I went to Fiona’s IEP yesterday. Everything went smooth, she was offered the same services as she received last year, attendance at a Total Communication preschool and speech therapy. Fiona is right on track with most of her language skills. She’s having trouble producing letter combinations of letters she can not hear, which is normal for children with hearing loss. They must memorize how to make the sound through speech therapy, the hope is that they will eventually know how to make the sounds. I asked if it will be easier to do once Fiona can read and they said “definitely”. I mentioned Fiona attending a typically developed preschool a few days a week next year to prepare her for kindergarten and the representative from her school district thought it was a great idea. I said, even if Fiona can’t hear or understand a lot of what’s going on, I was reassured that it was still beneficial, socially and to prepare her for kindergarten, the hearing world. I had forwarded the piece I wrote about Fiona and my upcoming IEP to the meeting attendees. They commented they were surprised I had so much anxiety about the IEP. They assumed I assumed Fiona would get the same services again. I didn’t know. After I left the meeting I realized Total Communication wasn’t brought up many times, and when it was I was the one bringing it up. I didn’t have a chance to gloat about my graduation from the beginning series of sign class and that now I’m an intermediate signer! I am so glad I was introduced to sign language and that I had the opportunity to take a great class. It’s the best way to fully communicate with Fiona, using both sign and auditory. I realize they are preparing Fiona for the real world, and they do train teachers in mainstream class rooms how to best teach deaf and hard of hearing. The class room experience is adjusted to make it as optimal an environment for a child with hearing loss as possible. And I know in the real-world people won’t know sign language or that they must get eye contact with Fiona for her to understand what they are saying. Fiona misses things, constantly. I wonder, why should she have to be in a non- total communication learning environment at all? She’s going to have such a more difficult time learning the same material? Fiona can’t rely on her hearing aids and FM system 100% of the time. She deserves to get the lessons as efficiently as all her class mates. The only way that deaf and hard of hearing kids get equal education is with a deaf and hard of hearing teacher. This will give them the best chance of succeeding in college and getting a good job and making it in the hearing world.
Category: art
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“The white man is bad, he’s making the black people work for free, they are slaves” I say. “Remember”, then I stop, I was about to remind Jack of the clip of news he walked in on, that I turned off immediately, but not soon enough for Jack to ask me questions. “Why are those people doing that?” He asked. “Because they are racist, the guys in white are bad.” It was the morning after the Charlotte riots, when the white supremacists were upset because the city of Charlotte, NC, decided to take down a statue of Andrew Jackson, because he was a slave owner and the statue is a symbol of white supremacy that was erected after civil rights were won. Theory being, to keep the fear of what was, of southern white privilege. I don’t like using the words black people, white people, I never have. I’m white and live, unfortunately in a very white county. My kids are turning four years old and I’ve taken them across the bridge to the East Bay or to the city as many days of the week as possible. I don’t want them living in a white privileged bubble, even though that’s where we do live. As I read the story of Harriet Tubman, a book Jack picked out at the book store yesterday, I am having trouble simplifying the story enough for four-year old’s. I don’t like saying “Black people” because I’ve never talked like that, as if that were something I needed to point out. I try to read the story, which is an amazing children’s book, all about the underground railroad. Jack and Fiona can understand hiding and escaping. Harriet Tubman was a hero, rescuing people. “Are those bad people” Jack asks during the underground railroad scenes. “No, some white people were good, are good. They helped the slaves escape.” Slavery is a horrible story, as I sit here and write this I start to cry. Terrible things happened in our country. I change the subject from skin color to freedom, civil rights, and how important it is for them to vote when they turn 18. Jack says, “and when we turn 5 we’re going to kindergarten.” I end on Harriet Tubman was a hero and you guys can be heroes too. Protect civil rights, equality. They both understand what equal means and give me many examples. They get it. I wanted to explain to Fiona she is getting services for her hearing loss because of battles won for people with disabilities but I think that she’s too young for that lesson. It’s hard to know what kids are ready to learn about, but they are curious and want to learn. I am bad at filtering information, I just hope they don’t think all white people are bad! But I think because of our countries history and living in such a white county it’s natural to have suspicions and I would rather my kids know when someone is being racist than ever think it’s o.k. to talk bad about someone because of what they look like.
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 