Miss-Delectable
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Appleton Post-Crescent: Your Fox Cities News Source - Fox Valley Technical College grad a class standout with sights set on soundless world
As if middle school isn't humiliating enough: When an interpreter speaks for a deaf boy, the voice the listener hears is usually a woman's.
"They don't want a girl saying what they're saying," said Eric Jackson of Marinette. "What you're saying is representing them, and they want to be represented as male."
A masculine voice is the unique quality Jackson, 22, can offer the deaf students he hopes to serve. He is the first man to graduate from Fox Valley Technical College's educational interpreter program since the college, based in Grand Chute, developed the program in 2000 to serve deaf students who communicate through sign language.
It was a woman, however, who inspired Jackson to prepare for a career as an educational interpreter. His older sister, Kristi, lost her hearing to an illness when she was a toddler.
"My parents were told she wouldn't do very well in school," Jackson said. Instead, Kristi graduated from Marinette High School with a 4.0 grade point average.
"Just hearing that could happen to somebody, if my parents had listened, if they had taken her out of school, she might not have had an opportunity like everybody else had. Making sure somebody has that opportunity seemed like something I wanted to be part of."
Actually, Kristi, who lives in the Minneapolis area with her husband, Steve Townshend, and their children, didn't use sign language until she went to college. She navigated her primary school education with hearing aids and by speaking a language she couldn't hear.
Sign language was her entree to a new kind of world. Before, she was deaf. When she went to college, she became Deaf. The former is a disability; the latter is a culture, shared by deaf people who communicate using American Sign Language.
"Now, my primary and preferred mode of communication is ASL, even with my hearing children," Kristi Townshend wrote in an e-mail to The Post-Crescent. "Since accepting my own deafness and immersing myself into Deaf culture, I feel that I have found my true self. And I am thrilled that my brother can be involved in the deaf world with me. I strongly believe his knowledge of sign language and Deaf culture has drawn us closer together."
The difference between spoken and sign language, and hearing and Deaf culture, Jackson explained, is essentially candor. You can't hide behind sign language — which communicates as much through facial expression as through gestures — the way you can words, he said.
"If a person has gained weight, a Deaf person will say, 'You gained weight,'" Jackson said. "In hearing culture, that would be absolutely unheard of. You'd say it in a way that's supposed to sound nice, but you really mean the same thing."
A visit to his sister's home is an experience in Deaf culture immersion.
"There's no talking, only signing," Jackson said. "There's all these events I had the opportunity to go to. I played dodgeball on a team that was only deaf people. We were communicating with each other on the team with sign language. You don't get those kinds of experiences just going to school."
Lynn Behnke, one of Jackson's teachers, describes him as "a second mother."
"In a nutshell, what Eric has brought to the class is a sense of humor and patience — working with 12 women in the class — and experience growing up with a deaf sister and now a deaf brother-in-law," Behnke said. "He has just brought a wonderful atmosphere to the class."
Jackson humbly recognizes the advantage he had over many of his classmates.
"I'm really proud of the people in my class," he said. "They all did an awesome job."
Jackson adjusted easily to being the only male in his program. "I grew up with three older sisters," he said. "By the time I got to this program, I'd hung out with girls all my life."
Jackson said he wouldn't mind going through the rest of his life communicating exclusively through sign language. In fact, he thinks he expresses himself better with his hands and face than with verbiage.
Nor does he dread the possibility of losing his hearing, with one exception. Before he decided to become an interpreter, he'd planned to be a professional musician.
"I would miss music."
As if middle school isn't humiliating enough: When an interpreter speaks for a deaf boy, the voice the listener hears is usually a woman's.
"They don't want a girl saying what they're saying," said Eric Jackson of Marinette. "What you're saying is representing them, and they want to be represented as male."
A masculine voice is the unique quality Jackson, 22, can offer the deaf students he hopes to serve. He is the first man to graduate from Fox Valley Technical College's educational interpreter program since the college, based in Grand Chute, developed the program in 2000 to serve deaf students who communicate through sign language.
It was a woman, however, who inspired Jackson to prepare for a career as an educational interpreter. His older sister, Kristi, lost her hearing to an illness when she was a toddler.
"My parents were told she wouldn't do very well in school," Jackson said. Instead, Kristi graduated from Marinette High School with a 4.0 grade point average.
"Just hearing that could happen to somebody, if my parents had listened, if they had taken her out of school, she might not have had an opportunity like everybody else had. Making sure somebody has that opportunity seemed like something I wanted to be part of."
Actually, Kristi, who lives in the Minneapolis area with her husband, Steve Townshend, and their children, didn't use sign language until she went to college. She navigated her primary school education with hearing aids and by speaking a language she couldn't hear.
Sign language was her entree to a new kind of world. Before, she was deaf. When she went to college, she became Deaf. The former is a disability; the latter is a culture, shared by deaf people who communicate using American Sign Language.
"Now, my primary and preferred mode of communication is ASL, even with my hearing children," Kristi Townshend wrote in an e-mail to The Post-Crescent. "Since accepting my own deafness and immersing myself into Deaf culture, I feel that I have found my true self. And I am thrilled that my brother can be involved in the deaf world with me. I strongly believe his knowledge of sign language and Deaf culture has drawn us closer together."
The difference between spoken and sign language, and hearing and Deaf culture, Jackson explained, is essentially candor. You can't hide behind sign language — which communicates as much through facial expression as through gestures — the way you can words, he said.
"If a person has gained weight, a Deaf person will say, 'You gained weight,'" Jackson said. "In hearing culture, that would be absolutely unheard of. You'd say it in a way that's supposed to sound nice, but you really mean the same thing."
A visit to his sister's home is an experience in Deaf culture immersion.
"There's no talking, only signing," Jackson said. "There's all these events I had the opportunity to go to. I played dodgeball on a team that was only deaf people. We were communicating with each other on the team with sign language. You don't get those kinds of experiences just going to school."
Lynn Behnke, one of Jackson's teachers, describes him as "a second mother."
"In a nutshell, what Eric has brought to the class is a sense of humor and patience — working with 12 women in the class — and experience growing up with a deaf sister and now a deaf brother-in-law," Behnke said. "He has just brought a wonderful atmosphere to the class."
Jackson humbly recognizes the advantage he had over many of his classmates.
"I'm really proud of the people in my class," he said. "They all did an awesome job."
Jackson adjusted easily to being the only male in his program. "I grew up with three older sisters," he said. "By the time I got to this program, I'd hung out with girls all my life."
Jackson said he wouldn't mind going through the rest of his life communicating exclusively through sign language. In fact, he thinks he expresses himself better with his hands and face than with verbiage.
Nor does he dread the possibility of losing his hearing, with one exception. Before he decided to become an interpreter, he'd planned to be a professional musician.
"I would miss music."