Jack is watching u-tube on the T.V., some monster truck thing. Fiona is watching a unicorn video on my i-phone. This is the second time I have let my kids, Fiona being the only one so far, watch u-tube on my phone. The reason this happened was because yesterday I downloaded Care Bear ASL for Fiona. She loved it until she went on u-tube and found a dress up unicorn thing. Super annoying. She likes it though. Today was difficult in kid land. Jack said he was tired and didn’t want to go to school. I needed to do yoga so I made him go for an hour. The whole time in yoga I thought about Jack. I worried the teachers were calling to tell me he threw up. I imagined him lying on the couch in the office. I tried to breath and stretch during my downward dogs and child’s poses, but felt stressed still. When I picked up Jack after yoga he looked fine. He was playing with friends and the teacher said he acted normal all day. After we picked up Fiona Jack said he didn’t want to go to gymnastics, he was too tired. Fiona cried. She was so upset. I thought it was unfair, that Jack could have just sat quietly by me and waited, while Fiona did gymnastics. I thought, he must be very sick. I parked the car at home and Jack said, “Tricked ya”.
I said, “What?’
“tricked ya, I’m not tired”
It put me in a bad, but withdrawn mood.
I also can’t stop thinking about Fiona and CSD. I got several responses from the paper I wrote from people I shared it with, and I talked to all Fiona’s teachers and my close friends and relatives. Not everyone, I haven’t had an in-depth conversation about it with some people who are very close to me. Some people said absolutely not to the idea of Fiona going to a bilingual school that is an hour and a half bus ride. But some people said do it! I am worrying, spinning, but I acknowledge I do this with big decisions. I never expected to feel this way. I was unhappy with the large class size here when Fiona’s mainstreamed. I was unhappy with the lack of sign language. If she stays here, I have to build in sign language lessons somehow. I still feel like it could be part of her public education because she legitimately needs to learn sign language. The hearing aids are great a percentage of the time. But there is a lot of time they don’t work well. In noise, in water, when her ears are infected, when a word is too hard for the speaker to say verbally so that Fiona can understand it. This is my experience.
I worked so hard on my IEP, and I was feeling free. Now it’s like I’ve been kicked back a hundred feet. I’m going to let Fiona make the final decision though. I have a date for her to spend a whole day at CSD this summer and she can start her neighborhood school in the fall, then Fiona will be able to verbalize what feels best, I hope. She’ll still be young. I wish I had my own expert to do an observation of Fiona in both places. Someone totally experienced but totally unbiased. Education is a trip! I can’t believe it’s hitting me like this.
The first battle was the local school fight. The Great Schools battle. The segregated school surprises. Realizing that some of the liberal democratic people I know and live by are perpetuating systematic racism by following web sites like Great Schools and not doing any research into the systematic racism of American schools. Then driving their kids’ miles away from their home to the whiter public schools, charter schools and private schools. This has all been a shocking, mind altering, depressing, learning period for me.
I stated that the most important thing to me was for my kids to go to our closest neighborhood school. Then I saw a perfect classroom for Fiona a million miles away. A quiet learning space where she will have the best chance at communicating with her peers and learning with a teacher trained to teach kids just like Fiona. Plus, she’d be bilingual. I wish Jack could go to a Spanish bilingual school, or ASL. It would be so cool for Fiona if Jack learned ASL. He said he will. He’ll have to learn with Fiona. Even Fiona’s best friends need to learn because at the pool Fiona and her friends can’t talk. They can’t play how they want to. They want to play imagination or with mermaids and they keep saying stuff to each other, they talk louder and louder, they yell and try to understand each other. Then Jack starts doing it, then me, then everyone’s just talking louder and louder and no one can follow anything that’s being said anymore. And we all go quiet for a moment. The last time I convinced the kids to get out of the pool and put back on their hearing aids, so they could play. It’s the same for the girls in noisy environments. Why am I stressing about this? I gotta stop. Fiona’s best friends will need to learn sign too if they want to communicate in all the places that hearing aids don’t work. But the schools so far away and she might not like it as much as I think she will.
“Fiona, you’re horrid, horrid, horrid” says Jack from the living room. A few minutes ago, he went and tried to grab an electronic stand that Fiona has the iPhone on. Sometimes he can be awful.
And every time I say something to Jack Fiona says, “What?”. I tell her what Jack said and what I said.
I must turn off these u-tubes. I’m going to go crazier. Tomorrow is a studio day. I can not wait to paint.
Month: May 2019
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“All the teachers signed” Fiona said on our way home from Fremont School for the Deaf. She said it spontaneously after we had been driving for at least a half hour. She had a smile on her face when I looked at her in my rear-view mirror. Then she talked about how they use a different kind of sign language at that school. We went to a family day and ASL workshop, as well as a tour of the school. The workshop I did was on ASL Rhythm and Rhyme. https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=asl+rythm+and+ryhme+nursery+&view=detail&mid=C657977A7815EDD01C78C657977A7815EDD01C78&FORM=VIRE
I was blown away by what I learned in the workshop. I realized how much of a missed opportunity it was when Fiona was a baby, I could have been doing this with her. I could have learned a few ASL nursery rhymes. I should have learned some ASL, but I knew nothing about ASL or even how to access the information. Especially with newborn twins, I was in over my head.
The program in Marin County uses a sign system called Signing Exact English or SEE sign. I’ve written a lot about this, my appreciation for SEE sign. I’ve studied SEE for five years, diligently! Fiona has benefited from SEE sign in ways it is impossible to quantify. This is what I have used to communicate at home, in loud places, when the hearing aids simply don’t cut it because no matter how many times, I say a word Fiona still doesn’t understand it. I don’t regret anything to do with SEE sign. But lately, I have become frustrated trying to communicate with Fiona using SEE. It’s so cumbersome. I feel like I lose her after a few sentences.
Fiona and I both left Fremont knowing we had to learn ASL. I caught her last night practicing her signs. I’ve been practicing a few ASL Rhythm and Rhymes I learned at the workshop and Fiona loves it. I feel sad that six months went by when Fiona was a baby, where Fiona didn’t have hearing aids and I didn’t know sign language. It makes me think there should be an added component of the Early Intervention program where a hearing parent with a deaf baby is connected with a deaf adult who can teach basic ASL and mentor the parent.
I also think there should be ASL in my daughter’s public education plan. I don’t know how that would look like?
I am working on the playdate/teen mentor program in Marin for DHH kids, but our program is totally oral at this point. Fiona loves her hearing aids and many of the parents I know are totally fine with oral only. But they may change their mind if they visit Fremont! Or if they heard from deaf adults who were raised by hearing parents. Many of the children I know here also have cochlear implants. They are treated by their parents as if they can hear perfectly fine. Maybe they can? I don’t know. This is another situation where only a deaf adult who has cochlear implants could respond.
I can only talk about what I’ve learned from Fiona and from researching. But mostly what I see with Fiona, when she understands and doesn’t. I think Fiona wants the whole picture, sign and her hearing aids and listening and spoken language.
At the Fremont school Fiona seemed totally at home. She played with the other kids in a way I’ve only seen her with her closest deaf friends in Marin. She was relaxed as we toured the school and seemed really impressed with the whole situation. The classes were quiet and visually stimulating. I think Fiona would miss spoken language if it wasn’t used at all though, because she loves that too. But she does get that at home and with me. I’m not sure exactly how that works in Fremont. But at the same time the ASL program is so rich in linguistics maybe it’s just another side of the same coin and Fiona would be fulfilled during school hours by that? The socializing part at Fremont school was the best part. It was so easy for Fiona to socialize because it was so quiet, and all the kids communicated using eye contact and all the other tools Fiona needs when communicating. The social part is the complete opposite of how kids are at her brother’s preschool, a hearing school. There they don’t know anything about communicating with a deaf kid, they turn their face away and talk to her. Fiona has to constantly strain to understand what’s being said. It’s always loud there. I started sending her two days a week to prepare her for mainstreaming.
I’ve been so worried about mainstreaming, there’s 22-25 kids in her upcoming Kinder class. What will that be like? People think with hearing aids and the FM everything will be fine. But is that a positive situation for my daughter?
After visiting Fremont School for the Deaf I have more questions than answers. I also have validation that my instincts have been correct all along.
I am committed to my community, my home where we live. I feel like Fiona should be able to have what she needs here. I am trying to build that for her by forming the DHH group and branching out to find deaf friends who we don’t know yet. We are definitely going to learn ASL and learn about deaf culture. I don’t know why that’s not part of the curriculum in the Early Start program? I know it’s been a challenge to even keep SEE sign in the program, everything is very listening and spoken language driven. Which I’m not opposed, I just don’t think it’s the whole picture. And as I’ve said there’s a gap in language acquisition that only sign language can fill, for Fiona and me, and I’m sure many more parents and children?
I’ve heard from many educators, experts and parents that our deaf kids will have to survive in a hearing world, where no one signs, that they have to be able to survive it this world. But these past few days since my visit to the Fremont school I have heard from so many deaf people who say they missed so much when expected to do this. That they felt isolated. Is this the goal from society? From our whole public education system, just get deaf kids to fit in, just say they get enough from the hearing aids, Ci’s, and FM, and socially they need to fend for themselves, find one good friend at school and find a quiet place on the playground to hang out with?
I love my LSL itinerant teacher; she is amazing and has taught me so much. She works so hard and loves our DHH community. Fiona has learned so much from her. I am completely on board with what the itinerant teacher is doing and will do in Kindergarten.
My feeling is that the whole system is not appropriate for a child like Fiona. She deserves more, a more appropriate environment where she can relax and learn like any other kid. Not where 50% of the time she can only access 50% of what her friends are saying to her. I’ve written about this till the cows come home, but even when it’s just me Jack, Fiona’s twin, and Fiona, Fiona constantly turns to me and says “what did he say”. Even if we are all right next to each other and it’s quiet.
I really don’t know the answers, but my gut says we need a program like the school in Fremont, here, for North Bay kids? It could be a combination program like Penny Cook, on a campus with mainstream and Deaf kids. But we would have all the tools and education on site. With ASL and deaf culture taught. It’s a tall order but I think it’s needed.
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I’m a parent. I’m an artist. I’m an activist. I’m working on many projects and am trying to streamline, so I’m going to start brainstorming. The weather is strange today. Windy, rainy, late May. Cold, suprisingly cold. I want to be a creative activist. I have several areas of focus. My medium is visual art, I want to develop collaborative projects that talk about my experience raising a daughter who is Deaf and her experience as she gets older. I was reading an article this morning about the color of sound. How soundwaves do not have a true color, but sound has been represented in colors of our Chakras, musical notes, piano chords, and others ways. It made me think about how if someone is Deaf they hear sound in a different way than someone who can hear. I wondered if they would match different colors with different sounds? I was trying to come up with an art project that had to do with sound and different experiences people have with sound depending on your level of hearing and your own life experience.
I am working on starting a Deaf/HH kids/parents playdate/ meet up in Marin county. I’ve never organized like this before. I am thinking about a monthly playdate at a park or somewhere fun for the little kids, mainly the Kindergartners and their siblings. Then having a big meet up every two Months? maybe three? This would be a multi age one, kindergartners to twelfth grade. We could have something educational for the parents, like going over IEP’s, an ASL or SEE sign workshop, or other things people were interested in learning about.
I had another experience lately that prompted me to do a bunch more research on the topic of school segregation in the Bay Area. A parent I met at a birthday party who lives in a diverse nieghborhood in the east bay said she was not sending her soon to be kindergartner to her neighborhood school because it had a low score. She is instead, sending her kid to a charter school. When I did my school tours I noticed the schools in Marin were very segregated, there’s white schools and Latino schools. I looked at the demographics of our neighborhood and our neighborhood school. My neighborhood is half white, one fourth mixed races, one fourth Hispanic. Our neighborhood school is 84% Hispanic and 11% White. It said on-line that 36% of people in my neighborhood send their kids to private school. I realized that it was white parents that are perpetuating the segregation in our public schools. I suppose that’s not so shocking to most people, but I am surprised how bad it is. I am surprised that the people I talk to and see, they are liberals and did not vote for Trump, and seem cool, but they are perpetuating racism. I would like to do collaborative art projects in my community about my community. I would like to change the way people think. I would like to end institutional racism and promote strong communities where people care about each other, and their public schools. I was never a private school person.
I still have to finish writing my second book, but with this flux it’s hard to know exactly what I want to write, my ideas about being a parent and how I became a parent keep changing.
My solo art practice always needs time as well. That’s why I’m trying to figure out can I combine any of these projects together? That’s why I want to be a creative activist. I just need to come up with the project.
I feel like since the kids are going into Kindergarten I want to do something with my passions and my talents. I want to contribute and use my time to do something beneficial.
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 