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A partnership beyond words - The Boston Globe
On nights he plays basketball, 15-year-old Macam Bak Macam doesn't get home until 10 or 11 p.m. But the deaf teenager from Sudan wouldn't skip a game for anything.
more stories like this
"I want to be an NBA player," the 6-foot-5-inch center says in sign language through Linda Gregorio, an interpreter at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, on Armington Street in Allston.
Asked if he thinks he has a shot, Macam, who came to this country from Africa with his family about five years ago, smiles broadly and shrugs his shoulders, signing, "I think I can do it."
For the past few months, Macam (pronounced Ma-SHAM) has been playing on the boys' 15-and-under team at the West End House Boys & Girls Club, which competes against clubs from across New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
In Macam's words, the team is "so-so," but students and administrators agree that the partnership between Horace Mann and the West End House is a slam-dunk.
And that partnership offers a lot more than basketball. Every day after school, about a dozen kids from Horace Mann, the nation's oldest public day school for the hearing impaired, walk the half-mile to the West End House on Allston Street. There, they spend several hours hanging out with students from other schools, doing homework, playing games, and taking classes.
Moe Maloney, assistant director of the Boston College Neighborhood Center, which provides resources to the Allston-Brighton community, helped launch the partnership between the school and the club.
"Where would these kids go if they didn't go to the West End House?" Because the Horace Mann students need a sign-language interpreter, "they'd have no place to go," he said. "They can't just be sent home on a bus."
Jenny Nute, the club's program director, said the Horace Mann students "add another rich layer of diversity" to the already diverse population at the club. (The students, who come primarily from Allston-Brighton, speak an array of languages, including Portuguese, Russian, Mandarin, Haitian Creole, and American Sign Language.) The deaf students try to teach the hearing staff and students their language.
Lihuong "Li" Tu, a seventh-grader at Horace Mann, is the "unofficial" sign-language teacher at the club, according to Gregorio. But Gregorio, who acts as the liaison between the club and school, goes to the West End House when the students need her.
The club used to offer ASL classes to members and staff ("the kids were really into it," Nute said), but due to a lack of funding they haven't offered it this year.
The other challenge has been providing transportation for the Horace Mann students who, like Macam, have to take public transportation between Allston and their homes, some as far away as Lynn, Tewksbury, and Randolph, according to the school's principal, Jeremiah Ford.
Ford said that beginning at age 3, hearing-impaired children in special-education programs are picked up at home, brought to school and returned home at the end of the day. "And that's great. You don't have to worry about transportation, but there's something insular about that. As educators, we want to open the world to kids and make sure they have every opportunity every other kid has."
more stories like this
Now, Ford said, he sees Horace Mann students heading off to the West End House, just a five-minute walk from school, where they can socialize with their friends in a supervised, safe place, do their homework, and participate in more than a dozen programs, including test preparation, violence prevention, basketball, dance, and pottery. Plus, there's a free hot meal every evening and membership costs just $15 a year.
In the words of Gregorio, the West End House "is a wonderful place for deaf and hard of hearing children to just be kids," she said. "When they're at school, they're at school. When they're at home, they don't always have access to full communication."
Plus, she said, it's an opportunity for them to interact with children that aren't deaf. "I think it's great that children realize disabilities are only a disability if you allow them to be," she said.
Jose Valdez, a Horace Mann seventh-grader with short-cropped hair and an earring in both ears, said through Gregorio, "I really love coming to West End House. It's so great to meet new friends. It's a great place to play. If I go home, it's so boring."
Darius Cephas-King, a hard-of-hearing 10th-grader who used to attend Horace Mann and now attends the EDCO Youth Alternative program in Boston, said, "At my house, problems are popping up every minute. So I'd rather come here than deal with the stress."
If it weren't for the West End House, he said, "I'd be outside doing crime, getting into trouble."
Khalifa Stafford, a sophomore at the John D. O'Bryant School of Math and Science and a friend of Darius's, said the deaf and hard of hearing are "just like us."
The West End House's basketball coach, Stern Chamblain, said at first it was tough communicating with Macam, the team's only deaf player. "But I've learned a lot from him on the go," he said. Having Macam on the team "is a good learning process for everybody across the board," Chamblain said. "His spirit is just great on the court.
"The kids just love him. Every time he scores, everybody goes nuts."
And, this being the West End House, the way the fans express that is by raising their hands and rotating them back and forth - the ASL sign for applause.
On nights he plays basketball, 15-year-old Macam Bak Macam doesn't get home until 10 or 11 p.m. But the deaf teenager from Sudan wouldn't skip a game for anything.
more stories like this
"I want to be an NBA player," the 6-foot-5-inch center says in sign language through Linda Gregorio, an interpreter at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, on Armington Street in Allston.
Asked if he thinks he has a shot, Macam, who came to this country from Africa with his family about five years ago, smiles broadly and shrugs his shoulders, signing, "I think I can do it."
For the past few months, Macam (pronounced Ma-SHAM) has been playing on the boys' 15-and-under team at the West End House Boys & Girls Club, which competes against clubs from across New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
In Macam's words, the team is "so-so," but students and administrators agree that the partnership between Horace Mann and the West End House is a slam-dunk.
And that partnership offers a lot more than basketball. Every day after school, about a dozen kids from Horace Mann, the nation's oldest public day school for the hearing impaired, walk the half-mile to the West End House on Allston Street. There, they spend several hours hanging out with students from other schools, doing homework, playing games, and taking classes.
Moe Maloney, assistant director of the Boston College Neighborhood Center, which provides resources to the Allston-Brighton community, helped launch the partnership between the school and the club.
"Where would these kids go if they didn't go to the West End House?" Because the Horace Mann students need a sign-language interpreter, "they'd have no place to go," he said. "They can't just be sent home on a bus."
Jenny Nute, the club's program director, said the Horace Mann students "add another rich layer of diversity" to the already diverse population at the club. (The students, who come primarily from Allston-Brighton, speak an array of languages, including Portuguese, Russian, Mandarin, Haitian Creole, and American Sign Language.) The deaf students try to teach the hearing staff and students their language.
Lihuong "Li" Tu, a seventh-grader at Horace Mann, is the "unofficial" sign-language teacher at the club, according to Gregorio. But Gregorio, who acts as the liaison between the club and school, goes to the West End House when the students need her.
The club used to offer ASL classes to members and staff ("the kids were really into it," Nute said), but due to a lack of funding they haven't offered it this year.
The other challenge has been providing transportation for the Horace Mann students who, like Macam, have to take public transportation between Allston and their homes, some as far away as Lynn, Tewksbury, and Randolph, according to the school's principal, Jeremiah Ford.
Ford said that beginning at age 3, hearing-impaired children in special-education programs are picked up at home, brought to school and returned home at the end of the day. "And that's great. You don't have to worry about transportation, but there's something insular about that. As educators, we want to open the world to kids and make sure they have every opportunity every other kid has."
more stories like this
Now, Ford said, he sees Horace Mann students heading off to the West End House, just a five-minute walk from school, where they can socialize with their friends in a supervised, safe place, do their homework, and participate in more than a dozen programs, including test preparation, violence prevention, basketball, dance, and pottery. Plus, there's a free hot meal every evening and membership costs just $15 a year.
In the words of Gregorio, the West End House "is a wonderful place for deaf and hard of hearing children to just be kids," she said. "When they're at school, they're at school. When they're at home, they don't always have access to full communication."
Plus, she said, it's an opportunity for them to interact with children that aren't deaf. "I think it's great that children realize disabilities are only a disability if you allow them to be," she said.
Jose Valdez, a Horace Mann seventh-grader with short-cropped hair and an earring in both ears, said through Gregorio, "I really love coming to West End House. It's so great to meet new friends. It's a great place to play. If I go home, it's so boring."
Darius Cephas-King, a hard-of-hearing 10th-grader who used to attend Horace Mann and now attends the EDCO Youth Alternative program in Boston, said, "At my house, problems are popping up every minute. So I'd rather come here than deal with the stress."
If it weren't for the West End House, he said, "I'd be outside doing crime, getting into trouble."
Khalifa Stafford, a sophomore at the John D. O'Bryant School of Math and Science and a friend of Darius's, said the deaf and hard of hearing are "just like us."
The West End House's basketball coach, Stern Chamblain, said at first it was tough communicating with Macam, the team's only deaf player. "But I've learned a lot from him on the go," he said. Having Macam on the team "is a good learning process for everybody across the board," Chamblain said. "His spirit is just great on the court.
"The kids just love him. Every time he scores, everybody goes nuts."
And, this being the West End House, the way the fans express that is by raising their hands and rotating them back and forth - the ASL sign for applause.