Oral school

Is it ok?

  • Yes

    Votes: 19 29.7%

  • No

    Votes: 31 48.4%

  • Maybe or sometimes

    Votes: 14 21.9%
  • Total voters
    64
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Not open for further replies.
Still I am getting the impression that the deaf people are still abit behind in deaf schools.
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You could say the same for deaf kids at hearing schools you know. It's just not as obvious, b/c there's fewer dhh kids at a mainstream school.
 
faire_jour said:
Is it ever ok for a deaf or hard of hearing to be in an oral school? How about a mainstream placement with or without an interpreter?

Do not address signing at home or being a part of the Deaf community. Just school.
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Since you want my honest opinion, here I go. No, it's not ok for a deaf and/or hard of hearing to be in oral deaf school because I believe it's not worth it. I've been in my oral deaf school for 15 years, the education really stunk up high heaven. If you value the best education, you need to look into the schools' percentages of students' achievements. For example, if the school students are receiving a couple of grades below their hearing peers' or probably even less than two grades below, that is not good enough. Most of oral deaf schools would focus on speech more than teaching the subjects, thus the students would fall behind in education wise while trying and/or struggle to learn how to talk.

Been there and done that...however I could talk all right but not perfect. My education was way too superior than ALL of kids in my oral deaf school which was why I graduated at young age of 17. How? By reading lots of books at home all the time. That helped me alot as well I stole my brother's homework to read everything and learned everything. That's why I was too advanced, LOL. From what I've seen my classmates in my deaf oral school were struggling hard with speech, speech reading and subjects at the same time. That left me wondering why wouldn't they transfer to the deaf school in other town rather than being stuck in oral school until they graduated. Out of my graduating class, there were 11 of us. Only four of us are doing fine with jobs and other continuing education while 7 of them are struggling with getting jobs and whatnot. Some had fallen through drugs and alcoholism, so on. That is very sad and most unfortunate.

The parents need to do some serious soul searching to figure out what their child's needs to be met. Which comes first? Oral or education? It's really hard to have both oral and education at the same time because the child will end up using ASL regardless when they get older like me.
 
InsaneMisha said:
Since you want my honest opinion, here I go. No, it's not ok for a deaf and/or hard of hearing to be in oral deaf school because I believe it's not worth it. I've been in my oral deaf school for 15 years, the education really stunk up high heaven. If you value the best education, you need to look into the schools' percentages of students' achievements. For example, if the school students are receiving a couple of grades below their hearing peers' or probably even less than two grades below, that is not good enough. Most of oral deaf schools would focus on speech more than teaching the subjects, thus the students would fall behind in education wise while trying and/or struggle to learn how to talk.

Been there and done that...however I could talk all right but not perfect. My education was way too superior than ALL of kids in my oral deaf school which was why I graduated at young age of 17. How? By reading lots of books at home all the time. That helped me alot as well I stole my brother's homework to read everything and learned everything. That's why I was too advanced, LOL. From what I've seen my classmates in my deaf oral school were struggling hard with speech, speech reading and subjects at the same time. That left me wondering why wouldn't they transfer to the deaf school in other town rather than being stuck in oral school until they graduated. Out of my graduating class, there were 11 of us. Only four of us are doing fine with jobs and other continuing education while 7 of them are struggling with getting jobs and whatnot. Some had fallen through drugs and alcoholism, so on. That is very sad and most unfortunate.

The parents need to do some serious soul searching to figure out what their child's needs to be met. Which comes first? Oral or education? It's really hard to have both oral and education at the same time because the child will end up using ASL regardless when they get older like me.
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:gpost:

Many people think my education came from being raised orally but I have to remind them that I loved to read and that was how I got my education. Also, I went to an oral program with 4 other deaf kids my age. Reconnected with them...turned out that I was the only one who got a college degree out of all of them. Reading is the key to education and if it wasnt for reading, I wouldnt be where I am now cuz I sure didnt learn as much as my hearing peers did at school. I had to compensate for it by reading everything in sight. It frightens me sometimes to think about it.
 
deafdyke said:
Yeah I know, Shel. Many oral sucesses tend to have access to really good speech therapists, or are products of the oral schools or are products of very hyperinvolved families. And before I get attacked, yes there are some kids who do awesome with "just picking up" speech with their CIs.....however, there have always been kids like that. It doesn't mean that they represent the majority.
For example, I doubt you'd see a lot of oral sucesses who are products of an inner city enviroment, or a poor rural enviroment or whatever deviates from the perfect enviorment of a high acheiver suburb/city enviroment.
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Based on my experience, I have to agree with you on that one.
 
shel90 said:
:gpost:

Many people think my education came from being raised orally but I have to remind them that I loved to read and that was how I got my education. Also, I went to an oral program with 4 other deaf kids my age. Reconnected with them...turned out that I was the only one who got a college degree out of all of them. Reading is the key to education and if it wasnt for reading, I wouldnt be where I am now cuz I sure didnt learn as much as my hearing peers did at school. I had to compensate for it by reading everything in sight. It frightens me sometimes to think about it.
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I never met a single deaf person and my school since K-12th never dealt with one really. Very inexperience.
 
For example, I doubt you'd see a lot of oral sucesses who are products of an inner city enviroment, or a poor rural enviroment or whatever deviates from the perfect enviorment of a high acheiver suburb/city enviroment.
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I've lived in the county on the outside skirt of the city. Some of the kids were very well off and lived in the Suburb areas (even though we lived out in the rural areas.. Our county district happened to be a part of that school)... Even they fail.

They also happened to have not very nice kids (the kids that went to my school) to deal with. :( that's why I teased alot.
 
Out of my graduating class, there were 11 of us. Only four of us are doing fine with jobs and other continuing education while 7 of them are struggling with getting jobs and whatnot. Some had fallen through drugs and alcoholism, so on.
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InsaneMish, how old are you? I totally agree.......there is a HUGE downside with oralism in that it doesn't deliver all it promises. The emoitional impact can be HUGE...............I bet research would show that a lot of orally educated kids are in intense therapy due to all sorts of emotional trauma.
 
and I have to say, I 100% support part time attendance at an oral school/program. I do not think it should be a full time thing, even a "just in school thing"
Why not concentrate on actually learning CONTENT rather then going " boo be bah?" or saying the names of animals or whatever?
 
deafdyke said:
InsaneMish, how old are you? I totally agree.......there is a HUGE downside with oralism in that it doesn't deliver all it promises. The emoitional impact can be HUGE...............I bet research would show that a lot of orally educated kids are in intense therapy due to all sorts of emotional trauma.
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I'm in late 40's....more specifically 49. I've been hearing about those orally educated adults are in therapy as well. I can see it's not easy for them to move on after suffering from some series of abuse from oral school staff. Even though I've gone through a few abuses but I came out all right because I learned to move on since the past couldn't chase me. Once it's done, it's all done. You couldn't go back and undo all of those. However some or most of them couldn't seem to learn to deal or handle in order to move on. That is the most unfortunate. At some point, in oral school there were plenty of audists going on in there, of course. For example (true story), one kid who was in my graduating class but hadn't been in my class except nursery or kindergarten always told everyone that he had been considering on playing for pro basketball. We all used to say, "Why not? Go for it." Of course he was very talented and awesome player but his teachers (not his coach who encouraged him to try to go for it while try to pull up his grades) told him he can't make it because he would never set his foot in any college because of his grades and his deafness. Granted, his grades really was so horrible because his grade level was way, way below his peer, more like first or second grade, I believe. My heart broke for him. Now? He's ill with cirrhosis and battling with depression. His mom is taking care of his financial stuff such as paying his bills, rent, etc. while he lives in his apartment. He has been going out to collect the empty bottles and cans to buy the liquors while his mom refuses to give him extra money knowing he would blow it on liquors. He couldn't seem to hold a job more than a year or less, it depends. His mom and his daughters gave up on him after trying to get him to sober up and get some help because he is a grandfather to his oldest daughter's two kids. My husband and I went up to see him two or three years ago after hearing the rumors about him dying. We needed to go and see if there was anything we could do. Obviously he wasn't dying at all because right away I knew since my late dad had cirrhosis and Hep. C when he passed away almost 15 years ago. When I took one look at him and knew he may live next four or five years, maybe even less. That sadden me. He is only 51 years old. He has been dealing with the series of blows since our graduation to this day.

I better shut up because I'm talking too much...er, I mean typing too much. :P
 
Ohh Ohh, I know I'm typing too much. But there is another instance in this story as well that I forgot to mention. Another of my graduating class, she was in my classes as well. She came to the oral deaf school from public school when she was 12. I think we both started in 5th grade in the same year. She is very, very intelligent and funny as hell. She was my roommate in our dorm. We've had been best friends. What happened to her? Well, on our senior year, we've been talking about going to colleges, etc. My plan to go to college had sidetracked.......long story. To this day I still haven't gone to a college, LOL. However that may be remedied soon, hopefully. Anyway, back to this story, in late summer we went out to hang around and found out she was pregnant with her first baby with her hearing boyfriend who had already passed away years ago with sickle cell disease. Her son was born with C.P. and has been in a wheelchair for rest of his life. From there on, her life has gone downhill since then. Even she had two more kids. Both were born hearing first then became deaf a few years later. She became more bitter and unhappy when her youngest daughter had been begging to be sent to a deaf school instead of mainstream public school where she wasn't very happy. Her second son who had already became an adult decided to get C.I. and is very happy. Good for him. His mom is happy for him. However her daughter wanted C.I. as well when she was a teenager. Once she got C.I. and her attitude had changed toward her mom. She looks down on her mom and kept putting her down at every opportunity. She is only 17 years old. She has been controlling her mom and everything. It has gotten hard on her more. More she drinks, she kept drinking while doesn't want to eat at all. My other friend saw her and told me she has lost a lot more weight. Last summer I saw her at our oral school reunion, I was shocked to see how skinny she is. My other friend said it's much worse than last year. I felt sad and hurt. That makes me want to come up and give a serious lecture to her daughter. I suspect she may not live much longer. She will be 51 next week. *sigh*

I don't think you want to hear the rest of my other classmates who couldn't hack it in real world.
 
Mish, on the other hand you're 1960's era. It doesn't surprise me that a lot of kids from back then were so emoitionally damaged. However are younger kids suffering the same damage? That's a good question.
 
deafdyke said:
Yeah I know, Shel. Many oral sucesses tend to have access to really good speech therapists, or are products of the oral schools or are products of very hyperinvolved families. And before I get attacked, yes there are some kids who do awesome with "just picking up" speech with their CIs.....however, there have always been kids like that. It doesn't mean that they represent the majority.
For example, I doubt you'd see a lot of oral sucesses who are products of an inner city enviroment, or a poor rural enviroment or whatever deviates from the perfect enviorment of a high acheiver suburb/city enviroment.
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Doesn't that kind of imply that the potential is there?
 
deafdyke said:
Mish, on the other hand you're 1960's era. It doesn't surprise me that a lot of kids from back then were so emoitionally damaged. However are younger kids suffering the same damage? That's a good question.
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Actually I've heard a few of younger kids do suffer the same damage but I don't know whether it's fact. Since there is no oral deaf school in my state since it had closed in 1980. Only one deaf school stands here but there are not many normal deaf kids while there are lots of C.I. kids and also kids with special needs. That is very high number of those latter kids that has us very concerned due to lack of enrollment for deaf normal kids. However in public mainstream schools, that could be the case due to lack of social.
 
I don't know , I think teenage girls can be like that sometimes (put down their mother and such) especially if they have an emotional problem that need help (such as depression).

But if she is drinking, maybe that's the problem too. I'v see how a person HAVE to get a drink for every problem they have to face (alcoholism). It's ok to drink when you are having a good time but not when you are using it to help you drown your problems. If you can't control the situation, someone else will and it might as well be her daughter. I think your friend first step is deal with her drinking problem.
 
Just so I get a better picture of how deaf people think of schools here in AD:

There are always exceptions to the rule, but I am talking generally..
Mainstream: High risk of lack of social interaction, some risk of education delays due to not being able to understand everything.
Oral School: High risk of education delays due to both not able to understand everything and strong focus on speech.
Deaf School (uses ASL): No risk.

Is that more or less the general consensus?
 
Daredevel7 said:
Just so I get a better picture of how deaf people think of schools here in AD:

There are always exceptions to the rule, but I am talking generally..
Mainstream: High risk of lack of social interaction, some risk of education delays due to not being able to understand everything.
Oral School: High risk of education delays due to both not able to understand everything and strong focus on speech.
Deaf School (uses ASL): No risk.

Is that more or less the general consensus?
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I believe there are risks to a Deaf school....
 
Cheri said:
No risk? What about speech, it's not rarely use in the classroom setting.
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Seems like a lot of people here don't put speech skills in a high priority or at least not enough to worry about it for a child in a deaf school..... or am I wrong?
 
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