CS 19: Feedback Friday
CLERC SCAR 19
1 January 2009
FEEDBACK FRIDAY
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Re: “A Letter to FSDB” by Michele Ketcham
I found myself deeply touched by Michele Ketchum’s courage in pushing the line with FSDB. I know that battle, as do countless others. It is long, frustrating, exhausting, and often lonely. Please know that you are not alone, Michele. There are many, many people ready and willing to join you in your fight for equal, accessible education for your child. If you ever need support, John and Adrean Clark know how to reach us.
Every word of Michele’s article & letter makes perfect sense. How sad it is that after 20+ years of widespread use of Total Communication Philosophies (which often amount to the use of “Sim Com”), approximately 80% of deaf and hard of hearing folks still continue to attain little or no fluency with the English Language, and yet nothing changes. In what world is it okay to deny children access to language? In what world do we consider this “acceptable?” It has been proven time and again that deaf people have every ability to reach much higher levels of fluency, if only they had access to Languages. If only educators, administrators, and sometimes parents did not have such tunnel vision, focusing primarily on “hearing” and “speaking.”
I am keenly aware of the tremendous impact of the attitude towards ASL & the denial of use of the language in the classroom: Every single day that goes by, your child is one more day without education, one day more behind. But to many administrators and educators (mind you, not all), this child is just a statistic, just a number.
I am reminded of a poem written by a friend, Arlene Caudill: “Small baby hands / tired old tears / You precious, precious girl.” Your child is precious. Keep up the fight, Michele.
ALA
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Re: “Ruminations of a Cyborg” by Aaron Weir Kelstone
Reading this piece was like hearing my daughter talk. She talks just like that. And the way he was/ is torn about hearing/ deaf worlds is what I fear my daughter will go through one day. She has hearing in her right ear, but none at all in her left. She loves to hear… she loves watching movies with the volume turned up until we’re all almost deaf and she loves blasting away on my MP3 player. But I wonder if one day she may do as this author and decide to step away from the hearing world for a while. As a mother, I want her to be happy, not to be torn by this kind of decision and, of course, I will respect whatever she decides will make her happiest. I hope that also as the author has done, she will be able to find at least a happy medium.
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Re: “Paul Hostovsky” by John Lee Clark
I really enjoyed John Lee Clark’s piece on Paul Hostovsky this week. The poems are brilliant and learning a little bit of the history behind each poem really made his writing come alive. Thank you for that, John.
ALA
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