Modern Deaf Communication

[Nesmuth]

A message from Morton Warnow, Director
Modern Deaf Communication

DEVASTATION

With more than 90% illiteracy among the deaf in California, and with the California deaf suffering the worst employment status of any group, handicapped or not, in the State, it is apparent that deaf educational and administrative leadership are not doing the job they are paid to do. In fact, deaf leadership is doing a terrible job.

Because deaf leadership does not encourage deaf people to stand on their own two lingual feet and reap the rewards of communicating face-to-face with hearing people in clear, exacting English, the result is devastation. Every financial, employment and social devastation known to man belongs to the deaf because they remain isolated from the larger hearing society and do not communicate with hearing people in the language of society. Interpreters like it this way. Deaf leadership couldn’t care less. The result is that deaf people suffer the pains of unemployment, poverty and the humiliation of 2nd class citizenship and all the social and personal ills these things create, and nobody gives a damn .

If there ever was a community of human beings where life is wasted with such ferocious abandon, that community is the deaf community in the United States because no one is encouraging them to communicate, share and contribute face-to-face with hearing people in the language of the land. No one is encouraging them to take their rightful place in society. In reality, there is no leadership among the deaf. There are educators and administrators with titles, but they don’t do a damn thing for the people they are paid to serve.

This e-mail is intended for the more rational, sensible, hopeful, encouragement-prone and more science-minded people concerned with deaf welfare. It is not intended for the irrational, loud-mouthed, noisemaking hysterical-prone do-nothing deaf zealots who abound in California and give absolutely nothing of value to the deaf community.

Included in these pages is the text of correspondence which I sent to members of Congress on my Modern Deaf Communication letterhead. It is concerned with the education and employment of deaf Americans, in particular the students at Gallaudet University who graduate without being given any preparation whatsoever for life in the Real Hearing World. In fact, the school deliberately refuses to give this preparation to the students. The problems discussed and the failures and refusals of administrators and faculty at Gallaudet University to solve the problems are the same identical problems, refusals and failures evident at every school and agency serving the deaf throughout the United States, but especially in California where the illiteracy rate among the deaf is greater than 90%.

A core reason for the refusals and failures is a soul-killing culture of institutionalized dependency on interpreters and the neurotic need to protect interpreters at the expense of the very lives, hopes and futures of the deaf children and adults which the schools and agencies are paid to serve.

Deaf educational and administrative leadership for the deaf in California are super-conscious about not offending interpreters who look upon face-to-face communication equipment as a threat to their livelihood when, in fact, there is no realistic, viable threat.

California leadership will not do, they refuse to do what can be done to help deaf people get terrific good-paying jobs never before held by deaf people. They will not do, they refuse to do what can be done to elevate the reading and writing skills of deaf children and wipe out deaf illiteracy altogether. They will not do, they refuse to do what can be done to create a marvelously independent, thoroughly employed, creative, productive, affluent deaf society with true political power. All because they are afraid of interpreters who hate the equipment which can make these things happen for the deaf. This leadership is a bunch of visionless, impot ent cowards. They do not deserve to be in deaf service.

What greater proof of the value of face-to-face communication equipment for deaf people does anyone need than the hysterical fear evoked by the equipment among interpreters everywhere throughout the country, but especially in California? What greater evidence of cowardice and spiritual incompetence among leadership of the deaf does anyone need than the failures and refusals by this leadership to give deaf people the life of fulfillment and true pride of accomplishment they deserve? As I said above, what’s true in California is true in every State in the Union. See my website, WWW.DEAFWIN.COM

PLEASE SHARE THIS E-MAIL AND MY LETTER TO CONGRESS BELOW WITH OTHERS CONCERNED WITH THE WELFARE OF THE DEAF.

Morton Warnow, Director,
Modern Deaf Communication

August 26, 2004

 

[Nesmuth]

Morton's email to Congress Part I

The text of my letter to Congress follows.

_______________________________



Wednesday, July 14, 2004



Rep. John A. Boehner, Chairman

House Committee on Education & The Workforce

U.S. House of Representatives

and

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Chairman

Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions

U.S. Senate

and

Mr. David M. Walker, Comptroller General

General Accounting Office



QUESTION: Should Gallaudet University administrators be allowed to continue willfully denying students the essential human experience of communicating face-to-face with hearing people in clear, precise English which is so necessary to end the isolation and pain suffered by the deaf, or should new administrators be found who will insure that the students receive every benefit derived from the essential human experience of communicating and sharing and contributing with hearing people face-to-face in clear, precise English as First Class Citizens should.

AS IT STANDS, UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATORS ARE DELIBERATELY PREVENTING THE STUDENTS FROM COMMUNICATING FACE-TO-FACE IN CLEAR, PRECISE ENGLISH WITH ANYONE.

SUBJECT: A CALL FOR NEEDED ACTION

Gentlemen,

This is a request to your Committees to instruct the General Accounting Office to investigate the problem of Gallaudet University deliberately preventing its students from acquiring, using, learning about and benefiting from available face-to-face communication technology which solves the worst problem of the deaf – failing to communicate face-to-face in English with hearing people, no sign language and no interpreters are used. No other equipment or method except face-to-face communication equipment is being used or is available to solve the worst problem of the deaf. The most profound use of this equipment is in the workplace to help open up thousands of new superior jobs never bef ore known by preceding generations of the deaf. These are with employers who never before hired deaf people for any jobs. The promise of this equipment in the lives of deaf people is unheralded.

By directing this letter to Mr. David M. Walker, I am asking his agency to investigate Gallaudet University because the facts which I am presenting herein warrant investigation.

Considering that the worst problem of the deaf is failure to communicate face-to-face with society in society’s language, and considering that inexpensive face-to-face communication technology is readily available which confronts and solves this problem, and considering that your Committees authorized payment in taxpayer dollars to Gallaudet University in the amount of upwards of $100 Million annually which pays for 80% of the school’s operating expenses and 100% of the operating expenses of the Kendall and Model Schools, and considering that your Committees authorized payment of $675,000 annual salary in taxpayer money to I. King Jordan, President of a remarkably small school, I ask that your Committees request the GAO to inve stigate why administrators at the school including Dr. Jordan deliberately and wilfully prevent students from learning about, using and enjoying the significant employment benefits which face-to-face communication technology delivers.

1. The Communication Studies Department at Gallaudet University offers a variety of courses of instruction, but not one course of instruction is concerned with the worst problem of the deaf -- deaf people failing to communicate face-to-face with hearing people in clear, precise English. The Communication Studies Department does not provide, but deliberately avoids giving any instruction which confronts the worst problem of the deaf. Inexpensive communication equipment (a lot cheaper than any computer) is readily available which solves this problem. Why does the Communication Studies Department deliberately avoid having anything to do with the equipment?

NOTE: The use of oral skills by a deaf person in order to communicate in English is not considered in this discussion because it is an established fact that the very few deaf people with good oral skills miss 30% of spoken speech, and this is intolerable in most workplaces. The use of face-to-face communication equipment insures that 100% of what’s communicated is clearly and precisely understood all the time.

2. The Research Institute at the school has never done, ordered or sought any research into the worst problem of the deaf. The Research Institute avoids pursuing any research into this problem, and, in fact, refuses to pursue such research. Wouldn’t you think that such a problem would be uppermost in the mind of the director of the Research Institute, a division of the one and only liberal arts school for the deaf in the world? Why isn’t the Research Institute interested in the worst problem of the deaf?

3. Throughout their 4-year stint, students receive absolutely no preparation for life in the Real Hearing World by the time they get their baccalaureates. They are never submitted to social, intellectual or academic face-to-face communication intercourse with hearing people to learn that hearing people are as human as themselves, but remain thoroughly and totally enmeshed in knowing and communicating only among themselves and never with any hearing people whatsoever throughout their education at the school, a habit of unforgiving isolation that remains unbroken throughout the course of their lives. They are never taught how to communicate face-to-face with hearing people in English, though the technology which accomplishes this has been around for decades. They are never shown and have never seen face-to-face technology itself, but are, in fact, deliberately denied by school administration any access to or knowledge of the technology.

The students are virtually taught that the worst problem of the deaf is unimportant in the scheme of things, and there are deaf students at the school who cannot identify the worst problem of the deaf. They never learn to share or communicate with hearing people in clear, precise English which is absolutely necessary in order to go after and get new, superior better-paying English-dominant jobs among thousands of employers who never before hired deaf people for any jobs. The students never learn that they can communicate face-to-face with hearing co-workers in clear, precise English. The result of any employment they do get in “Deaf People Jobs” in which face-to-face English is never used with anyone in the workplace is that university graduates move into jobs where they never develop the host of competitive job skills which hearing people acquire that are necessary for upward mobility promotions – for employment survival in the 21st Century.

Why are the students deliberately kept in the dark about the most essential of human survival experiences – going after a good job, ipso facto, fighting for life! The students are taught to let others do their fighting for them! The students are taught to place their lives in the hands of people who don’t give a damn about what happens to them after they graduate, or before they graduate!

4. Key educators and administrators including Judy Harkins and I. King Jordan at the school have known about face-to-face technology for more than 20 years. In fact, it was Dr. Harkins herself who informed me 20 years ago about Heidico, a supplier of an early form of the technology. Both Harkins and Jordan know that this technology solves the worst problem of the deaf, yet not a single pair of face-to-face communication units can be found anywhere at the school. No one at the school -- researcher, studen t or faculty -- is using the equipment for any purpose, and for one reason only: It does not exist on campus.

5. Because English literacy among the deaf throughout the country is so terrible (70% illiteracy among the deaf in Connecticut, more than 90% in California, other States just as bad -- the result of deaf education failing to teach deaf children how to read and write), administrators at the Kendall and Model Schools should be committed to discovering and developing a superior method of reading-writing instruction for deaf children. The administrators have known about my proposed Writing-Communication Method of English Instruction For Deaf Children sin ce 1995 when the International Association of Special Education published my monograph on the method, but school administrators refused to consider or use or experiment with the method for one reason, and one reason only: face-to-face communication equipment is needed to implement the method in the classroom. They are under strict orders not to use the equipment and to avoid my proposed method of English instruction like the plague. Result? The method remains unproven. Supplementing the method is my proposed Illustrated Sign Language–English Language DVD Video Dictionary which will help accelerate a deaf child’s grasp of the English language. My Video Dictionary establ ishes an immediate relationship between Sign Language and English for the deaf child, something which no extant teaching aid can do.

(Continued)

 

[Nesmuth]

Continued Morton's letter to Congress

THE DAMNING PROTOCOL AT GALLAUDET UNIVERSITY

Around 12-15 years ago I was living in Florida and a representative of the Disability Office of IBM in Boca Raton informed me, upon his return from a visit to Gallaudet University, that Dr. Harkins informed him at the dinner table that she issued a protocol which effectively prevents anyone on campus from ever so much as having and using face-to-face communication equipment for any reason. I was stunned by this information. Why did she do this? Why did she issue a protocol of such restrictive dimension? The effect of her protocol was to terrorize faculty and administrators into having nothing to do with the equipment. This terror can be found today in the administrators of the Research Institute, the Communication Department, the Office of The Provost and other divisions of the school. A tyranny of terror now exists at Gallaudet University. When GAO repre sentatives start asking questions of administrators at the school, they should look into the faces of the people they are questioning and see the terror in those faces, especially the faces of Dr. Michael Karchmer, Director, Research Institute; Dr. Rosemary D. Weller, Chair, Dept. of Communication Studies; Dr. Jane K. Fernandes, Provost; and Dr. Tom Allen, Dean, Graduate School.

It’s apparent to me that Dr. Harkins, by issuing her protocol, was protecting interpreters in their morbid fear that face-to-face communication equipment threatens their livelihood, and that Dr. I. King Jordan approved and sanctioned her protocol. This is the only explanation possible which explains why face-to-face communication equipment, equipment so obvious in its goodness for deaf people, cannot be found anywhere on campus.

Gentlemen, by my request for action in this matter, I am challenging the wisdom, the sincerity, the professionalism, the purpose, the morality, the conscience and very competence and reason for being of those people at the school who have deliberately kept knowledge of face-to-face communication technology from students and faculty, people who have deliberately prevented any use, experimental or otherwise, with the equipment by anyone on campus for any purpose, and have certainly never encouraged its use.by anyone. Why are hell, terror and tyranny alive and well at Gallaudet University? Why are the students being kept from learning about a technology as valuable and with so much promise as face-to-face communication equipment?

MANY NEW, GOOD AND NEEDED APPLICATIONS OF

FACE-TO-FACE COMMUNICATION EQUIPMENT

You know from my work with face-to-face communication equipment that this equipment directly confronts and solves the worst problem of the deaf, that it can be used to open up and create literally thousands of new superior employment opportunities for deaf people among employers who never before hired deaf people for any jobs, that it can be used in conferencing arrangements enabling deaf and hearing people to communicate face-to-face with each other for the very first time in history so that they can discuss face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball, elbow-to-elbow matters of concern to both the hearing and deaf communities without interpreter assistance and without using sign language, and for use by students and teachers in elementary school rooms to help deliver an effective a nd powerful English instruction for deaf children which will help these children achieve fluent communicative English literacy before they are ten years old, and that only this equipment and none other can be used to implement Radio Broadcasting & Programming for deaf audiences which the U.S. Department of Commerce at Senator Christopher Dodd’s request determined to be thoroughly viable and ready to enable Gallaudet University to build its own radio station.

(Continued on next reply)

THE INCREDIBLE INFLUENCE OF INTERPRETERS IN THE AFFAIRS OF THE DEAF

Gallaudet University is the only school for higher education in the country without its own radio station, yet administrators at the school want nothing to do with radio for the deaf. Why, you may ask, do the people at Gallaudet University want nothing to do with an exciting new broadcast medium which serves the deaf, and which educators say will contribute to improvements in the English literacy of Gallaudet University students? Hearing people have radio. Shouldn’t deaf people? The answer to the question about university administrators refusing to bring radio for the deaf on campus will shock you. It’s because face-to-face communication equipment which delivers a broadcastable modem tone signal to produce a digital print read-out in a receiver is required to implement this new broadcast medium for the deaf, but interpreters want nothing to do with this equipment no matter what it can do! Every school in the country has its own radio station except Gallaudet University, but interpreters have ordered that the students and the school cannot and must not have radi o for the deaf because it uses equipment which the interpreters fear and hate.

You will find that the most cursory of investigations will reveal that the university is under the psychic and spiritual control of interpreters who provide academic and communication services to the school.. These interpreters have a morbid fear of the equipment which they believe threatens to rob them of their livelihood. An employer will sooner purchase a pair of units of face-to-face communication equipment for around $400, rather than hire an interpreter at $45,000-$50,000 in order to put a deaf person on the payroll.

The school has a large complement of interpreters who teach interpreting as well as provide interpreter services. If what happened out in California is any example when an interpreter agency threatened the Orange County Deaf Advocacy Center, a deaf service agency, with removal of interpreter services for the agency’s deaf clients because the agency was using and promoting face-to-face communication equipment, and if what happened to me here in Connecticut when the Bureau of Rehabilitation Services made it crystal clear that they want nothing to do with face-to-face communication equipment because, they said, it threatens the livelihood of interpreters, then you will understand why the interpreters at Gallaudet University threat ened a strike – a complete close down of the school – if the school dared allow the equipment on campus for any reason. Deaf zealots on campus who take the irrational view that interpreters are a race of gods would support such a strike up to the hilt, never understanding or caring about the marvelous plusses provided by the equipment. In all cases, administrators, VR counselors, et al. will protect interpreters at the expense of the deaf people they are paid to serve. The GAO may have to issue subpoenas to get at the truth of this matter. I’m sure some people will avoid answering some questions, or they may lie through their teeth.

Gallaudet University chalks up the worst job-placement record for graduating students of any school in the country because most employers won’t hire anyone who does not or cannot communicate face-to-face with co-workers in English, the national workplace language. The Huge Jackpot of Nearly One Hundred Million Dollars your Committees give the school every year does not help the students one iota in getting good jobs when they graduate. Similarly, here in Connecticut, the State’s VR counselors chalk up the worst job-placement record for unemployed deaf Connecticut citizens because most employers won’t hire anyone wh o does not or cannot communicate in English in the workplace. The same thing is true in every state in the Union. What are your Committees doing to correct this deplorable national situation? There’s a lot you can do, but you are not doing it. Why?

The purpose of education is to prepare people for better jobs and better lives. A comparison with any other school of comparable size in the country will reveal that Gallaudet University is doing a terrible job helping graduating students find decent, sensible employment.

Here in Connecticut I hired an interpreter to help me do preparatory work for the development of my Illustrated Sign Language–English Language DVD Video Dictionary. No sooner had the interpreter agreed to start when she called me the following morning to tell me that she definitely will not help me because I am promoting face-to-face communication equipment. And I did receive threatening phone calls from interpreters to stop promoting the use of face-to-face communication equipment, or else!

(continued)

 

[Nesmuth]

Continued Morton Warnow's letter last part

The students at Gallaudet University graduate and move into their adult lives with no realistic idea of what the world is all about. The school gives them absolutely no preparation for life in the real hearing world. It’s tough enough for them being unable to find work, but the school not only never showed them how to communicate in English with hearing people, but also never showed them how to locate published lists of job openings, nor how to use the help wanted columns which they never use, nor use head hunters which they never use, nor knock on employers’ doors which they never do because they do not use English to communicate face-to-face with hearing people. But the root of it all is that the school never showed them how to use face-to-face communication equipment or even showed them what the equipment looks like. The students were given no tools or skills which enables them to fight for life. None. Why?

Why do school administrators embrace a policy which reinforces the isolation and the pain of isolation suffered by the deaf students?

It’s time to put a stop to the wasted money and wasted life being thrown away at Gallaudet University. The GAO should look into the matter of destructive interpreter control over the lives of students and administrators. Why should key school administrators of such weak character, such weak morality, such weak posture in matters concerning the very stuff of life be allowed to govern the lives of students who already have strikes against them because they are deaf?

SHOULD ADMINISTRATORS BE FIRED WHO KEEP THE STUDENTS DOWN?

The administrators at Gallaudet University must be replaced with people who want the deaf to succeed -- good, professional people who refuse to allow the students to die which is what the administrators at Gallaudet University are deliberately doing. They are maintaining a system of insured, promised death for the students at the school. When the students graduate, a lot of them go out to spend the rest of their lives with a sheepskin in their hands, but no money going into their banks because they aren’t earning any money. They go out to die. The students were not taught how to earn a living or fight for life or that they are worthy of jobs superior to anything the deaf have ever known. The students were not given the most powerful tool they can use to survive and triumph in the Real Hearing World – how to communicate face-to-face with hearing people in English.

Has any member of your Committees ever seen followup studies of students after they graduate? Do you know anything about the jobs they quit and why they quit? Do you know anything about the drugs they take, or their problems with alcoholism or problems of personal sexual identity because they remain unemployed or underemployed? If the school has done followup studies, did they destroy those studies? Will the GAO be able to gain access to such studies?

THE ONLY UNIVERSITY ENGINEERING SCHOOL IN THE COUNTRY CONCERNED WITH THE PROBLEMS OF THE DEAF

I hold I. King Jordan directly responsible for the failure of Gallaudet University to help graduating students find good jobs, or any jobs. A few years ago, engineering students at UCONN-Storrs here in Connecticut completed work on a prototype invention of my design which enables deaf and hearing people to communicate with each other in English by radio transmission among the communication units. This equipment would be ideal for use by literate deaf employees in the workplace and for use by deaf school children in the classroom.. Professor John Enderle, Chair of the Electrical Engineering & Systems Department at UCONN-Storrs approved my suggestion for contacting I. King Jordan with a proposal. I wrote to President Jordan and suggested that Gallaudet University invite the UCONN engineers to his school in time for an employment fair coming up so that they could demonstrate the equipment for graduating students. As with all my correspondence to President Jordan, he never replied.

The students never learned about a wonderful communication development created for them by engineering students here in Connecticut. I. King Jordan is a terribly weak human being under the control of interpreters. The UCONN-Storrs Engineering School is the only university school in the country actively developing new and needed communication products for the deaf.

THE CITY OF DANBURY AND THE BREAKTHROUGH IN DEAF WELFARE

Here in Connecticut the City of Danbury is now inviting qualified deaf people to apply for listed jobs with the City Government. If interviewed, face-to-face communication equipment will be used in the interview. No sign language and no interpreters will be used. Only English – face-to-face. If hired, the same equipment will be installed in the workplace to enable the deaf employee to communicate face-to-face in English with his hearing co-workers. Again, no sign language and no interpreters will be used. I’ve invited the Human Resource departments of other cities and also the Connecticut State Government to follow the lead set by the City of Danbury. The City of Danbury is the first, but if I have anything to do with it, Connecticut will be the first State in the United States to go on record as inviting qualified deaf people to apply for government jobs and who will get those jobs and do well in those jobs!

The purpose of education is to prepare people for better jobs and better lives. You are paying Gallaudet University administrators to do just that and they are not doing their job. The GAO will give you an unprejudiced study and unprejduced recommendations in this matter. You must not allow the people at Gallaudet University to keep on killing the lives and futures of the students. The students must be given every opportunity to fight for a better life. Communicating face-to-face with hearing people in English is the strongest tool the students can be given in their quest for a better life.

I believe you know that I do not gain financially from the sale of any manufacturer’s communication equipment. The school probably has hundreds of used, good TDDs tucked away in closets. These used TDDs can be modified to become good face-to-face communication equipment, and still be used to make phone calls. I’ll provide gratis diagrams showing how to modify the TDDs at virtually no cost (around $2.00 parts cost per TDD). You can use these modified TDDs in employment programs for the graduating students to help everyone of them get a good job, and the Model and Kendall Schools can use these mod ified TDDs to implement my method of Writing-Communication Reading-Wriintg Instruction For Deaf Children.

Imagine being an educated, literate deaf person and never knowing that equipment exists to enable you to reach out, share, communicate with and enjoy the rest of the world. This is precisely what happens to deaf students at Gallaudet University. They are deliberately being stunted in their growth as human beings. They are deliberately being forced into a mold of handicap more restrictive and debilitating than deafness itself. Deaf students graduating from Gallaudet University never grow as hearing people grow. The students at Gallaudet University were never taught to survive and enjoy life as everybody else has learned to survive and enjoy life. How can they? The very tools for survival and enjoyment of life were never placed in their hands. They have no idea of what the tools even look like!

THE WONDERFUL POWER OF FACE-TO-FACE COMMUNICATION WILL BE SEEN WHEN DEAF CHILDREN BECOME COMMUNICATIVELY LITERATE AT AN EARLY AGE.

A final note about the value of face-to-face communication equipment. I’ll be coming into some additional cash shortly which I will use to acquire video camera equipment which will enable me to produce a demonstration DVD of my proposed Illustrated Sign Language-- English Language DVD Video Dictionary. When the dictionary is used in conjunction with my Writing-Communication Method of Reading-Writing Instruction for Deaf Children which uses face-to-face communication equipment in the classroom, one and all will learn the power of the equipment as it starts producing communicatively literate deaf chil dren at an early age.

Deaf illiteracy in the United States will be wiped out before the end of the 2nd decade of this century, and deaf society will be achieving greater, more productive literacy than that of the larger hearing society simply because deaf people will continually be exercising their reading and writing skills in order to communicate with hearing people while hearing people will only be talking in English. The deaf will become a race of writers as part and parcel of their survival regimen. A marvelous, affluent, creative future rooted in face-to-face communication with hearing people awaits the deaf. This will happen.

Please share this writing with other members of your Committees.

Sincerely,
Morton Warnow
Danbury, CT

 

[johnesco]

Communication between deaf and hearing

I think one issue we must all speak of more is the introduction of SEE, oralism, and banning ASL.

I found out about those things while learning ASL.

I think it's horrible that any deaf person would be denied ASL, forced to speak, or made to learn a modified version of ASL. But even if oral or SEE is not the way to go, WRITTEN English should be a minimum.

There MUST be common base of communication for anyone who expects to get a job.

I know many deaf would rather just work among and for other deaf. I also know that most people here write excellent, or at least readable English.

I'd like to know what solution the deaf would propose for having more communication?

A barrier to communication includes the deaf learning written English with a different grammar than ASL, and hearing people trying to learn ASL which has a different grammar. I was able to learn more ASL because I had teachers who could explain a sentence in PSE then show it to me again in ASL.

So in my case.. PSE helped me bridge the gap.

How could this gap me made smaller?