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Inside Gallaudet - Gallaudet University
In recent years, deaf authors Josh Swiller and Michael Chorost have won praise and recognition for their writing. Today they find themselves teaching together at Gallaudet.
The authors are co-teaching a fall semester course called “The History of Change,” which examines the stories of communities, companies, and even species that found ways to evolve when faced with crisis. The course, under the auspices of the Department of American Sign Language and Deaf Studies, includes careful analysis of the signing deaf community, whose future is uncertain.
Chorost, whose book Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human won the prestigious PEN/USA Book Award for Creative Nonfiction in 2006, had been contributing articles on medical and educational technology to newspapers and magazines before coming to Gallaudet, and is writing a book on the interactive technology of the future. Swiller, author of The Unheard: A Memoir of Deafness in Africa, one of the Honors Program’s reading selections last summer, has done stints as a Zen monk, raw foods chef, journalist, and teacher. When his book was released, Swiller was working as a social worker for patients in hospice care in New York City. Both authors were traveling widely giving readings and lectures.
When Chorost and Swiller first sat down for an interview with Inside Gallaudet, they had just begun teaching at the University and had recently glimpsed what would become an ongoing dialogue about change. In the first three-hour session of “The History of Change,” their presupposition that the signing deaf community is in danger had been passionately debated. Although a premise of the class suggested that extinction was a very real possibility for the community, about two-thirds of the students vehemently disagreed.
The debates were not a problem for the instructors. In fact, Swiller said, “Disagreement is great. It’s our goal to make the students uncomfortable, to make them face uncomfortable possibilities.” Chorost added, “We don’t ask our students to agree with us. We only ask them to explore with us.”
At that point, reading for the class had just begun. Childhood survivors of violence, the gay community in modern times, Jewish people in the Middle Ages, Asian Americans, Apple Computer, and black moths are just some of the topics of the semester’s readings. While these subjects, at first glance, seem to hold a dubious connection to the deaf community, Swiller and Chorost have paired each week’s theme with a short paper and discussion related to deaf and hard of hearing people.
“At first I thought we would be studying the history of change in regards to the deaf community and how it has maneuvered through oppressive situations,” said graduate student Megan Matovich. But she soon saw how these other topics tied in to the subject. “We study how [other communities] prosper through oppression and how the deaf community could learn from them,” she said.
Sigridur Johannsdottir, an undergraduate student in the class, enjoyed the freedom that the visiting faculty brought, and saw deafness-related topics rising to the surface immediately. “We discuss openly the topics that are considered taboo in the deaf community such as cochlear implants,” she said. “I understand that these topics are sensitive, but we need to get them out in the open more often in order for us to unite as a community.”
Making a Connection
The idea for Swiller to come back to Gallaudet (he attended the University briefly in 1993) began at the Clarke School, a deaf residential school focused on oral education. At a conference there, he met Department of Physical Education and Recreation professor and author Gina Oliva and graduate student Summer Crider.
Dr. Oliva and Crider invited Swiller to speak at Gallaudet. He came in the fall of 2007 to present about his experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer in Zambia in the 1990s during a tumultuous time for the country. Soon after, Gallaudet approached Swiller with the idea of becoming a visiting faculty member. When Swiller came again in the spring of 2008 for another speaking engagement, he became excited about the possibility of teaching at the University.
Chorost was also known at Gallaudet and had developed an appreciation for the school before he arrived as a visiting faculty member. The Honors Program selected Rebuilt as its 2006 summer reading, and he was invited to speak in the spring of 2007. After the visit, he expressed in a letter to the Honors Program his belief that Gallaudet “builds bridges and is a great source of strength."
Chorost brought up the idea of a visiting professorship soon after, and the administration enthusiastically agreed. Provost Stephen Weiner was instrumental in making the visiting professor program possible and Honors Program Specialist Geoffrey Whitebread did the legwork to make it a reality.
Before the authors began teaching, they arrived early to familiarize themselves with the community in which they would immerse themselves. Chorost endeavored to learn ASL and Swiller took part in the annual Honors Program retreat.
Then the semester began. News of a class that questioned the fate of the deaf community spread, and the professors found themselves hosting not only a room full of students registered for the class, but also several visitors at each session.
The Deaf Niche
Swiller and Chorost do foresee a threat to the signing deaf community, but have been listening carefully to the students’ opinions on the issue. “We didn’t want to force everyone to agree with us,” Swiller said. “What we’re saying is: How do groups adapt to change? We can learn from how other groups have responded to crisis.” Chorost gave the example of Apple Computer. The company created entirely new markets with devices like the iPod. Deaf and hard of hearing people, one could argue, could also carve out new niches based on their unique skills and perspective.
“Deaf people would be in a very strong position in an increasingly technological and visual world," Chorost said. He held up his iPhone as an illustration. The popular device is visually oriented and easy to use for people accustomed to wireless devices. He also points to a concept presented in the film Minority Report. In one scene, actor Tom Cruise’s character manipulates objects on a screen through gestures. If gestural interfaces are indeed a possibility, Chorost points out, who better to develop them than people who are experts in visual communication?
This is just one situation in which deaf people who use sign language would have a distinct advantage, Chorost said.
While these authors had found a niche for themselves as deaf writers in the literary world, some wondered how they would fit in as faculty and community members at Gallaudet—in other words, if they could find a niche in a new context. Chorost admitted that being a deaf person who did not know sign language gave him a simultaneous feeling of belonging and not belonging. “All my life, I’ve been totally different; I’ve been the deaf guy," Chorost said. "Here, well, we’re all deaf. … But I’m still very new to the culture.”
Chorost added that both he and Swiller have been very impressed with the intelligence and sophistication of the students in the class. “It’s one of the best groups of students I’ve ever taught,” Chorost said. “The papers and discussions have been fantastic.”
Both authors value Gallaudet’s campus environment, community, and contribution to the world. They worry sometimes, however, about the on-campus debates that can pit parts of the deaf community against each other. “I think people are too focused on the divisions,” Swiller added. “We’re all deaf … trying to get along in the world. We can all help each other.”
Community and Communication
One of the challenges and rewards of the visiting faculty experience, Swiller and Chorost said, has been the logistical side of teaching. Chorost has taught at the college level for 15 years; Swiller has taught at the high school level. Chorost is a new ASL user; Swiller both speaks and uses ASL. Chorost’s strength as an educator lies in lecturing; Swiller has a knack for classroom management (perhaps more relevant than his high school teaching experience, he said, is the fact that he is a trained group therapist). “Our skills nicely counterbalance each other,” said Chorost.
For the benefit of the deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing students in the class, as well as themselves, the instructors request interpreters, CART (a real-time captioning system), and microphones. They became the first to teach in the technology-rich classroom the class occupies in the new James Lee Sorenson Language and Communication Center. “We wanted our class to be a model for how classrooms for the deaf might be in the future,” said Swiller. Sharing information in different ways will become even more important, he says, with the increasing numbers of cochlear implant users at Gallaudet.
Chorost, who had struggled to follow his hearing students in other classrooms, found an unexpected advantage to this system. "For the first time, I get every word because we have interpreters telling us what the students are saying," he explained. "This gives me a kind of access to the classroom environment that I haven't experienced before."
In addition to teaching, Chorost and Swiller are living and learning on Kendall Green. Both stay in Carlin Hall, sharing the dorm with upperclassmen and graduate students. “It’s been very welcoming, and that’s been a great pleasure,” Chorost said.
Both Swiller and Chorost are members of the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, and they have continued their involvement while in the D.C. area, the home of the organization’s headquarters. “An improved relationship between Gallaudet and AG Bell could be a win-win for everyone,” said Swiller. “They could be a source of students and we could be a source of resources and community.”
Swiller has also taken advantage of his stay in Washington by working with Bethesda Naval Hospital to connect with Iraq War veterans coming home with hearing problems. One in four service men and women returns with hearing loss or tinnitus, Swiller said, and not all of them know their options or how to face the challenge.
Moving Onward
For the spring semester, the visiting professors will move from change and adaptation to technology and silence. Chorost will teach a class on technology and community, while Swiller plans a class that will look at the concept of silence from an auditory, literary, spiritual, and political perspective.
Both have a second book in the near future. Chorost is already at work on World Wide Mind: The Coming Integration of Humans and Machines, due out in 2010. Swiller is trying his hand at fiction and is at work on two novels, one of which takes place in the deaf community.
With the end of the semester just a few weeks away, the focus of “The History of Change” has turned to the final project. One possible project, Chorost said, would be devising a “roadmap” for Gallaudet’s future, though there are other possibilities, too. As the project would suggest, and as they’ve exhibited in their own life choices, Swiller and Chorost are inviting the class to contemplate deeply, to think out of the box, and to be surprised.
In recent years, deaf authors Josh Swiller and Michael Chorost have won praise and recognition for their writing. Today they find themselves teaching together at Gallaudet.
The authors are co-teaching a fall semester course called “The History of Change,” which examines the stories of communities, companies, and even species that found ways to evolve when faced with crisis. The course, under the auspices of the Department of American Sign Language and Deaf Studies, includes careful analysis of the signing deaf community, whose future is uncertain.
Chorost, whose book Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human won the prestigious PEN/USA Book Award for Creative Nonfiction in 2006, had been contributing articles on medical and educational technology to newspapers and magazines before coming to Gallaudet, and is writing a book on the interactive technology of the future. Swiller, author of The Unheard: A Memoir of Deafness in Africa, one of the Honors Program’s reading selections last summer, has done stints as a Zen monk, raw foods chef, journalist, and teacher. When his book was released, Swiller was working as a social worker for patients in hospice care in New York City. Both authors were traveling widely giving readings and lectures.
When Chorost and Swiller first sat down for an interview with Inside Gallaudet, they had just begun teaching at the University and had recently glimpsed what would become an ongoing dialogue about change. In the first three-hour session of “The History of Change,” their presupposition that the signing deaf community is in danger had been passionately debated. Although a premise of the class suggested that extinction was a very real possibility for the community, about two-thirds of the students vehemently disagreed.
The debates were not a problem for the instructors. In fact, Swiller said, “Disagreement is great. It’s our goal to make the students uncomfortable, to make them face uncomfortable possibilities.” Chorost added, “We don’t ask our students to agree with us. We only ask them to explore with us.”
At that point, reading for the class had just begun. Childhood survivors of violence, the gay community in modern times, Jewish people in the Middle Ages, Asian Americans, Apple Computer, and black moths are just some of the topics of the semester’s readings. While these subjects, at first glance, seem to hold a dubious connection to the deaf community, Swiller and Chorost have paired each week’s theme with a short paper and discussion related to deaf and hard of hearing people.
“At first I thought we would be studying the history of change in regards to the deaf community and how it has maneuvered through oppressive situations,” said graduate student Megan Matovich. But she soon saw how these other topics tied in to the subject. “We study how [other communities] prosper through oppression and how the deaf community could learn from them,” she said.
Sigridur Johannsdottir, an undergraduate student in the class, enjoyed the freedom that the visiting faculty brought, and saw deafness-related topics rising to the surface immediately. “We discuss openly the topics that are considered taboo in the deaf community such as cochlear implants,” she said. “I understand that these topics are sensitive, but we need to get them out in the open more often in order for us to unite as a community.”
Making a Connection
The idea for Swiller to come back to Gallaudet (he attended the University briefly in 1993) began at the Clarke School, a deaf residential school focused on oral education. At a conference there, he met Department of Physical Education and Recreation professor and author Gina Oliva and graduate student Summer Crider.
Dr. Oliva and Crider invited Swiller to speak at Gallaudet. He came in the fall of 2007 to present about his experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer in Zambia in the 1990s during a tumultuous time for the country. Soon after, Gallaudet approached Swiller with the idea of becoming a visiting faculty member. When Swiller came again in the spring of 2008 for another speaking engagement, he became excited about the possibility of teaching at the University.
Chorost was also known at Gallaudet and had developed an appreciation for the school before he arrived as a visiting faculty member. The Honors Program selected Rebuilt as its 2006 summer reading, and he was invited to speak in the spring of 2007. After the visit, he expressed in a letter to the Honors Program his belief that Gallaudet “builds bridges and is a great source of strength."
Chorost brought up the idea of a visiting professorship soon after, and the administration enthusiastically agreed. Provost Stephen Weiner was instrumental in making the visiting professor program possible and Honors Program Specialist Geoffrey Whitebread did the legwork to make it a reality.
Before the authors began teaching, they arrived early to familiarize themselves with the community in which they would immerse themselves. Chorost endeavored to learn ASL and Swiller took part in the annual Honors Program retreat.
Then the semester began. News of a class that questioned the fate of the deaf community spread, and the professors found themselves hosting not only a room full of students registered for the class, but also several visitors at each session.
The Deaf Niche
Swiller and Chorost do foresee a threat to the signing deaf community, but have been listening carefully to the students’ opinions on the issue. “We didn’t want to force everyone to agree with us,” Swiller said. “What we’re saying is: How do groups adapt to change? We can learn from how other groups have responded to crisis.” Chorost gave the example of Apple Computer. The company created entirely new markets with devices like the iPod. Deaf and hard of hearing people, one could argue, could also carve out new niches based on their unique skills and perspective.
“Deaf people would be in a very strong position in an increasingly technological and visual world," Chorost said. He held up his iPhone as an illustration. The popular device is visually oriented and easy to use for people accustomed to wireless devices. He also points to a concept presented in the film Minority Report. In one scene, actor Tom Cruise’s character manipulates objects on a screen through gestures. If gestural interfaces are indeed a possibility, Chorost points out, who better to develop them than people who are experts in visual communication?
This is just one situation in which deaf people who use sign language would have a distinct advantage, Chorost said.
While these authors had found a niche for themselves as deaf writers in the literary world, some wondered how they would fit in as faculty and community members at Gallaudet—in other words, if they could find a niche in a new context. Chorost admitted that being a deaf person who did not know sign language gave him a simultaneous feeling of belonging and not belonging. “All my life, I’ve been totally different; I’ve been the deaf guy," Chorost said. "Here, well, we’re all deaf. … But I’m still very new to the culture.”
Chorost added that both he and Swiller have been very impressed with the intelligence and sophistication of the students in the class. “It’s one of the best groups of students I’ve ever taught,” Chorost said. “The papers and discussions have been fantastic.”
Both authors value Gallaudet’s campus environment, community, and contribution to the world. They worry sometimes, however, about the on-campus debates that can pit parts of the deaf community against each other. “I think people are too focused on the divisions,” Swiller added. “We’re all deaf … trying to get along in the world. We can all help each other.”
Community and Communication
One of the challenges and rewards of the visiting faculty experience, Swiller and Chorost said, has been the logistical side of teaching. Chorost has taught at the college level for 15 years; Swiller has taught at the high school level. Chorost is a new ASL user; Swiller both speaks and uses ASL. Chorost’s strength as an educator lies in lecturing; Swiller has a knack for classroom management (perhaps more relevant than his high school teaching experience, he said, is the fact that he is a trained group therapist). “Our skills nicely counterbalance each other,” said Chorost.
For the benefit of the deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing students in the class, as well as themselves, the instructors request interpreters, CART (a real-time captioning system), and microphones. They became the first to teach in the technology-rich classroom the class occupies in the new James Lee Sorenson Language and Communication Center. “We wanted our class to be a model for how classrooms for the deaf might be in the future,” said Swiller. Sharing information in different ways will become even more important, he says, with the increasing numbers of cochlear implant users at Gallaudet.
Chorost, who had struggled to follow his hearing students in other classrooms, found an unexpected advantage to this system. "For the first time, I get every word because we have interpreters telling us what the students are saying," he explained. "This gives me a kind of access to the classroom environment that I haven't experienced before."
In addition to teaching, Chorost and Swiller are living and learning on Kendall Green. Both stay in Carlin Hall, sharing the dorm with upperclassmen and graduate students. “It’s been very welcoming, and that’s been a great pleasure,” Chorost said.
Both Swiller and Chorost are members of the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, and they have continued their involvement while in the D.C. area, the home of the organization’s headquarters. “An improved relationship between Gallaudet and AG Bell could be a win-win for everyone,” said Swiller. “They could be a source of students and we could be a source of resources and community.”
Swiller has also taken advantage of his stay in Washington by working with Bethesda Naval Hospital to connect with Iraq War veterans coming home with hearing problems. One in four service men and women returns with hearing loss or tinnitus, Swiller said, and not all of them know their options or how to face the challenge.
Moving Onward
For the spring semester, the visiting professors will move from change and adaptation to technology and silence. Chorost will teach a class on technology and community, while Swiller plans a class that will look at the concept of silence from an auditory, literary, spiritual, and political perspective.
Both have a second book in the near future. Chorost is already at work on World Wide Mind: The Coming Integration of Humans and Machines, due out in 2010. Swiller is trying his hand at fiction and is at work on two novels, one of which takes place in the deaf community.
With the end of the semester just a few weeks away, the focus of “The History of Change” has turned to the final project. One possible project, Chorost said, would be devising a “roadmap” for Gallaudet’s future, though there are other possibilities, too. As the project would suggest, and as they’ve exhibited in their own life choices, Swiller and Chorost are inviting the class to contemplate deeply, to think out of the box, and to be surprised.