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on the spot:

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Deaf American Poetry showcases for the first time the best works of Deaf poets throughout the nation's history--John R. Burnet, Laura C. Redden, George M. Teegarden, Agatha Tiegel Hanson, Loy E. Golladay, Robert F. Panara, Mervin D. Garretson, Clayton Valli, Willy Conley, Raymond Luczak, Christopher Jon Heuer, Pamela Wright-Meinhardt, and many others.

Own your copy today at http://www.clercscar.com/books/dap.html!

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UNIONS ARE A FUNNY THING
Jason Franklin
Words: 821
[Essay]

Unions are a funny thing. I teach in a public school district where words like "solidarity" and "collaboration" are promoted and touted. But it's ironic when you think about how a need for compromise in the spirit of collaboration can actually take us further away from our goals. In the case of the teacher's union, we currently have no school calendar for the 2009-2010 school year because the union and the school district are still "collaborating" for which vacation days employees should have off during the school year.

But who are the consumers that everyone is supposed to be working to support? In the schools, it should be our kids. And if we are collaborating, the fight for what days we go on vacation shouldn't be taking precedence over what is best for the students. That collaboration must also happen in a way where *all of the students* benefit from-after all, we want to make sure no child is left behind, right?

I was asked to think about what I'd like to be changed in our community. And that's where the whole epiphany came in--the one thing I would change about the signing community is that we need to stop operating independently--like a Union does, only looking after its own best interests. After all, who are our consumers and why aren't we putting all of them first, instead of pursuing the "best interests" of the "few" in the jobs that we serve in? In the signing community, if we aim to work in collaboration, then the answer should be that *every member of our signing community is a consumer we serve.* And if we're truly working together, we make sure that we are talking to each other to make sure that no group, however we label them, gets left behind when others move forward. If we continue to operate as independent agencies, if we only share the best practices, and the newest grants, ideas and research with "the consumers who are most like us" or "the consumers we are paid to work with," we're selfishly ignoring a huge portion of our signing community.

So this is where that problem comes in--our signing community has different "vendors" providing services to support different parts of the same signing world. A state residential school is primarily focused on helping their students make transitions and having the tools for self-advocacy and identity. An inner-city D/HH program is primarily focused on helping those students make transitions toward adulthood. A suburban school district that utilizes itinerant teachers? Similar goals, but serving a slightly different demographic. And we have the too many to count "acronymed" agencies (DVR, SSI, IF, ODHH) working for us, and each provide unique and amazing services. But the way they work is almost compartmentalized, providing those amazing services to just a select few they are assigned to serve. So why is it that all of these agencies that are serving our signing community still functioning independently of each other, especially if we all are trying to promote the same goals for success? Putting it simply, what is stopping those small communities from building a bridge and sharing what works? Philosophy? Mode of communication? Politics? Time?

Granted, each agency is still doing its job serving a unique group of clients, but we're still leaving others behind. We do this because we don't often allow ourselves to learn from each other or share what works in a way true collaboration does. If we did, then we could get rid of the politics and turf wars ("That's not their business, we can do it ourselves!"), we would build opportunities and creativity, we would listen to each other, and we would find unique ways for all members of the signing community to have access to resources to help foster their identity, learn about self advocacy, and increase their own level of personal access to the world.

But it hasn't happened that way yet. When we do talk to each other, it seems like we get stuck in a trap--how can we best promote our own agenda, incorporate a few new resources, without losing ownership of "our" ideas? Collaboration and Solidarity work the opposite way--we have to put in a lot of extra work to build a bridge, and we have to recognize that our knowledge shouldn't be trademarked, but shared.

If there is one thing I would change about the signing community it's this--we need to recognize that we are on the verge of having more access than we ever dreamed of in the past 20 years, let alone the past 200 years. But if we keep working independently, every member of our signing community will miss out on at least half of those opportunities. And if we are denying ourselves access by not collaborating, how are we any better than what the hearing community did to us for 200 years?

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Jason Franklin teaches deaf students in the Wisconsin public school system.

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