults in the process - yes. A bilingual program only succeeds if it is bilingual at all levels. A mainstream school has no adult models for the Deaf child. In New York, a program called Hearing Education Services sends Deaf or signing adults to different programs with mainstreamed Deaf students. They see a Deaf adult once a month. The hearing students in the school never do, and learn and have no respect for the Deaf child's primary language and culture. (Meanwhile, they celebrate as many as they can think of, and conveniently ignore our stripe in the multicultural rainbow.)
Equally true is that a truly bilingual program requires commitment from all participants, which means Deaf adults in the program, as well as being skilled in A.S.L., must show and maintain their skill in the second language, whether it's English or Spanish or what have you. Just as we demand excellence from hearing staff, we all need to demand excellence from ourselves.
And having a population with students from both groups has many obvious advantages - not least that, by asking Deaf students to compete with hearing kids, we're telling them we believe they can. (In my school, which is slowly studying bilingualism and deciding what's best for our program, we still separate Deaf and hearing kids during state tests, because I.E.P.'s demand it. The Deaf kids are continually comparing themselves to the hearing kids, and often do as well if not better. I imagine the kind of subconscious psychological boost this offers is extremely powerful.) Deaf and hearing kids have role models for Deaf and hearing behavior and interaction.
But without dealing with that horrific disability - the disability which hearing parents cannot see - we cannot reach this stage, and we cannot begin to remake not only how we see ourselves, but how the world sees us. I hope this offering has given people some idea of how future Deaf schools might look. I intended only to give people some thoughts...
Sunday, February 22, 2009
26: Why Bother Saving Deaf Schools?
One of the questions buzzing around on blogs recently is this: why bother saving Deaf schools? To me the answers have become obvious after two years of working in the public school system, and many years as a mainstreamed student in the public school system. I ask people to please consider these reasons. They are drawn from personal experience.
1. Deaf children in mainstreamed programs are not - cannot - be given full access through an A.S.L. interpreter, except in lucky circumstances. Even NYC public schools, which have their own interpreting organization, cannot fill all available jobs. Should students want to join many extracurricular activities the problem would be far worse but I believe they are jaded and do not try. Parents! If your child becomes mainstreamed, find them programs they can be involved in. Better: find programs which have some Deaf children and maybe one or two Deaf adults. Give your child role models and don't let them feel alone as they grow!
2. Interpreters in education systems have a different role than regular interpreters which is highly important, often ignored and still not fully understood, especially when it comes to language development. The R.I.D., an organization which certifies interpreters and has done a magnificent job of raising standards, only began exploring this rich field a few years ago.
3. More confusingly, Deaf students need education in A.S.L. to develop their command of that language, especially if they are to use it to learn other languages!
4. Mainstreamed programs rarely have many other Deaf children, Deaf adults, or Deaf staff/faculty/administrator. This is important because students need models in how to communicate with each other. Not every student winds up with Invisibility Disease - some students are happy in mainstreamed programs (girls tend to do better than boys, possibly fitting more easily into gender roles. Boys tend to develop symptoms of frustration, especially if not given an outlet.)
5. This is also important because you have nobody checking that a) your child has appropriate access b) your child is being given appropriate expectations and c) your child has a good environmental setup that aids them in learning and even d) that your child's teachers have access to resources and materials to make all this happen on a regular basis. All of these things happen naturally in a Deaf school. An aggressive student in a mainstreamed program can force these things to become accessible, but the fight is draining and discouraging- especially without a Deaf adult in the school to stand by you and say yes, he's not exaggerating, he can't just teach another kid fingerspelling and have them walk with him all day every day at school! (Principals have actually suggested this before.)
6. This is also important because not having Deaf adults at the school your child goes to means that standards and challenges may not be as high for your child as it would be for "normal" children. Teachers have attitudes about Deafness as do other people.
Just some thoughts. I realize these may be difficult for people to accept but wanted to offer some observations.
1. Deaf children in mainstreamed programs are not - cannot - be given full access through an A.S.L. interpreter, except in lucky circumstances. Even NYC public schools, which have their own interpreting organization, cannot fill all available jobs. Should students want to join many extracurricular activities the problem would be far worse but I believe they are jaded and do not try. Parents! If your child becomes mainstreamed, find them programs they can be involved in. Better: find programs which have some Deaf children and maybe one or two Deaf adults. Give your child role models and don't let them feel alone as they grow!
2. Interpreters in education systems have a different role than regular interpreters which is highly important, often ignored and still not fully understood, especially when it comes to language development. The R.I.D., an organization which certifies interpreters and has done a magnificent job of raising standards, only began exploring this rich field a few years ago.
3. More confusingly, Deaf students need education in A.S.L. to develop their command of that language, especially if they are to use it to learn other languages!
4. Mainstreamed programs rarely have many other Deaf children, Deaf adults, or Deaf staff/faculty/administrator. This is important because students need models in how to communicate with each other. Not every student winds up with Invisibility Disease - some students are happy in mainstreamed programs (girls tend to do better than boys, possibly fitting more easily into gender roles. Boys tend to develop symptoms of frustration, especially if not given an outlet.)
5. This is also important because you have nobody checking that a) your child has appropriate access b) your child is being given appropriate expectations and c) your child has a good environmental setup that aids them in learning and even d) that your child's teachers have access to resources and materials to make all this happen on a regular basis. All of these things happen naturally in a Deaf school. An aggressive student in a mainstreamed program can force these things to become accessible, but the fight is draining and discouraging- especially without a Deaf adult in the school to stand by you and say yes, he's not exaggerating, he can't just teach another kid fingerspelling and have them walk with him all day every day at school! (Principals have actually suggested this before.)
6. This is also important because not having Deaf adults at the school your child goes to means that standards and challenges may not be as high for your child as it would be for "normal" children. Teachers have attitudes about Deafness as do other people.
Just some thoughts. I realize these may be difficult for people to accept but wanted to offer some observations.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
25: Speaking to me
Sometimes I wonder why all the effort in Deaf education is spent towards getting Deaf children to speak. It often doesn't matter. Your voice can be a rich patina of textured sound. As long as you are a Deaf person, that takes precedence... I have spoken to people who understand me perfectly until they are made to understand that I am Deaf. After that, no matter what I do, I am incomprehensible, and we must write to communicate. Other Deaf people have reported the same experience. Based on these casual observations, we can form the hypothesis that people's opinions and prejudices about Deaf people have much more power than any one individual's ability to learn to speak or hear better. The power of the stereotype, with all its opinions and prejudices, is deadly. It is those opinions and prejudices, in the end, which cost us more and keep us further away from success.
It almost does not matter whether or not you believe Deaf people are an individual people with their own culture and experiences and language. No matter what you believe, Deaf people will experience many of the same things such minorities do, including, as I've explained above, stereotyping. Reality is subject to the power of the stereotype. Just as there were once African Americans who, despite repeated evidence that they could produce remarkable calligraphy, were proclaimed illiterate, there are still unconscious prejudices which make people see Deaf people as terra incommunicado.
I experience this on a daily basis in my classroom. Some of the hearing kids I teach "get it" quickly, signing to me or speaking to me or otherwise trying to communicate with me. These are the kids I respect the most. Other kids have a hard time getting past their built-in audism. They ask their friends to talk or sign to me, or they don't even bother, or they look around for a substitute adult (in our school, we are lucky, since such adults are likely to reinforce my authority in the classroom and direct the child to talk to me. In a normal school, another adult would be more likely to take away from my authority, and take charge of the answer.) If there is an interpreter available, they whisper to him or her to ask him, ask him... Sometimes I feel rather like an ancient Greek oracle, accessible only to a chosen few.
I teach English, so communication becomes of even more importance. Rather than seeing my Deaf nature as a disadvantage, I see it as a huge advantage. Establishing protocols for effective communication and teaching children to learn how to use those protocols is highly beneficial. Teaching hearing children that very Deaf skill, the skill of being able to try communication method no. 1, then no. 2, then no. 3, until every possible method has been tried - teaching that could be very beneficial!
But getting kids over that communication barrier - the barriers they bring with them - is a very difficult job, and I haven't found a complete and easy solution yet. Take things one by one, I guess.
It almost does not matter whether or not you believe Deaf people are an individual people with their own culture and experiences and language. No matter what you believe, Deaf people will experience many of the same things such minorities do, including, as I've explained above, stereotyping. Reality is subject to the power of the stereotype. Just as there were once African Americans who, despite repeated evidence that they could produce remarkable calligraphy, were proclaimed illiterate, there are still unconscious prejudices which make people see Deaf people as terra incommunicado.
I experience this on a daily basis in my classroom. Some of the hearing kids I teach "get it" quickly, signing to me or speaking to me or otherwise trying to communicate with me. These are the kids I respect the most. Other kids have a hard time getting past their built-in audism. They ask their friends to talk or sign to me, or they don't even bother, or they look around for a substitute adult (in our school, we are lucky, since such adults are likely to reinforce my authority in the classroom and direct the child to talk to me. In a normal school, another adult would be more likely to take away from my authority, and take charge of the answer.) If there is an interpreter available, they whisper to him or her to ask him, ask him... Sometimes I feel rather like an ancient Greek oracle, accessible only to a chosen few.
I teach English, so communication becomes of even more importance. Rather than seeing my Deaf nature as a disadvantage, I see it as a huge advantage. Establishing protocols for effective communication and teaching children to learn how to use those protocols is highly beneficial. Teaching hearing children that very Deaf skill, the skill of being able to try communication method no. 1, then no. 2, then no. 3, until every possible method has been tried - teaching that could be very beneficial!
But getting kids over that communication barrier - the barriers they bring with them - is a very difficult job, and I haven't found a complete and easy solution yet. Take things one by one, I guess.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
24: Deaf Education and Interpreters: A Rant
You can't split up the two. A Deaf child cannot get an education in a public school without an A.S.L. interpreter of some sort.
The shame is that the Deaf child's interpreting needs are attacked on all sides!
The school which enrolls the Deaf child often dislikes the expidenture of a trained, certified interpreter. They look for the cheapest agency, the cheapest provision. Even colleges, right now, look for ways to save money by hiring one interpreter instead of two (A.S.L. interpreting is a pretty tough profession physically and the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) requires two for a job longer than an hour) or looking for unqualified subsitutes, who I will call 'signers.' Currently, for example, City University colleges are attempting to subvert these rules, and local groups are attempting to assess the seriousness of the problem. The situation is far more dire in public schools.
The teacher is often uncomfortable with the presence of another adult, another authority in the classroom. They do not like that there exists a bubble of communication that the teacher cannot penetrate, that the interpreter can break the rules by 'talking' at the same time the teacher does. They certainly cannot judge the quality of the 'signer' and make sure that the child is receiving the class information in an educational way. (I recall a story about a girl who took a spelling quiz. Her signer, unqualified of course, fingerspelled every word - not much of a challenge for the girl!) I do not see any resources available on RID for other organizations for teaching professionals, Deaf or hearing. I have been able to find this document, Teaching the Teachers, from the ISLR projects at the Ohio School for the Deaf.
The interpreting profession itself dislikes classroom work, calling it mean and low-quality, and so educated professionals look down on the people who need them most. RID has finally asked for A.S.L. interpreting to require a B.A. degree, but this still does not put them on a level with teachers - or give teachers a good model for how to use A.S.L. interpreters. (RID finally accepted educational interpreters as a group in approximately 2006, changing their rules to accept the results of the Educational Interpreter Performance Assessment. Their website states that "Educational Interpreters have always been an important part of the mission and programs of RID; however, it has not been until recent that we have really embraced this population of interpreters into the organization... we have taken great strides to become more inclusive to the educational interpreter and wholeheartedly welcome you into RID’s membership." (RID, 2006) Accepting the results of this test seems to be the only 'great stride' they have taken!
The 'signers' often chosen in public schools have little A.S.L. education, but they hold on to their jobs with tenacity! Usually only the student is 'qualified' (I use the word loosely) to judge the A.S.L. interpreter, but since the teacher often brings up new subjects, the 'signer' could fart three times into a hat and tell the student believably that this is the sign for cardiovascular. They would then get a round of applause from their admiring audience; 'signers' are never far from admiration for their 'abilities'!
If the 'signers' ARE qualified, they can be called interpreters. But then there's a host of other problems for the student - dealing with the Overbearing Interpreter, whose parents are deaf and who Just Wants To Take Care of Everything for You; the In Charge interpreter, who sets up the situation, chooses your partner in labs and in class based on their ease and preferences; the Glib Interpreter, who just missed that important fact in class but is too embarrassed to admit they can make a mistake and so just hide their mistake and continue on...
The pressures of adolescence, also - to not be different, to satisfy their parents, their friends - all prevent the Deaf child from fully engaging with their interpreting needs. With all these pressures, it's no wonder the highly-qualified interpreter prefers board meetings or the clinical coldness of the Video Relay Interpreting booth.
And as long as the situation is ignored, schools have no right to complain about the third- to fourth-grade reading level of Deaf students - they're contributing to the situation!
Anything to add?
The shame is that the Deaf child's interpreting needs are attacked on all sides!
The school which enrolls the Deaf child often dislikes the expidenture of a trained, certified interpreter. They look for the cheapest agency, the cheapest provision. Even colleges, right now, look for ways to save money by hiring one interpreter instead of two (A.S.L. interpreting is a pretty tough profession physically and the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) requires two for a job longer than an hour) or looking for unqualified subsitutes, who I will call 'signers.' Currently, for example, City University colleges are attempting to subvert these rules, and local groups are attempting to assess the seriousness of the problem. The situation is far more dire in public schools.
The teacher is often uncomfortable with the presence of another adult, another authority in the classroom. They do not like that there exists a bubble of communication that the teacher cannot penetrate, that the interpreter can break the rules by 'talking' at the same time the teacher does. They certainly cannot judge the quality of the 'signer' and make sure that the child is receiving the class information in an educational way. (I recall a story about a girl who took a spelling quiz. Her signer, unqualified of course, fingerspelled every word - not much of a challenge for the girl!) I do not see any resources available on RID for other organizations for teaching professionals, Deaf or hearing. I have been able to find this document, Teaching the Teachers, from the ISLR projects at the Ohio School for the Deaf.
The interpreting profession itself dislikes classroom work, calling it mean and low-quality, and so educated professionals look down on the people who need them most. RID has finally asked for A.S.L. interpreting to require a B.A. degree, but this still does not put them on a level with teachers - or give teachers a good model for how to use A.S.L. interpreters. (RID finally accepted educational interpreters as a group in approximately 2006, changing their rules to accept the results of the Educational Interpreter Performance Assessment. Their website states that "Educational Interpreters have always been an important part of the mission and programs of RID; however, it has not been until recent that we have really embraced this population of interpreters into the organization... we have taken great strides to become more inclusive to the educational interpreter and wholeheartedly welcome you into RID’s membership." (RID, 2006) Accepting the results of this test seems to be the only 'great stride' they have taken!
The 'signers' often chosen in public schools have little A.S.L. education, but they hold on to their jobs with tenacity! Usually only the student is 'qualified' (I use the word loosely) to judge the A.S.L. interpreter, but since the teacher often brings up new subjects, the 'signer' could fart three times into a hat and tell the student believably that this is the sign for cardiovascular. They would then get a round of applause from their admiring audience; 'signers' are never far from admiration for their 'abilities'!
If the 'signers' ARE qualified, they can be called interpreters. But then there's a host of other problems for the student - dealing with the Overbearing Interpreter, whose parents are deaf and who Just Wants To Take Care of Everything for You; the In Charge interpreter, who sets up the situation, chooses your partner in labs and in class based on their ease and preferences; the Glib Interpreter, who just missed that important fact in class but is too embarrassed to admit they can make a mistake and so just hide their mistake and continue on...
The pressures of adolescence, also - to not be different, to satisfy their parents, their friends - all prevent the Deaf child from fully engaging with their interpreting needs. With all these pressures, it's no wonder the highly-qualified interpreter prefers board meetings or the clinical coldness of the Video Relay Interpreting booth.
And as long as the situation is ignored, schools have no right to complain about the third- to fourth-grade reading level of Deaf students - they're contributing to the situation!
Anything to add?
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
23: testing season
So if the goal is to design a full K-12 curriculum that provides equal amounts of Education (as if Education were sugar, measured by spoons) to all children, we need standardized tests to prove that such is what is being done, and give us some sort of idea as to whether we ARE serving all children equally.
I understand that. It's reasonable. But then it is also reasonable to adjust the test to fit the child, because who the child is and where they are from affect what they can do at this point in time.
Read that sentence again. I think it's true, but it should also make you very nervous.
Let me explain why.
You can check out examples of the current state test in New York at the website. There's a lot to learn, but for now just note that eighth grade has a so-called listening part of the test (I insist on doing both ear-listen and eye-listen in the classroom, just to normalize things.) During this part of the test students are to pay attention and take notes while the teacher reads an approximately 300-400 word piece (say a page and a half.) They then answer questions about that piece using their notes to form essays. They have, variously, one to two hours, depending on their individual needs.
Now hearing children can passively listen while actively writing. The two activities don't contradict. But looking is an active activity. It's possible to both look and write simultaneously, but very difficult, and frustrating. So Deaf children, who have to look at an A.S.L. interpreter, who often has to struggle to keep up with the voice of an unfamiliar hearing person while translating, on the spot, a piece they probably haven't had access to prior to the test (as a teacher, I certainly didn't)–Deaf children in this position are at a serious disadvantage.
This year, we added a small modification to the test, as an experimental equalizer. What if we permitted students to take notes by adding a few seconds' pause between paragraphs?
A simple modification, but one with impressive results. Students reported taking notes for the first time. Freed from being tied to the high-speed signs of a struggling interpreter, and able to look down and take notes thanks to the pause, many students reported feeling able to compete on a more equivalent playing field to that of their hearing peers.
It seems really simple, and it's surprising nobody's thought of it before. The passage has to be read two or three times, depending on the student; simply doing this at least one of those times gives students far more confidence.
So in that case, adjusting the test? A good idea.
But what about other ways? What about providing the test questions and pieces in A.S.L.? This is an option on many students' I.E.P.'s. I feel it's a necessary evil, but it's an option that only works with a system in place to evaluate the student's use of language. The goal is to test the student's comprehension - of English! It's a useless test if the teacher's support is provided in a way that takes away from an accurate measurement of that comprehension. There are, however, a huge range of students, ages, backgrounds, and linguistic competency. It doesn't make sense to hold back a trilingual student because their knowledge of three languages is going to affect them in a different way from a kid who grows up with one. As an English teacher, I want my kids to do well on these tests, but I also want them to be honest. I want the test to be honest, too.
More importantly, who is really qualified to assess any of this? A sensitive hearing person could perform some of the observations that lead to these thoughts, but unless the person is deaf themselves - or maybe has been on both sides of the fence - to think of everything is impossible. This is one reason I believe in the kind of school we are building. On the one hand the Deaf population is currently shrinking. On the other, Deaf kids still need Deaf adults teaching in schools and in the administration of the school. Solve the problem by aiming for a 50-50 ratio - and you not only satisfy the Deaf students' needs, you also give the hearing student the benefits of a much wider world... and both kinds of students enrich each other.
So if the goal is to design a full K-12 curriculum that provides equal amounts of Education (as if Education were sugar, measured by spoons) to all children, we need standardized tests to prove that such is what is being done, and give us some sort of idea as to whether we ARE serving all children equally.
I understand that. It's reasonable. But then it is also reasonable to adjust the test to fit the child, because who the child is and where they are from affect what they can do at this point in time.
Read that sentence again. I think it's true, but it should also make you very nervous.
Let me explain why.
You can check out examples of the current state test in New York at the website. There's a lot to learn, but for now just note that eighth grade has a so-called listening part of the test (I insist on doing both ear-listen and eye-listen in the classroom, just to normalize things.) During this part of the test students are to pay attention and take notes while the teacher reads an approximately 300-400 word piece (say a page and a half.) They then answer questions about that piece using their notes to form essays. They have, variously, one to two hours, depending on their individual needs.
Now hearing children can passively listen while actively writing. The two activities don't contradict. But looking is an active activity. It's possible to both look and write simultaneously, but very difficult, and frustrating. So Deaf children, who have to look at an A.S.L. interpreter, who often has to struggle to keep up with the voice of an unfamiliar hearing person while translating, on the spot, a piece they probably haven't had access to prior to the test (as a teacher, I certainly didn't)–Deaf children in this position are at a serious disadvantage.
This year, we added a small modification to the test, as an experimental equalizer. What if we permitted students to take notes by adding a few seconds' pause between paragraphs?
A simple modification, but one with impressive results. Students reported taking notes for the first time. Freed from being tied to the high-speed signs of a struggling interpreter, and able to look down and take notes thanks to the pause, many students reported feeling able to compete on a more equivalent playing field to that of their hearing peers.
It seems really simple, and it's surprising nobody's thought of it before. The passage has to be read two or three times, depending on the student; simply doing this at least one of those times gives students far more confidence.
So in that case, adjusting the test? A good idea.
But what about other ways? What about providing the test questions and pieces in A.S.L.? This is an option on many students' I.E.P.'s. I feel it's a necessary evil, but it's an option that only works with a system in place to evaluate the student's use of language. The goal is to test the student's comprehension - of English! It's a useless test if the teacher's support is provided in a way that takes away from an accurate measurement of that comprehension. There are, however, a huge range of students, ages, backgrounds, and linguistic competency. It doesn't make sense to hold back a trilingual student because their knowledge of three languages is going to affect them in a different way from a kid who grows up with one. As an English teacher, I want my kids to do well on these tests, but I also want them to be honest. I want the test to be honest, too.
More importantly, who is really qualified to assess any of this? A sensitive hearing person could perform some of the observations that lead to these thoughts, but unless the person is deaf themselves - or maybe has been on both sides of the fence - to think of everything is impossible. This is one reason I believe in the kind of school we are building. On the one hand the Deaf population is currently shrinking. On the other, Deaf kids still need Deaf adults teaching in schools and in the administration of the school. Solve the problem by aiming for a 50-50 ratio - and you not only satisfy the Deaf students' needs, you also give the hearing student the benefits of a much wider world... and both kinds of students enrich each other.
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