Interpreter thrilled by school's interest

[Miss-Delectable]

Interpreter thrilled by school's interest | zanesvilletimesrecorder.com | Zanesville Times Recorder

Interpreter Deana Gerbrick can feel the attention on her throughout Ridgewood Middle School. It's almost the reversal of when she was a student in elementary school and she watched her deaf classmates communicate from across the playground.

"(The deaf students) were always separated from our group, so the only time we got to see them was during our lunchtime and recess," Gerbrick said. "I would be on the playground watching them just so fascinated."

Gerbrick mustered up the courage to ask her classmates to teach her sign language, and they taught her the alphabet.

In college, Gerbrick had a variety of interests and didn't narrow them down to an interpreter until a trip to Nashville, Tenn.

"I met a deaf person on the street and saw him signing. I was nervous at first to go up to him because I didn't know a lot about how to communicate ... but once I started talking to him, I actually fell in love with that again and had a real passion for (signing)," she said.

When she returned from her trip, she switched her major, graduated from Kent State University, and not long afterward she landed her first full-time interpreting job at RMS being the aide for sixth-grade student Matthew Walters.

"At the beginning of the year the kids would see Matthew signing a lot and they were really interested," she said. "They saw me interpreting in classrooms and some would watch me for a while -- it's not so much now because I think they've gotten used to me being there -- but they were asking me, 'Can I learn this?'"

The interest from the students in the school to learn the language, and Principal Matt Masloski's desire to create a high school American Sign Language class in the curriculum, has been a thrill for Gerbrick.

"I am overjoyed because being this as my first full-time job I wasn't sure what to expect," she said.

During her college internships, Gerbrick said in some of the public schools the deaf children were separated from the regular education classrooms.

"That was already in my head, and I thought 'Oh boy, he's going to be the only deaf student here. How will that work?'" she said.

Gerbrick's relationship with Matthew, the students and the teachers has been a dream.

"I feel very lucky to be here because everything is a good match for me," she said.

The Cleveland native has been residing in the village with her deaf boyfriend since the beginning of the school year.

"When he's off (work), he'll come in and work with the kids" during the ASL Club, she said. "They get real excited when he comes in. ... They see me signing with Matthew, but for them to see other deaf people in general they get really excited, almost as if they don't realize there's other deaf people in the world."

 

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Schools learn to listen to the deaf

Schools learn to listen to the deaf | zanesvilletimesrecorder.com | Zanesville Times Recorder

Ridgewood Middle School special education teacher Linda Ondayko spends the day teaching her students.

But one day per week since October, she's changed roles to become the student in the new afterschool American Sign Language Club.

The club was formed shortly after the school's first hearing-impaired student who required a full-time interpreter joined his local peers at the beginning of the 2009-10 school year. ASL is a visual language with its own grammar and syntax rules.

Before attending Ridgewood, sixth-grader Matthew Walters traveled by bus daily from his local home to get his education at the Rufus Putnam School in Zanesville, which provided a program for deaf students in the region. About six years ago, when the service no longer was offered regionally, Matthew was enrolled in the Ohio School for the Deaf in Columbus.

"Rufus Putnam Elementary used to be the hub for all of the young kids coming in from (the region)," Zanesville City Schools Superintendent Terry Martin said.

Since the change in the program, Rufus Putnam consolidated with Wilson Elementary School. The program now provides services to about seven students on average, and schools outside of the district are able to contract any open positions available.

Making the change from an education at Rufus Putnam, where he was home every night, to attending a new school in Columbus, where he would come home only on weekends, turned out to be difficult for Matthew and his family.

"He was losing weight because he was depressed and there was the stress of being away from home," aid Matthew's father, Dan Walters.

When Matthew decided he didn't want to go back, Dan contacted Ridgewood. The school enrolled Matthew and added full-time interpreter, Deana Gerbrick, to the staff.

ABOUT MATTHEW
Matthew is just like any other 13-year-old. He likes to play on the computer and with video games. But he was born deaf and has hearing aides that help him hear sounds.

"I inherited the deafness," Matthew said. "There was no reason why."

About two to three children out of every 1,000 in the United States are born deaf or hard of hearing, according to the National Association of the Deaf, website National Association of the Deaf.

Dan Walters said his son was born with sensorineural hearing loss, a disorder in which the eardrum was fully developed but the nerves running from his eardrums to his brain weren't.

"He was about 3 months old when I knew he couldn't hear," Dan said. "We took him to the doctor, and they said there wasn't anything they could do until he was a year old."

When the milestone arrived, Dan took Matthew to a Columbus doctor's office, where he was hooked up to nearly 200 wires.

"They had different tests that they ran to determine that his ear drums were fine, they were fully developed," Dan said. "It was his nerves."

Dan said verbal communication is difficult for Matthew and he gets frustrated.

"There were days Matthew really didn't want to hear anything, and he'd take his hearing aids out," Dan said. "I remember one time, we were sitting on the porch ... I said 'Matthew, I know you can hear me,' and he went 'click' and turned them off. He said 'Ha' ... so he has a sense of humor."

DEAF IN SCHOOL
Matthew isn't the first hearing-impaired student in the Ridgewood district, but his need for an interpreter makes him unique.

"In the past we've had students who were hearing impaired who we had someone come once a week or every two weeks to have them deal with communication skills," RMS Principal Mike Masloski said. "But to have someone hands on, full-time, this is the first in the district since I've been here 10 years."

Getting Matthew enrolled and preparing the staff didn't present much of a challenge, Masloski said

For Ondayko, who has Matthew in two of her classes, teaching with a communication barrier has been an adjustment.

"It's challenging because I get frustrated because I'd rather say directly to him 'This is what you need to do,'" she said. "If I see him make a mistake ... I have to turn to Deana, tell her what I want to say, then it takes time because sign language is not proper English ... she has to figure out how's the best way to say that so he understands. It's time consuming."

The biggest frustration is not being able to communicate with her student, and that's why Ondayko joined the ASL Club taught by Gerbrick.

"As a teacher teaching a whole class, I'm not fast enough (at ASL)," she said. "If I take my time I can communicate one on one, but as I'm teaching ... to think about what I want to say to the entire class and keep it going and talk to him one on one, I can't do that."

For Matthew, who has been an honor and principal roll student throughout the school year, seeing his teachers learn his language has been gratifying.

"Matthew struggles with reading because English is his second language. It makes him feel good to see us struggling with his language," Ondayko said.

CURRICULUM CHANGES AHEAD
In addition to assisting with interpreting the classroom instruction for Matthew and running an afterschool ASL Club once per week for interested students wanting to learn basic sign language, adding Gerbrick to the staff could impact the high school curriculum.

Masloski, who is also the district's co-curriculum director, has been working on adding ASL as an elective course.

"I think you're going to see a lot more interest in (ASL as a foreign language)," he said. "I think it will benefit (the students) and make them a more diverse person to be able to communicate with people who are hearing impaired, and it's also going to enrich their own language and vocabulary. ... It's a win-win for everybody."

The district is looking into whether Gerbrick's specific degree will allow her to teach a class for a f oreign language credit.

"She has an education degree and is certified to teach ASL, so my understanding is she would be, but there's a lot of bureaucracy ... so at this time I'm not 100 percent sure if you can get a foreign language credit (through the Ohio Department of Education) if it's offered," he said. Gerbrick could teach it for an elective credit, but the district did not add the class into next year's curriculum."Students will be able to continue to attend the ASL class after school and could earn high school credit through our credit flexibilty process," he said.

The school's plan is to offer an ASL I course and each following year add another level.

Masloski said adding a new elective is not difficult, and it wouldn't cost the district any additional funding since Gerbrick is already a member of the teaching staff. Scheduling is the only potential issue for the new class.

"We should be (adding more electives), unfortunately we're not as much," he said. "We're trying to be more creative, looking at different things to give the kids as options to do. Not having as many teachers as we once did makes it harder to offer those electives."