Sweetmind

http://www.deafeducation.org/stories/ropeswrath.html


Saturday, June 24, 2006
STORIES


Sweetmind

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"Tell the mothers I said, "Don't try to change your child; you are the adult, you bear the burden of change" - Harlan Lane

Deafness

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LuciaDisturbed

Eh, I was tied up to a chair when I was in Kindergarten and even had my fingers taped together. I had previously gone to a local school for the deaf in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but it closed down and my mom did not want to send me out of town to the state school for the deaf (I wanted to stay home too) but after one year she found out about the chair and had enough and sent me to the school for the deaf for a year so I could get ahead in education. I did come back, though, to another local public school with a better DHH program. I had gone mainstream for most of the time and did well after that.

I am an advocate of total communication, but I would say that tying a kid to a chair and preventing him/her from signing is wrong.

Just my two cents.

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"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - Philosopher George Santayana.


Implanted left ear 10/11/06, activated 10/16/06 - Nucleus Freedom

My own CI experience, my views on CI and ASL and Deaf Culture and Society

DeviantArt

Reba

Those stories are so sad.

IslandGal

It is so dead wrong of them to do that to a child!!

I used to work at a small deaf school as a teacher's aide at the same time a new teacher was hired. This teacher was so against signing and he would slap on the kids' hands and forced them to put their hands underneath them while they were sitting down. His wife would come by sometimes to help her husband out and she would rub a wet soap on the kids' mouths for not speaking well. I told him that they shouldn't do these kind of things to the kids and he then said he is the teacher so he knows what he is doing. I couldn't take it anymore with their meaness to the kids so I decided to quit.

Gemtun

Yeah Ive been tortured whenever I "gestured" with my hands.

For example, if I try to get my friend's attention, I would wave at her or if we were playing "ambulance" with our flying fingertips, I would be sent to the office and sit in a corner for hours and hours.

My brother had it worse - my brother was sent to office nearly on a daily basis or spanked often.

I have long forgiven that school but my brother still has a deep scar in his heart.

(What was even worse is that the director of that school had Deaf parents who signed...yet the director refused to let any of us sign. He knew ASL himself! That made all of us really angry with double standards he created at that school)

gnulinuxman

Oh, but hearing parents don't believe any of this.

LuciaDisturbed

Oh, my mother believed it. She had no idea and I did not know how to communicate this to my mother, but several of my classmates who witnessed what the teachers did to me told their mothers and their mothers called my mother and told her all about it. She was and big time!

If she had known they were going to do that to me, she would have never sent me to that school at all! So, after the year was up, she transferred me to another school.

My mother was VERY protective of me, I was Momma's girl!

__________________


"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - Philosopher George Santayana.


Implanted left ear 10/11/06, activated 10/16/06 - Nucleus Freedom

My own CI experience, my views on CI and ASL and Deaf Culture and Society

DeviantArt

deafdyke

Actually did you know that Tucker Maxon (oral school in Oregon) has a policy where kids can't tap each other on their shoulders to get their attention?

jillio

I get so ANGRY when I read things like this! The oralists tried to tell me to ignore my son's gestures, to force him to speak. They told me, "He won't learn to speak if you let him sign. He must learn to speak to fit into the world." Told them kiss my arse! Ignore him--that is punishment for try to communicate! Wrong, wrong, wrong! You people have no heart!

When I see others do this to other deaf children, makes me so mad I want to SCREAM!

Gemtun

Huh? Where do you get such statement from? My parents DID believe me. I dont appreciate your sweeping statements. If you make a such sweeping statement, at least back it up with evidence.

Gemtun

Yes I know that too well - because I am a Tucker Maxon alumni.

IslandGal

Really?? Jeez!! That is so heartless of that school to have that kind of policy

Gemtun

Yeah you could say that - my childhood friend (we were in same class all these years at Tucker Maxon) calls out to me all the time because we were trained to call out to each other in our early years. Many times she would call out my name to get my attention and of course I didnt hear her - and she would say didnt you hear me? Guess old habits are hard to get rid of.

deafdyke

Gemtum, I know........it's so retarded!! Even hearies do that! Although it IS kind of funny. For most of the kids I grew up with, it was second nature to know to get my attention in different ways. However, when I went to college, I had to teach everyone to do that since they weren't used to interacting with a dhh kid.
FUCK OFF oralists! Hearing and speaking is a GREAT tool, and it allows SOME access to the hearing world for dhh kids, but very few dhh kids fit 100% into the hearing world. The abilty to speak isn't some magic bullet. Even many kids who are oral sucesses or superstars have significent difficulties with social-emotional development. Stop promoting it as a magic bullet, and maybe then a lot of oral bashing among dhh people will stop! If they promoted it more as a tool, then I would not bash them!

jillio

That's exactly why I told the to kisss my a** and did what my heart told me was right.

Liebling:-)))

That´s sad... *shake my head disguist*

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Sweetmind

Many very good comments, I want to say thank to you for telling the truth that I was hoping for. So I dont have to say my own words. Let people see the truth. I am so greatful to have that url for you to read from a d/Deaf person.

No more secretive or lies about us d/Deaf people 's true inner soul and true experiences by audist attitude people.

Thats why there is always ignorance and arrogance running through their blood. Of course,they are nowhere near as fully openminded as they claimed to be.

It s way too much overgeneralization of culturally egocentric hearing version. You were influeneced by audism that we need to stop. We all have a serious problem with ADA and our Deaf children that put them isolated or being separated from us Deaf people/Deaf community that seems it goes back to old days.

They shouldnt be left out and treated like failures due to no communication. That isnt fair! Also some d/Deaf children dont want to lipread because of the struggle no matter if they have devices...their choice...no more controlling! Deaf children have the right to use their hands and no one can stop them.

Thank you for your courage to say it aloud.

Have a wonderful day!
Sweetmind

__________________
"Tell the mothers I said, "Don't try to change your child; you are the adult, you bear the burden of change" - Harlan Lane

IslandGal

I used to be in an oral school too and our teachers would tell us to call out each other's names. Whenever I didn't hear my name being called out my teacher would scold on me for not hearing it
While I was in this school for my first five years of schooling I never knew at all that sign language even existed.

Gemtun

I didnt know that ASL existed until I was a senior in high school.

For my friend who keeps calling out my name, I always tell her to shut up and just tap me on my shoulder or wave in front of my eyes if need my attention

But of course, I have embraced and love ASL now

moonflower

i never in oral school whew
always in deaf programs in hearing schools where ALL deaf kids signs that it

but it is SO sad to hear all the awful things they did to kids GRR honest i will be pissed off

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2010

Koala

Sweetmind, yep that url is a good one. Thanks for sharing it.

Anyway, when I was little, I went to a special unit for the hard of hearing children at a hearing school and I also boarded at the Deaf residential school. Therefore I was learning two languages growing up, speech & hear at the HOH unit and Auslan at the Deaf school. I am glad that I have learnt auslan through from my Deaf boarding peers. When I didn't understand some homework from the HOH unit, I would ask the older girls at the Deaf school and we would work it out together as a little team in auslan which is a good back up for me. It was fun being together solving some questions in auslan.

At the HOH unit, I have seen some cruelty going on in the classroom by my hearing teacher and my speech therapist. That's all because handful of us kids who are boarders at the deaf school were using auslan and the rest of the kids in the class were learning it from us outside of the classroom. Of course, we (the boarders) got into trouble for it. We were told that we mustn't use auslan and we all must focus on speech & hear. Of course we got punished for it in a cruel ways. We get spanked and dragged over to be told off. Some of us got our hair on top of our head grabbed and we were dragged to the front of our teacher desk or to outside. Then we were told off verbally.
In the classroom, we all have a desk that have a lid each, when one of us got caught signing, our teacher would lift the desk lid up and tell us put our hand down and then she shut the lid down on our hands. Geez! that was painful.
One day each week, we go to the speech therapist in turn. Our speech therapist always have a spoon. She use it to spank our hand with it if we don't say some words right. Also she use the handle of the spoon to poke and prod our tongue with it as to correcting the way our tongue should be when we say a word. I find it uncomfortable and horrible to have a handle of a spoon in my mouth.
Geez whizz! If that speech therapist still around doing that now, she'd be sacked, now that we got a better law to prevent any cruelty to children. That including teachers too.