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I look east at the pinkish purple horizon line and the fading blue sky. Birds chirp, airplane overhead, Cartoons in the background. Another looming hurricane in the forecast for the southeastern U.S.. I obsess about Elementary School segregation in my district and the lack of Total Communication classrooms in America. I am reminded I have anxiety. Bad anxiety.
My children will be in Kindergarten next Fall. I have heard people talking about our local schools for years, real estate agents saying the houses don’t sell here because of the school district. Or that one school is superior to another, one school has a higher number rating. This number they found on a web site called “Great Schools”. It’s always bothered me, but I hadn’t done research. I’ve been more focused on Fiona’s access to Total Communication when she gets to Elementary.
Last week I did a tour at my “home school”. It has a score of 3/10 on Great Schools. The school is mostly Hispanic. It was amazing visiting this school. The curriculum was fantastic, the teachers and principal full of excitement, I could tell they were passionate about education. The children were happy, well behaved, and interested in what their teachers were teaching.
I started comparing the schools, seeing how the “white schools” had higher scores. The schools my friends and neighbors send their kids to. I was thinking it’s “Great Schools” fault. I want to know where do they get their test scores from? How do they come up with these scores?
Then I realized those questions are important, but what about the question of how do the white parents, who are educated, affluent, decide that one school is better than the other? Do they rely on the score alone? Are they unconsciously racist? Are they consciously racist?
I have many questions and concerns about many things! I can’t answer them all.
I plan on doing a series of articles about this subject.
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I’ve been thinking a lot about my parent training in the auditory/ oral method at my daughters school, on Friday. I’ve had several experiences with Fiona since then where I used one of the techniques I was taught, for example: asking Fiona “what did she say” at A birthday party We were at Saturday, a young lady gave the rules for the petting zoo. There was background noise, the lady was a couple feet taller than Fiona, and Fiona understood nothing that was said.
I was given a roger microphone, its a device that amplifies my voice so it goes directly into Fionas ears. Fiona does not want me to use it.
Every-time I have the oral method emphasized I walk away feeling like I’ve been robbed. Its a strange feeling. I appreciate the training and learn a lot. I know the extra work the teachers do in the auditory listening skills benefits Fiona. I do not want to take this away in any way. But I guess I feel there is a disconnect. I am a strong believer in Total Communication, that means using all the resources available for learning language- sign, oral, making sure the child can see the face of the person talking and other communication techniques that help deliver information.
Fiona is finally starting to use sign on her own expressively. I don’t like the idea of taking sign away from her, she’s deaf, Deaf, don’t know if she’s capital D or lower case d. Sign Language is her first language. We are doing SEE, Signing Exact English, now, but we will transition to ASL at some point.
On Friday I was told, and Coincidentally watched “Born this Way, Deaf Out Loud” where one of the people talked about how using the FM system and sign at the same time is not beneficial. There is a lag time between the spoken word that gets transmitted into Fionas hearing aid and the sign, meaning the interpreter is a few seconds behind the speaker. There’s also the complication of who does Fiona pay attention to, the teacher speaking or the interpreter?
Maybe it would be beneficial to use an interpreter sometimes and not the FM system, and sometimes just the FM system? This is the complication of a mainstream classroom. There should be a Total Communication Classroom in every school.
I just don’t feel comfortable not teaching my deaf daughter sign.
Her hearing could decline, that is a big possibility.
She may not want cochlear implants
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 