Should Deaf Schools be Shut Down?

Should Deaf schools be shut down?

  • Yes

    Votes: 7 11.3%

  • No

    Votes: 48 77.4%

  • Not sure

    Votes: 5 8.1%

  • I dont care

    Votes: 2 3.2%
  • Total voters
    62
Daredevel7 said:
I was just asking because I wanted to see if this lack of social skills simply comes from unable to communicate with people. Seems that way to me.
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Not really..I was able to communicate with almost anyone but it was the ability to keep up with social situations and classroom discussions that kept me from developing thru the appropriate stages along with my peers. Year after year of dealing with this issue, my self-esteem got lower and lower.
 
Hi guys. Mainstreamed all the way. People always are commenting on my social skills. ( I wish they would stopl ):P
 
shel90 said:
Not really..I was able to communicate with almost anyone but it was the ability to keep up with social situations and classroom discussions that kept me from developing thru the appropriate stages along with my peers. Year after year of dealing with this issue, my self-esteem got lower and lower.
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It gets frustrating and it DOES take its toll . . . something that the Cochlear Implant and the rest don't tell you about.
 
Wokamuka said:
It gets frustrating and it DOES take its toll . . . something that the Cochlear Implant and the rest don't tell you about.
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Yea, without a healthy balance of both ASL/Deaf community and Spoken English/Hearing community, it can take a toll on one's self-esteem depending on the person and I have yet met a deaf mainstreamed person in real life who doesnt carry issues from being in an oral-only 24/7.
 
shel90 said:
Not really..I was able to communicate with almost anyone but it was the ability to keep up with social situations and classroom discussions that kept me from developing thru the appropriate stages along with my peers. Year after year of dealing with this issue, my self-esteem got lower and lower.
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I see. It sucks to hear about your child-teen years. For the MAJORITY of deaf children, you and Wokamuka (and anyone else) see little chance for success if there are no deaf schools?

I'll define success in my eyes: Someone who as an adult mainly independently makes a living and generally happy doing it.
 
Daredevel7 said:
I see. It sucks to hear about your child-teen years. For the MAJORITY of deaf children, you and Wokamuka (and anyone else) see little chance for success if there are no deaf schools?

I'll define success in my eyes: Someone who as an adult mainly independently makes a living and generally happy doing it.
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And that is critical for those kids to achieve that growing up with full access to everything and not feeling that they are inferior just because they are deaf.
 
Wokamuka said:
Not to be absurd . . . my parents, always, voted in my favor. Yours?
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Voted in your favor? What do you mean?

By the way, I also was mainstreamed all the way. Not too sure what people say about my social skills. I think I am shy IRL, but people say I'm a social butterfly..... :) I do talk too much, my mom always says "Once you started talking, you never stopped."
 
Daredevel7 said:
Voted in your favor? What do you mean?

By the way, I also was mainstreamed all the way. Not too sure what people say about my social skills. I think I am shy IRL, but people say I'm a social butterfly..... :) I do talk too much, my mom always says "Once you started talking, you never stopped."
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"voted in my favor" = they'd said anything to make me feel happy - special - thier child.
 
Ex-mainstreamed student here...

Hell no! Deaf schools provide MANY benefits: a feeling of belonging/unity, pride, Deaf role models, access to ASL/English, that for some Deaf students is IMPOSSIBLE in hearing schools. I have a very good friend who is hard-of-hearing and does not identify as Deaf, but came to SD because their home district did not accommodate their hearing loss.

For me, it is psychosocial. Staff at the hearing school were overwhelmed with my IEP crap to really teach me, I never felt any real belonging to anyone at all. I kept "thinking" in ASL and was scolded many times for using SimCom or signing with students who signed fluently. At SD I am free to make my own choices regarding communication. I do not feel shame or isolation for not hearing, and turn my voice off and on as needed or preferred. Also, SD is very much my second family, so any behaviour problems are dealt with as a "what's wrong" approach - in other words, SD staff really does care and value regardless of Deafness - they do not see me as different.

SD's biculturalism is fantastic - I am exposed to Deaf culture, which makes me so proud to know we as Deaf people have our own norms, but also hearing, where I, when speaking, address some hearing teachers by Ms/Mr.

SD's diversity and bilingualism is so very rewarding -- how very much a TRAIN-GO-SORRY it would have been for me to ignore this.
 
Foxrac, Fremont might be safer than Berkeley regarding the earthquake vulnerability, maybe. However, the CSDF people (what they told us long ago) claimed that they including the state gov't were fooled by the earthquake research that then forced them to sell the land to UCB and moved to Fremont.

So far it (serious earthquake) hasn't happened to the UCB campus since their move so, right? Whatever, it was quite a hot controversial issue back then.

Maybe a former CSDF student comes in here and could answer this controversial issue bit clearer... CSDF was then opened in 1980... CSD History
 
If anything, I'd understood my parents better (with their institutional-style parenting toward me).
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AMEN! Those who advocate for kids being at home with their parents often don't understand that NOT EVERY FAMILY has the advantages that a middle class or emotionally healthy family can offer.
I'd noticed, remarkably, that those who'd attended oral schools then attended deaf schools that'd employed "total communication" as an enforced method of communication . . . these kids lacked in social skills as much as they'd excelled in education.
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YES!!!!! I mean it's fairly common for dhh kids to be teased about our voices., and not feel a part of things. I'm still very self conscious about the way I speak. My teenage years were HELL to put it mildly.
 
I agree with Shel and Deafdyke. I wish I had gone to a deaf school. I went to one of those mixed special schools that take everyone on a primary level then moved to mainstream. My behavior in Mainstream was very challanging and I got into a lot of fights. I had to leave the first mainstream school after bullying. Then went to oral only PHU.
 
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