If you're a parent, you obviously want the best for your child, or at least you should as I can't speak for all parents, I'm not one and never will be. But it's safe to say most of you parents want what's best for your kids at least. So what do you do when you have a child that cannot hear or a have a child that's hard of hearing? If you have this idealized version of "Well I don't want him to be any different from his siblings so he'll go to a regular public school" you're likely going to be doing that child a huge disservice in educational attainment as well as hurting the child emotionally and socially. Children with hearing issues need a different kind of upbringing and education from those that hear perfectly fine.
It should go without saying that kids can be rather brutal to one another, especially on a social and emotional level, they're literally little sociopaths scientifically speaking (psychology is a hell of a study). So let's say you have a child, and we'll just make me your child and use my personal experience growing up mainstream (public schools, mostly hearing family with my case having a deaf mother that was also mainstreamed).
So when I was born, I had profound hearing loss and as a result, I wouldn't pronounce anything correctly. I ew oul lie oo uneran ih ih eh es oo ah "If you would like to understand this is the best you got". Profound deaf accent to a lot of people sound like a retarded accent, even though the accents are different. So going through public school, I went to kindergarten and ... failed. I went through it again another year, failed. So I was finally put in a special class for the mentally retarded in public school still and the special education teacher noticed I wasn't retarded, I just couldn't hear like all the other kids.
So the school got involved, put me through some battery of hearing tests, got the government involved and got me hooked up with hearing aids and repeated kindergarten for a third year in a row. So while the rest of my peers were 5, I was a 7 going to be 8 year old learning my ABC's. I didn't learn sign languages, I didn't learn to read lips at this time, nothing, and I was still barely getting to grip with reading and writing at a later age than all the other children, and I still had my deaf accent.
Passed kindergarten. I finally made it to the first grade, still deaf accent wielding in my speech, the school started opting to take me out of class for a couple hours each day along with other students who were mistakenly thought of as being "Retarded" to teach us how to properly pronounce all these various pronunciations we've previously never heard before growing up and going through the school system. Sounds like S for Ssssss like Sizzle and Star and TH for The, That, Then, There and various others. Speech therapy goes went on for my life for a couple years after starting it.
I don't hear names and new words properly after speech therapy is over and as you're aware, going through school at that young of an age you're still learning newer and newer words, I can see them, but English is one hell of a language with more exceptions to the rules than there are rules, so various names and words just cannot be pronounced properly. It's worth noting back when I was a kid, my mother had opted me out of getting cochlear implants because she felt she didn't personally need them herself, so I'd do just fine like her ... who subsisted off alimony payments from my biological father and from work her newer husband was doing to bring home the bacon. (Sorry Mom, but I can't simply just marry someone as a male and be supported so easily.) It's also worth noting back then that the analog hearing aids, while they did help, they didn't make everything 100% clear. Even today it's like that, someone with cochlear implants or hearing aids as a deaf person is still considered "deaf" even though technology has today gotten substantially better. This is because processing time is needed.
It came to a point that I had to be always at the front of the class to "better hear" the teacher. My fellow classmates always loved video presentations, but I couldn't hear it very well. So my teacher insisted I just sit closer to the TV, which also again, didn't really help, just hurt my ears more than anything. Constant failing grades, teachers talking while turned towards the board as they write so their voice isn't as direct as it is when facing me making things even harder to take notes when the teacher is talking.
Then there's the background noise itself in the class. From lawnmowers, weather outside, noise from the lights, misc chatter of students and pencil sharpeners and noise from the hallway, every little bit extra interference made it all the more harder to get anything out of anything taught. A teacher comes to help another student one on one, regular hearing students can hear the conversation and kinda learn by proxy overhearing it, while I was left in the dark and if I was focused on something, I'd likely never even know the conversation was taking place, and yes that was even with hearing aids back then. I missed loads of information all the other students were able to get easily. According to educational audiologists, deaf and HoH students miss upwards to 90% of instructional material due to accessibility issues with deaf students being more pronounced because of the need to process the information.
In cases where the school decides to drop an ASL interpreter on the student thinking "This will benefit them", yeah that's not going to help either. Simply look at my dTube videos where I sign while talking, my video about itself I do this quite regularly throughout the video. Just mute that video and tell me if you're able to grasp anything I'm saying at all with lip reading and signing alone. You can't can you? Unless you already can read lips and already know ASL (Or in my video's case SEE) you're not going to understand what I'm saying, that's the same situation as providing a deaf or HoH student with an ASL Interpretor without said student already knowing ASL.
Look through the course material for the school you're sending your child through, you'll notice there's no mention of learning ASL, PSE or SEE anywhere. Same with Middle School, Junior High, High School and yes sadly even most colleges and universities fail at having some form of signing classes that can be taken as even so much as an elective. What is offered? Spanish, French, German, etc and regarding other courses like music, sports/football, Study Hall, drama, dance, creative writing, etc.
So where the hell are all these classes? Throwing the interpreter at the child that doesn't know how to sign isn't going to help the kid because the kid will lag behind trying to figure out WTF all the signs are and how to use them properly VS pay attention in class for the actual course work and potentially lag the child behind further. This ASL experience isn't my own, it's another deaf content creator's but I felt it was worth mentioning.
So seriously, where are the classes to teach sign language? The fact of the matter is, there usually aren't any. The ones that do exist here and there only exist for short periods of time teaching SEE (Signed Exact English) and it's taught for a couple years then goes away for a good long time as some sort of fad the educational system was just trying on for a moment like some hipster's gluten free diet. The "classes" that are always there are usually found in universities somewhere or in a high school setting as some sort of club or after school community project thing going on and it's not widely advertised.
I learned a few days ago after getting in touch with my old High School journalism teacher in Globe, AZ that my old high school had a deaf and HoH community club with 4 members in it and she oversaw and sponsored said club. It existed back when I was in school and she taught the students how to use ASL and they'd talk back and forth with each other learning the language. I didn't even know how to sign until my early 20's, at least 3 years after dropping out the moment I was able to. The reason I wasn't invited into the club? 1 I didn't know the club even existed and 2 the teacher assumed that I was just one of those loner goth type kids that don't like to say much. The kind of student that prefers to work alone, study alone, be alone, doesn't say much to anyone, doesn't socialize, just gets there, does his assignments and buzzes off. She didn't know because all the other deaf and HoH students she's known had hearing aids, cochlear implants, spoke with a deaf accent and/or were vocal about having hearing issues and tried to be social while I was trying to isolate myself.
It's also worth mentioning that between the ages of 11 and 18 I've attempted suicide a total of 17 times, with the 17th time being almost successful. I was comfortable with the fact that I was about to die right before I made the attempt every time, but the final time of actually being where I would have actually died from blood loss, I suddenly felt fear and wanted to cling to life and realized how much I want to live. After hospitalization in a mental ward for 7 months (let's face it, they require you to have "group therapy sessions" and when you're deaf like I was at that point, group sessions are more of a let's all sit here in silence) I was released back into the wild and while in the mental health ward, I got back into the "damnit I wish I had just let myself die" mode because once again, I realize how much it sucks to feel so isolated.
It's bad enough having gone through school being called retarded by my peers for years, then the isolation, the lack of ability to make friends, the inability to get a proper education from an instructor, all these things factor in the child not being able to get anywhere good.
Now consider it against a child in my kind of situation in regards to hearing, but in a charter or private school for the deaf and blind. In that school setting, they're in an environment with other deaf and hard of hearing students as they keep the blind and deaf in different areas of the school. The students learn how to sign, finger spell, etc, they make friends and good quality connections with others, the works. Their educational attainment is a bit lacking compared to hearing students in even public schools, but considering the fact that the deaf and HoH have such a strong language barrier to cut through? Remember I was still in kindergarten by the time I was freaking 8 years old. I'd say having friends, not feeling isolated throughout their life and being able to be happy in a community of people similar to themselves so they don't feel so alone all the time and don't feel picked on non stop and ostracized and called retarded on a daily basis, I think that makes up for the hell that is the mainstream Public School System.
So what if the charter school for the Deaf and Blind leaves the kids with slightly less skills in reading, writing and mathematics compared to their hearing counterparts in a public school? When I was going through public schooling, I was lucky to get a low C on any of my grades, and keeping straight D's were still as hard as hell to obtain. You surely know the classical stereotype or trope of the dumb jock who makes straight D's just so they're still "passing" but is dumber than a sack of bricks? The deaf and blind schools leave a deaf pupil not only in a better communication, social and emotional standing, but also leaves them with an education that surpasses the dumb jock with the overall average ending as a hearing person passing in the 10th grade with straight C's in the deaf person's final year of school.
I've lived in isolation, even though I'm married now, my husband also has communication issues due to cerebral palsy, so as a result, texts, emails and IM's are our communication method of choice, it's easy for us, like a nobrainer. He's done the self isolation thing for so long himself but he's also hearing. I wanted to find someone in my early 20's to love and love me back, and I found him on an online dating site and though "He looks cute, similar interests, not a complete match but eh this could work" and it has. He just happened to try the dating site put up his ad and waited and figured if nobody responded he'd just give up and not bother. His ad was going to expire the very day that I messaged him too.
So we ended up with 2 disabled people with communication issues, living together like a couple hermits on the internet that talk back and forth to each other online. We stay holed up in our room. We have a roommate and a new one moving in soon to help offset costs of rent and the like, but honestly we don't leave the room very often for much of anything. Literally just a couple of self imposed isolation hermits on the internet at this point.
So here's your choice in your deaf child's future. Have your child end up becoming like me, suicide attempts and all because suicide is a staggeringly high statistic for the deaf and HoH population as well as depression, isolation, etc and not having any childhood friends at all and hating almost every aspect of himself and his life OR do you want your child to grow up happy with friends and no feel isolation and depression and not want your kid to probably later try to kill himself?
This should be an easy one for you. Don't put your deaf or HoH child through the public school system. The hearing love to say #ILovePublicSchools on Twitter, but pay attention and you'll see not a single one of them are even so much as wearing a hearing aid. They love it because they can hear, people like me? I hate it, because I couldn't hear, because I didn't get the education I got from the teachers but through my own hard efforts.
They hate "School Choice" because they think this one size fits all approach works for everyone when it clearly doesn't and it would've been superior for me to have gone through a charter school for the Deaf and Blind so I could learn ASL at a young age and have made meaningful friendships. Do your deaf or HoH child a favor, put them in a more appropriate environment for their education and for their future and their happiness.
