Putting your deaf children in which schools...and why?

Daredevel7 said:
I'm probably just re-starting a fire but....

I think BOTH of you have rosy colored glasses, Shel and FJ.

Shel is probably working in a great and balanced deaf school and assumes most deaf schools are like that. I suspect this is far from reality, especially those far from big cities.

FJ is probably surrounded by parents with higher intelligence or more likely, hidden feelings and they know not to diss ASL in front of others. Sort of how a person who is a little bit racist would be friends with a black person but still locks the door if he sees a sketchy black man walking by but not a sketchy white man.
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I dont have experience with only one deaf school. I have experience in many different ones along with deaf programs at public schools in the 15 years I have been in the field of deaf education.
 
Daredevel7 said:
I'm probably just re-starting a fire but....

I think BOTH of you have rosy colored glasses, Shel and FJ.

Shel is probably working in a great and balanced deaf school and assumes most deaf schools are like that. I suspect this is far from reality, especially those far from big cities.

FJ is probably surrounded by parents with higher intelligence or more likely, hidden feelings and they know not to diss ASL in front of others. Sort of how a person who is a little bit racist would be friends with a black person but still locks the door if he sees a sketchy black man walking by but not a sketchy white man.
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Just a correction...

I dont have experience with only just one deaf school. I have experience in many different ones along with deaf programs at public schools in the 15 years I have been in the field of deaf education. My views are based on my experiences with all these different programs plus from different people that I have met throughout the years.
 
Daredevel7 said:
I'm probably just re-starting a fire but....

I think BOTH of you have rosy colored glasses, Shel and FJ.

Shel is probably working in a great and balanced deaf school and assumes most deaf schools are like that. I suspect this is far from reality, especially those far from big cities.

FJ is probably surrounded by parents with higher intelligence or more likely, hidden feelings and they know not to diss ASL in front of others. Sort of how a person who is a little bit racist would be friends with a black person but still locks the door if he sees a sketchy black man walking by but not a sketchy white man.
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I think I tend to be around parents that are like me, invested, intellegent and motivated. I think that there are crappy parents, but I think there are crappy oral ones and crappy ASL ones. ASL doesn't solve that problem.

I have experience with 3 oral schools and one bi-bi school personally. They all have pros and cons.
 
shel90 said:
Just a correction...

I dont have experience with only just one deaf school. I have experience in many different ones along with deaf programs at public schools in the 15 years I have been in the field of deaf education. My views are based on my experiences with all these different programs plus from different people that I have met throughout the years.
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Including ones that are far from big cities?

From all the articles and experiences that I've read, it seems glaringly obvious that there is an issue with ASL-based deaf education as well as oral-based deaf education. No one wants to talk about the former because it paints a bad picture for ASL, when in actuality it has to do with the education system itself.

In your experience Shel, is ASL-based deaf education fine the way it is? I suspect that people will respond "well, the education system itself sucks, whether you are deaf or not. Hearing people have an average reading level of an 8th grader" Blah blah. But here is the thing, parents of a hearing child have a MUCH bigger range of choices in the schools they can put their child in. In a given local area, there are at least 3 schools. One of them probably sucks and one of them probably is better. For a deaf child, if you want an ASL based education, you BARELY have a choice unless you can afford to uproot your family to move to a good deaf school while able to get a job nearby. So don't you think that deaf schools should have (or even DESERVE to have) a higher level of expectation than the average hearing school? Especially when there are so few of them?

This also applies for oral schools.
 
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The deaf schools I have worked in or visted all adopted the public school curriculm and teach it. The problem is that many of the students are not natives to those deaf schools meaning they came from mainstreamed or oral programs due to falling behind so the deaf schools are usually left to do remedial work to get them caught up which is very very challenging. The kids who have been in the programs since they were babies or toddlers usually perform better than those who have fell behind making me wonder if those who did would have never struggled if they had exposure to ASL first. We don't know so that's why I believe the way I do.
 
To answer your questions, the ones I have visited have high expectations and want the children to perform on the age appropriate level but how to teach a 4th grader multiplication and division when he/she can't even count beyond 100 or can't add or subtract. As a result, the teacher has to go back to 1st grade skills so the child can get the basics mastered.
Same thing with Language arts. People stereotype deaf schools has having lower standards when they really have no idea of all the issues involved.
 
shel90 said:
The deaf schools I have worked in or visted all adopted the public school curriculm and teach it. The problem is that many of the students are not natives to those deaf schools meaning they came from mainstreamed or oral programs due to falling behind so the deaf schools are usually left to do remedial work to get them caught up which is very very challenging. The kids who have been in the programs since they were babies or toddlers usually perform better than those who have fell behind making me wonder if those who did would have never struggled if they had exposure to ASL first. We don't know so that's why I believe the way I do.
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Have you visited oral schools? Seen the sucessful kids there? Have asked them what kind of fallow up they do? Tucker Maxon (an oral school in Oregon that USD's superintendant came from) follows up with their kids all the way through school. They have a 96% college rate. That is great. Clearly that school doesn't fail it's kids.
 
faire_jour said:
Have you visited oral schools? Seen the sucessful kids there? Have asked them what kind of fallow up they do? Tucker Maxon (an oral school in Oregon that USD's superintendant came from) follows up with their kids all the way through school. They have a 96% college rate. That is great. Clearly that school doesn't fail it's kids.
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Yes, I have visited oral schools. Never liked what I saw. Too many "can u say that again" or "I can't understand you's" in the lesson. Not for me. No thank u.
 
faire_jour said:
Have you visited oral schools? Seen the sucessful kids there? Have asked them what kind of fallow up they do? Tucker Maxon (an oral school in Oregon that USD's superintendant came from) follows up with their kids all the way through school. They have a 96% college rate. That is great. Clearly that school doesn't fail it's kids.
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Yes, I have visited oral schools. Never liked what I saw. Too many "can u say that again" or "I can't understand you's" in the lesson. Not for me. No thank u.

Also, I don't understand what's wrong with children having both. Seems like it is not acceptable to you which is fine. Then, there's no need for us to continue to justify our views.

I was answering Daredevel's questions not trying to pick another fight with you.

Thanks
 
shel90 said:
Yes, I have visited oral schools. Never liked what I saw. Too many "can u say that again" or "I can't understand you's" in the lesson. Not for me. No thank u.
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Interesting, I have never heard those things. The closest thing I've heard would be when a child says "I truck", the teacher repeats and expands "That's right, you HAVE a truck." Not, "i can't understand you". Weird, where did you visit? Must be a different kind of school.
 
Reading this thread... doesn't it seem glaringly obvious why parents send their kids to oral schools? It doesn't have to do with speech skills. Let's face it, ASL-based schools have a lot of "oral failures". Shel, could you approximate what percentage of a class are transferred from mainstream/oral schools? Even when you educate the parents on what could go wrong in an oral school or mainstream, they are aware of it and will do their best to mitigate that issue. In oral schools, most children are on the same level since they apparently send the worst ones to ASL-based schools.

Why would you want to send your child to a school that has a lot of peers who are falling behind? And not to mention that oral schools have a higher ability to develop speech skills. Harder to learn to speak than to learn ASL, right?

I am just saying.. this doesn't seem to be the parents' fault actually. MANY parents of the deaf would have to take the plunge AT THE SAME TIME in order to have many deaf schools to have minimal amount of kids "falling behind".

Schools need to work together, man!
 
faire_jour said:
Interesting, I have never heard those things. The closest thing I've heard would be when a child says "I truck", the teacher repeats and expands "That's right, you HAVE a truck." Not, "i can't understand you". Weird, where did you visit? Must be a different kind of school.
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River School in DC and Gompers in AZ. I dont think Gompers is open anymore.

Also, I have seen that happen in the mainstreamed programs where oral deaf kids are at. Too many to count.
 
Daredevel7 said:
Reading this thread... doesn't it seem glaringly obvious why parents send their kids to oral schools? It doesn't have to do with speech skills. Let's face it, ASL-based schools have a lot of "oral failures". Shel, could you approximate what percentage of a class are transferred from mainstream/oral schools? Even when you educate the parents on what could go wrong in an oral school or mainstream, they are aware of it and will do their best to mitigate that issue. In oral schools, most children are on the same level since they apparently send the worst ones to ASL-based schools.

Why would you want to send your child to a school that has a lot of peers who are falling behind? And not to mention that oral schools have a higher ability to develop speech skills. Harder to learn to speak than to learn ASL, right?

I am just saying.. this doesn't seem to be the parents' fault actually. MANY parents of the deaf would have to take the plunge AT THE SAME TIME in order to have many deaf schools to have minimal amount of kids "falling behind".

Schools need to work together, man!
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Why do many deaf people who grew up oral express that they wish they had ASL and exposure to other deaf children or Deaf culture growing up?

So, the kids who have attended Deaf schools from the beginning who are not falling behind at all dont count?
 
faire_jour said:
Have you visited oral schools? Seen the sucessful kids there? Have asked them what kind of fallow up they do? Tucker Maxon (an oral school in Oregon that USD's superintendant came from) follows up with their kids all the way through school. They have a 96% college rate. That is great. Clearly that school doesn't fail it's kids.
Click to expand...

shel90 said:
Yes, I have visited oral schools. Never liked what I saw. Too many "can u say that again" or "I can't understand you's" in the lesson. Not for me. No thank u.

Also, I don't understand what's wrong with children having both. Seems like it is not acceptable to you which is fine. Then, there's no need for us to continue to justify our views.


Thanks
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faire_jour said:
Interesting, I have never heard those things. The closest thing I've heard would be when a child says "I truck", the teacher repeats and expands "That's right, you HAVE a truck." Not, "i can't understand you". Weird, where did you visit? Must be a different kind of school.
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If you never heard those things, it is only because you haven't been in that for long.

I am certain you will hear it a lot in the coming years. And that isn't a criticism. That is just what being oral deaf is like. And I don't think the new CI are going to eliminate that.

I am fairly sure that with a different instruction I would have a lot more skills than I do.
 
I know my speech therapy was like that. I never been a oral school so I don't have any opinion about it. My mainstreamed school treat me like any hearing kids. I don't remember them correcting me with anything other than my paperworks and reading. Either that, or I wasn't hearing them. Although they did tell me they couldn't understand me and that I need to make myself clear. But that's because they truly couldn't understand me.

I saw another video where the child is at speech therapy that does the same thing.
 
Also, there is another aspect of the oral-only philosophy that I do not like. That it discriminates against those deaf who have no oral skills while deaf schools or BiBi programs accept deaf children who dont know ASL and work with them until they are fluent in ASL. The same thing goes for adults..in all of them that I have seen..both schools and mainstreamed, I have not once seen a deaf adult working there with the children.
 
Wirelessly posted

Yes, oral schools don't take all kids, but that is for the kid's own good. if a child isn't going to be successful and will fall behind and end up with poor language, they shouldn't take them, they should refer them to another, more appropriate program.

and as i said, all the oral schools we have been a part of have had deaf adults working for them.
 
Wirelessly posted

A said:
I know my speech therapy was like that. I never been a oral school so I don't have any opinion about it. My mainstreamed school treat me like any hearing kids. I don't remember them correcting me with anything other than my paperworks and reading. Either that, or I wasn't hearing them. Although they did tell me they couldn't understand me and that I need to make myself clear. But that's because they truly couldn't understand me.

I saw another video where the child is at speech therapy that does the same thing.
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I think it would be appropriate for speech therapy, that is the point of therapy, to correct speech. but during the day, during school, the focus is on language and learning not articulation.
 
faire_jour said:
Wirelessly posted



I think it would be appropriate for speech therapy, that is the point of therapy, to correct speech. but during the day, during school, the focus is on language and learning not articulation.
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My daughter was stopped and corrected all during her day and not just through speech therapy about her "sloppy" speech skills. She was called ignorant and stupid by so many teacher in a mainstreamed school. She only had speech issues, her hearing loss (mild as it is) was not a consideration.
 
faire_jour said:
Wirelessly posted

Yes, oral schools don't take all kids, but that is for the kid's own good. if a child isn't going to be successful and will fall behind and end up with poor language, they shouldn't take them, they should refer them to another, more appropriate program.

and as i said, all the oral schools we have been a part of have had deaf adults working for them.
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Would they accept deaf adults without oral skills..like my brother, for one? He is very very smart and has NO speech skills.
 
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