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Deaf Ithaca High School seniors heading for academic bowl | theithacajournal.com | The Ithaca Journal
Five students in Ithaca High School T-shirts reading "Academic Bowl Team" ran drills one Tuesday after the final bell.
Their coach distilled a news story about disgraced insurance company AIG.
"This is important. This may come up," he told them. "Quick, spell 'recession.'"
The students, all seniors, scribbled on small dry erase boards. The word, suspiciously easy for many 12th-graders, came out in several creative spellings. The coach pointed at one student's board.
"That's right. Everyone memorize that," he said.
Learning to spell in English is tricky for someone who is deaf.
The team was practicing for an academic bowl being put on by Gallaudet University, a school for deaf and hard-of-hearing students, in Washington, D.C. Later this week, they head to Long Island for the regional round, in which they will compete against 13 other teams of deaf and hard-of-hearing high school students. The two highest-placing teams will go on to the next round at Gallaudet, where the champions will be determined.
It was the ambition of one of the students that pulled the team together. Kelsey Lindhorst said she thought the group, many of whom have been in classes together since kindergarten, needed to do something special to commemorate their senior year.
Lindhorst is eager and ambitious and is not too shy to say so.
"I have a lot of energy," she said through American Sign Language interpreter Michele Hochstetter. "I'm a leader. I'm very optimistic, and I believe we can do this."
She and her teammates study using a Jeopardy-style game board and brush up on current events and vocabulary by reading newspapers. Subjects for the academic bowl cover history and government, language and literature, science and technology, geography, math, the arts, current events, popular culture, sports and a category called deaf studies.
Team member Samantha Liddick said deaf studies reflects the unique cultural experience of people who are born deaf. American Sign Language, or ASL, has its own grammar, and learning how to read and write in English, when you have no phonetic clues to help you, is like learning a second language.
(2 of 3)
Deaf studies also focuses on visible figures in business, government, science and other areas who are deaf. Liddick said one of her favorite role models is Marlee Matlin, a deaf actor.
Coach Jim Meyers, who is also a teacher for the deaf during regular school hours, said the students on the team have become especially focused in their classes since they began preparing for the bowl in October.
"They are aware in their academic classes that they could pick up information for the competition," Meyers said.
Besides just the extra attention to studies that would benefit any student, Meyers said the students are looking forward to meeting groups of their peers from across the country.
This group of students is both lucky and unusual in that they are able to attend a mainstream school with a group of peers. Several of them are from school districts outside of Ithaca but were pulled together in kindergarten by an initiative in Tompkins-Seneca-Tioga BOCES.
Hochstetter said the students are lucky to have a community of deaf and hard-of-hearing students in the school, albeit a small one. The students take all but one or two courses alongside their hearing counterparts, with the help of an interpreter.
"Most individual school districts will just keep their deaf students in the home district," she said. "They will say the least restrictive environment will be to keep them in their own neighborhood. With deaf students, to be the only one, that can be very isolating."
It was a strange coincidence that brought several students with the same challenges into the district at the same time, at the same age. It was not only cost-effective to bring them together; it meant they could have some fellow-travelers - and academic bowl partners.
"When they entered kindergarten, their parents were aware there were students the same age and they worked hard to get them in the same school," Meyers said.
Hochstetter was brought in when the group was formed and has been with them all through the course of their public school education.
(3 of 3)
"I've seen them every day of school and I've teased them that I was going to go and become an interpreter at their colleges," Hochstetter said. "But they need to go and work with somebody else, now."
Graduation day will be a tough one for her, she said.
After they graduate, the students are heading off to college.
Lindhorst is going to Rochester Institute of Technology's National Technical Institute for the Deaf to pursue a degree in deaf education. Liddick and another student, Kaitlyn Taylor, will be going to Gallaudet. Taylor wants to be a recreational therapist. Liddick, like many soon-to-be college freshmen, doesn't know yet what she wants to study. The two other team members, Kate Iapone and Antonio Nieto, are also pursuing degrees in higher education, Iapone starting at Tompkins Cortland Community College and planning to transfer to a four-year program, and Nieto in biomechanics, also starting at a community college.
Win or lose in Long Island this weekend, the team will be scattering come this summer after spending their childhood learning side by side. They hope participating in the bowl will be a good way to mark the turning point they are fast approaching.
"It's our senior year," Lindhorst said. "We can't just do the same thing."
Deaf studies also focuses on visible figures in business, government, science and other areas who are deaf. Liddick said one of her favorite role models is Marlee Matlin, a deaf actor.
Coach Jim Meyers, who is also a teacher for the deaf during regular school hours, said the students on the team have become especially focused in their classes since they began preparing for the bowl in October.
"They are aware in their academic classes that they could pick up information for the competition," Meyers said.
Besides just the extra attention to studies that would benefit any student, Meyers said the students are looking forward to meeting groups of their peers from across the country.
This group of students is both lucky and unusual in that they are able to attend a mainstream school with a group of peers. Several of them are from school districts outside of Ithaca but were pulled together in kindergarten by an initiative in Tompkins-Seneca-Tioga BOCES.
Hochstetter said the students are lucky to have a community of deaf and hard-of-hearing students in the school, albeit a small one. The students take all but one or two courses alongside their hearing counterparts, with the help of an interpreter.
"Most individual school districts will just keep their deaf students in the home district," she said. "They will say the least restrictive environment will be to keep them in their own neighborhood. With deaf students, to be the only one, that can be very isolating."
It was a strange coincidence that brought several students with the same challenges into the district at the same time, at the same age. It was not only cost-effective to bring them together; it meant they could have some fellow-travelers - and academic bowl partners.
"When they entered kindergarten, their parents were aware there were students the same age and they worked hard to get them in the same school," Meyers said.
Hochstetter was brought in when the group was formed and has been with them all through the course of their public school education.
"I've seen them every day of school and I've teased them that I was going to go and become an interpreter at their colleges," Hochstetter said. "But they need to go and work with somebody else, now."
Graduation day will be a tough one for her, she said.
After they graduate, the students are heading off to college.
Lindhorst is going to Rochester Institute of Technology's National Technical Institute for the Deaf to pursue a degree in deaf education. Liddick and another student, Kaitlyn Taylor, will be going to Gallaudet. Taylor wants to be a recreational therapist. Liddick, like many soon-to-be college freshmen, doesn't know yet what she wants to study. The two other team members, Kate Iapone and Antonio Nieto, are also pursuing degrees in higher education, Iapone starting at Tompkins Cortland Community College and planning to transfer to a four-year program, and Nieto in biomechanics, also starting at a community college.
Win or lose in Long Island this weekend, the team will be scattering come this summer after spending their childhood learning side by side. They hope participating in the bowl will be a good way to mark the turning point they are fast approaching.
"It's our senior year," Lindhorst said. "We can't just do the same thing."
Five students in Ithaca High School T-shirts reading "Academic Bowl Team" ran drills one Tuesday after the final bell.
Their coach distilled a news story about disgraced insurance company AIG.
"This is important. This may come up," he told them. "Quick, spell 'recession.'"
The students, all seniors, scribbled on small dry erase boards. The word, suspiciously easy for many 12th-graders, came out in several creative spellings. The coach pointed at one student's board.
"That's right. Everyone memorize that," he said.
Learning to spell in English is tricky for someone who is deaf.
The team was practicing for an academic bowl being put on by Gallaudet University, a school for deaf and hard-of-hearing students, in Washington, D.C. Later this week, they head to Long Island for the regional round, in which they will compete against 13 other teams of deaf and hard-of-hearing high school students. The two highest-placing teams will go on to the next round at Gallaudet, where the champions will be determined.
It was the ambition of one of the students that pulled the team together. Kelsey Lindhorst said she thought the group, many of whom have been in classes together since kindergarten, needed to do something special to commemorate their senior year.
Lindhorst is eager and ambitious and is not too shy to say so.
"I have a lot of energy," she said through American Sign Language interpreter Michele Hochstetter. "I'm a leader. I'm very optimistic, and I believe we can do this."
She and her teammates study using a Jeopardy-style game board and brush up on current events and vocabulary by reading newspapers. Subjects for the academic bowl cover history and government, language and literature, science and technology, geography, math, the arts, current events, popular culture, sports and a category called deaf studies.
Team member Samantha Liddick said deaf studies reflects the unique cultural experience of people who are born deaf. American Sign Language, or ASL, has its own grammar, and learning how to read and write in English, when you have no phonetic clues to help you, is like learning a second language.
(2 of 3)
Deaf studies also focuses on visible figures in business, government, science and other areas who are deaf. Liddick said one of her favorite role models is Marlee Matlin, a deaf actor.
Coach Jim Meyers, who is also a teacher for the deaf during regular school hours, said the students on the team have become especially focused in their classes since they began preparing for the bowl in October.
"They are aware in their academic classes that they could pick up information for the competition," Meyers said.
Besides just the extra attention to studies that would benefit any student, Meyers said the students are looking forward to meeting groups of their peers from across the country.
This group of students is both lucky and unusual in that they are able to attend a mainstream school with a group of peers. Several of them are from school districts outside of Ithaca but were pulled together in kindergarten by an initiative in Tompkins-Seneca-Tioga BOCES.
Hochstetter said the students are lucky to have a community of deaf and hard-of-hearing students in the school, albeit a small one. The students take all but one or two courses alongside their hearing counterparts, with the help of an interpreter.
"Most individual school districts will just keep their deaf students in the home district," she said. "They will say the least restrictive environment will be to keep them in their own neighborhood. With deaf students, to be the only one, that can be very isolating."
It was a strange coincidence that brought several students with the same challenges into the district at the same time, at the same age. It was not only cost-effective to bring them together; it meant they could have some fellow-travelers - and academic bowl partners.
"When they entered kindergarten, their parents were aware there were students the same age and they worked hard to get them in the same school," Meyers said.
Hochstetter was brought in when the group was formed and has been with them all through the course of their public school education.
(3 of 3)
"I've seen them every day of school and I've teased them that I was going to go and become an interpreter at their colleges," Hochstetter said. "But they need to go and work with somebody else, now."
Graduation day will be a tough one for her, she said.
After they graduate, the students are heading off to college.
Lindhorst is going to Rochester Institute of Technology's National Technical Institute for the Deaf to pursue a degree in deaf education. Liddick and another student, Kaitlyn Taylor, will be going to Gallaudet. Taylor wants to be a recreational therapist. Liddick, like many soon-to-be college freshmen, doesn't know yet what she wants to study. The two other team members, Kate Iapone and Antonio Nieto, are also pursuing degrees in higher education, Iapone starting at Tompkins Cortland Community College and planning to transfer to a four-year program, and Nieto in biomechanics, also starting at a community college.
Win or lose in Long Island this weekend, the team will be scattering come this summer after spending their childhood learning side by side. They hope participating in the bowl will be a good way to mark the turning point they are fast approaching.
"It's our senior year," Lindhorst said. "We can't just do the same thing."
Deaf studies also focuses on visible figures in business, government, science and other areas who are deaf. Liddick said one of her favorite role models is Marlee Matlin, a deaf actor.
Coach Jim Meyers, who is also a teacher for the deaf during regular school hours, said the students on the team have become especially focused in their classes since they began preparing for the bowl in October.
"They are aware in their academic classes that they could pick up information for the competition," Meyers said.
Besides just the extra attention to studies that would benefit any student, Meyers said the students are looking forward to meeting groups of their peers from across the country.
This group of students is both lucky and unusual in that they are able to attend a mainstream school with a group of peers. Several of them are from school districts outside of Ithaca but were pulled together in kindergarten by an initiative in Tompkins-Seneca-Tioga BOCES.
Hochstetter said the students are lucky to have a community of deaf and hard-of-hearing students in the school, albeit a small one. The students take all but one or two courses alongside their hearing counterparts, with the help of an interpreter.
"Most individual school districts will just keep their deaf students in the home district," she said. "They will say the least restrictive environment will be to keep them in their own neighborhood. With deaf students, to be the only one, that can be very isolating."
It was a strange coincidence that brought several students with the same challenges into the district at the same time, at the same age. It was not only cost-effective to bring them together; it meant they could have some fellow-travelers - and academic bowl partners.
"When they entered kindergarten, their parents were aware there were students the same age and they worked hard to get them in the same school," Meyers said.
Hochstetter was brought in when the group was formed and has been with them all through the course of their public school education.
"I've seen them every day of school and I've teased them that I was going to go and become an interpreter at their colleges," Hochstetter said. "But they need to go and work with somebody else, now."
Graduation day will be a tough one for her, she said.
After they graduate, the students are heading off to college.
Lindhorst is going to Rochester Institute of Technology's National Technical Institute for the Deaf to pursue a degree in deaf education. Liddick and another student, Kaitlyn Taylor, will be going to Gallaudet. Taylor wants to be a recreational therapist. Liddick, like many soon-to-be college freshmen, doesn't know yet what she wants to study. The two other team members, Kate Iapone and Antonio Nieto, are also pursuing degrees in higher education, Iapone starting at Tompkins Cortland Community College and planning to transfer to a four-year program, and Nieto in biomechanics, also starting at a community college.
Win or lose in Long Island this weekend, the team will be scattering come this summer after spending their childhood learning side by side. They hope participating in the bowl will be a good way to mark the turning point they are fast approaching.
"It's our senior year," Lindhorst said. "We can't just do the same thing."