I found this blogging that got my attention, and I wanted to share it with you all.
Hello and welcome to my March blog entry. This month I’ll be considering some of the frustrations that Deaf people face in a world that is simply not geared up for them, and I’ll be turning the tables to speculate on how things might be for hearing people in an imaginary world where the majority of people are Deaf and they are in the minority.
Firstly though, I want to take you through an imaginary day in the life of an average Deaf person here in Britain, to see what kind of frustrations and difficulties they face.
Just like the rest of the workforce, Joe Deaf gets himself up and dressed and heads out to work after a bite of breakfast. He regularly travels to work by train, so heads to his usual platform. It’s here that he comes up against his first problem of the day. Platform changes at this station are still announced by tannoy or loudspeaker, and this morning that means Joe finds himself aboard the wrong train by accident, not realising that there has been a platform alteration. He soon realises his mistake as the train heads in the wrong direction, but by the time he has found his way back and caught the right train, checking carefully this time, he is frustrated and late for work.
Arriving late, Joe makes his apologies and finds his way to his desk. His hearing colleagues seem to be sharing a laugh and a joke, but Joe can’t hear what they are saying and they don’t fill him in on what he’s missing, so he just keeps his head down and gets on with his work, feeling a little sad and lonely and wishing that there was another Deaf person working nearby that he could pass the time of day with.
At lunchtime, he makes his way to the canteen and though the food is not bad, he still feels isolated, as his hearing colleagues laugh and chatter away to one another across the table. Even when he plucks up the courage to ask what they’re all laughing about, they don’t bother to take the time to explain properly, just telling him it was a just a joke and nothing important. He goes back to his meal. The limited communication he has with his colleagues makes it difficult for Joe to join in and this makes him feel resentful and even less confident.
Back at his desk, Joe realises he needs to make a few phone calls, but having to go through the Type Talk operators is never a smooth process and soon enough things start to go wrong as the person he has called starts to misunderstand what he means. Try as he might, he can’t express himself clearly by typing and the conversation goes quickly downhill. After a lot of explaining and clarifying, the conversation is finally sorted, but it was a frustrating and time-consuming business.
Soon afterwards, Joe receives an email from someone high up in the company. It’s full of technical language and corporate speak, not in plain English at all. Joe only uses English as a second language and he struggles to unravel the meaning of the message, worrying about what he might have missed or not understood.
At the end of the working day, Joe decides to treat himself to a new mobile phone before heading home. He compares a couple of models and wants to ask a few questions of the shop assistant, but they become flustered when he explains that he is Deaf and refuse to gesture or write anything down. Again frustrated at the difficulty in communicating, and cross with the assistant’s bad attitude, he leaves the shop without buying anything and heads home an angry man.
Joe’s day was full of miscommunications, missed information and misunderstandings. Sometimes he feels like it’s all just too much.
And Joe is not unusual. Deaf people face these kinds of frustrations and problems on a daily basis, because they live in a world that operates differently to the way they do. It’s not surprising that Deaf people are often lacking in confidence.
Now imagine for a moment that the situation was reversed; that the majority of people were Deaf and used sign language and that hearing people were in the minority. I honestly believe that those problems and those feelings would be exactly the same in reverse. In a world built to suit Deaf people, hearing people would struggle to function in identical ways. They would not understand signed announcements on train station screens; they’d be left out of the office banter by their Deaf workmates; they’d struggle to understand video emails and become frustrated at the slowness and confusion of having to relay all their calls through a video relay telephone service; they’d despair at the attitude of impatient shop assistants. All of this would affect their confidence and self esteem and leave them feeling frustrated and isolated.
If hearing people experienced this, even for just a day, they would have some understanding of the reality of life for Deaf people. They would be able to empathise with Deaf people and be more aware of their suffering. The aim of training course is to make those people working in public services aware of the difficulties Deaf people face on a daily basis in the hope that increasing their awareness will encourage them to commit to making their services more accessible and equitable for Deaf people.
Source
Hello and welcome to my March blog entry. This month I’ll be considering some of the frustrations that Deaf people face in a world that is simply not geared up for them, and I’ll be turning the tables to speculate on how things might be for hearing people in an imaginary world where the majority of people are Deaf and they are in the minority.
Firstly though, I want to take you through an imaginary day in the life of an average Deaf person here in Britain, to see what kind of frustrations and difficulties they face.
Just like the rest of the workforce, Joe Deaf gets himself up and dressed and heads out to work after a bite of breakfast. He regularly travels to work by train, so heads to his usual platform. It’s here that he comes up against his first problem of the day. Platform changes at this station are still announced by tannoy or loudspeaker, and this morning that means Joe finds himself aboard the wrong train by accident, not realising that there has been a platform alteration. He soon realises his mistake as the train heads in the wrong direction, but by the time he has found his way back and caught the right train, checking carefully this time, he is frustrated and late for work.
Arriving late, Joe makes his apologies and finds his way to his desk. His hearing colleagues seem to be sharing a laugh and a joke, but Joe can’t hear what they are saying and they don’t fill him in on what he’s missing, so he just keeps his head down and gets on with his work, feeling a little sad and lonely and wishing that there was another Deaf person working nearby that he could pass the time of day with.
At lunchtime, he makes his way to the canteen and though the food is not bad, he still feels isolated, as his hearing colleagues laugh and chatter away to one another across the table. Even when he plucks up the courage to ask what they’re all laughing about, they don’t bother to take the time to explain properly, just telling him it was a just a joke and nothing important. He goes back to his meal. The limited communication he has with his colleagues makes it difficult for Joe to join in and this makes him feel resentful and even less confident.
Back at his desk, Joe realises he needs to make a few phone calls, but having to go through the Type Talk operators is never a smooth process and soon enough things start to go wrong as the person he has called starts to misunderstand what he means. Try as he might, he can’t express himself clearly by typing and the conversation goes quickly downhill. After a lot of explaining and clarifying, the conversation is finally sorted, but it was a frustrating and time-consuming business.
Soon afterwards, Joe receives an email from someone high up in the company. It’s full of technical language and corporate speak, not in plain English at all. Joe only uses English as a second language and he struggles to unravel the meaning of the message, worrying about what he might have missed or not understood.
At the end of the working day, Joe decides to treat himself to a new mobile phone before heading home. He compares a couple of models and wants to ask a few questions of the shop assistant, but they become flustered when he explains that he is Deaf and refuse to gesture or write anything down. Again frustrated at the difficulty in communicating, and cross with the assistant’s bad attitude, he leaves the shop without buying anything and heads home an angry man.
Joe’s day was full of miscommunications, missed information and misunderstandings. Sometimes he feels like it’s all just too much.
And Joe is not unusual. Deaf people face these kinds of frustrations and problems on a daily basis, because they live in a world that operates differently to the way they do. It’s not surprising that Deaf people are often lacking in confidence.
Now imagine for a moment that the situation was reversed; that the majority of people were Deaf and used sign language and that hearing people were in the minority. I honestly believe that those problems and those feelings would be exactly the same in reverse. In a world built to suit Deaf people, hearing people would struggle to function in identical ways. They would not understand signed announcements on train station screens; they’d be left out of the office banter by their Deaf workmates; they’d struggle to understand video emails and become frustrated at the slowness and confusion of having to relay all their calls through a video relay telephone service; they’d despair at the attitude of impatient shop assistants. All of this would affect their confidence and self esteem and leave them feeling frustrated and isolated.
If hearing people experienced this, even for just a day, they would have some understanding of the reality of life for Deaf people. They would be able to empathise with Deaf people and be more aware of their suffering. The aim of training course is to make those people working in public services aware of the difficulties Deaf people face on a daily basis in the hope that increasing their awareness will encourage them to commit to making their services more accessible and equitable for Deaf people.
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