Thu 20 Dec 2007
As it nears Christmas, I recall a speech lesson on how to speak “Merry Christmas” and its results. Then, I review it after the many years, and share my thoughts about it.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Happy New Year….
Yes, let’s make 2008 a year of steps towards ensuring a healthy, audism-free, life and language for our Deaf babies and children.
December 20th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
WOW!!
Thank YOU for sharing a part of your life!!!
Merrrrrrrry Christmas
December 20th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
I can relate to this because when I asked a Deaf person to proofread my paper because the person has better English than mine. The person’s family mentioned that he/she has good English so I trusted them. When I turned in my paper my Professor made many corrections. I told myself that the family was not honest with the Deaf person and the person believed that his/her English is perfect. Many are afraid to be honest with themselves. Thanks for sharing and Merry Christmas to you too.
December 20th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Haha, Ella, I enjoyed the humor re: the good-looking speech therapist; I mean, your delivery was funny but it’s really not so funny a situation and trying to analyze the whys and wherefores of people’s motives was very fair and kind on your part.
With that said, may you and yours also have a very Merry Christmas!
December 20th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
My Respond
December 20th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
That’s sad. I am sorry he wasn’t honest with you. No wonder you refused afterwards. I don’t blame you.
Aslpride, ouch. You were really set up. I cannot fathom anyone doing this to a child. There is absolutely no excuse for that. I am sorry that you had this very unpleasant experience.
December 20th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Hi Ella,
Wow, this is a post that we all need to sit back and to reflect back on our growing years. I once was an outgoing little girl, I loved going over to hearing people’s homes to visit or whatever but when I got older, I became more shy because I knew a lot of people couldn’t understand me even though my speech therapist told me I had good speech. It was a paradox itself. I worked hard on my speech and then when I would try it out on strangers or whatever, they couldn’t understand me, it was very embarrassing and humilating. I decided that I would stop talking to them and became very shy. I would only talk in very short sentences as I didn’t want people to say, “what?? or huh??”. It took me years to finally overcome my shyness and ASL has opened doors for me.
Looking back, I personally feel that many of these speech therapists probably didn’t have the heart to tell deaf children that they had lousy speech or whatever. I am currently working with a young boy who is in wheelchair, I don’t have the heart to tell him that he may not be able to walk due to muscle atrophy so instead we all are trying to encourage him to learn how to walk as he still has the chance. Is it wrong? I don’t know… He will crawl on the floor to get around and it is hard for people to see him crawling like this and they want him to be able to walk instead of crawling. This was an eye-opener experience for me because then I am able to get on the other side (the professionals) and see how they view disabled people.
Thanks for bringing it up, Ella! May the new year 2008 bring lots of renewed hope, revolution and new generation for all of us deafies!
December 20th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
Hello Ella!
I had the same experience! I was so excited and wanted to speak with my mom when I got home from school. I thought that she could understand what I was saying, but …..she signed: “what did you try to say?” in SEE. I felt so flattered, gave up and walked to my room. My teacher probably wanted me to feel good that I worked hard. I had a speech therapy four times a week until I graduated. I still CANNOT speak! I tried to convince my teacher that I knew it’s not worth for me to continue with the speech therapy, but she AND my mom think I should keep up with it. A strange thing happened at my graduation. I promised myself that I will never speak, but I did not know that I already spoke to all the people…I spoke: “thanks” and then I waved my sign: I Love You and I DID speak: I love you. My mom and some of my teachers cried…they did understand what I said. They told me and I said no…I didn’t believe them…I didn’t realize that I DID speak! I guessed I talked so little and they heard me!
Wish you the best of the holidays!
December 20th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
(chuckles) Maybe he was a beauty magic. J/K Thanks for sharing your memories story.
I recall most of my childhood with my Speech therapy at a mainstream schools. One of my incident, spent hour with my Deaf teacher’s aide (with signs) on one song title in each words to repeat until make it right. She wanted me to show my class teacher what I has learned to pronounce on the title. She was excited and exclaimed. After a few, she asked me what happened with my speech. Unfortunately, I grew up Deaf Oral before I was 8 and never understood a single word (audio) without ASL.
For 2008, that would be wonderful to see more Deaf babies/children use ASL and in their true culture/language. See their happy faces with ASL.
Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to you! =:0)
December 20th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
michele, it is better to be honest than give a false hope. The honest answer will hurt the person’s feeling, but the false hope will cause a broken heart.
December 20th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
What I see here is a right person using the “megaphone” to amplify to the world the needed changes be made to improve our society for the deaf (and other people).
Ella, your sereneness shines through here, simply by sharing a personal story and and offering mature reflections on why. If Ella’s flashlight could be multiplied into thousands, the world will be a better place.
Encouragements need to be made toward many wonderful deaf and hearing people to do what Ella has done here.
May 2008 be bit better than 2007, and years thereafter with more of the better.
Ella and all, have a happy holidays!
December 20th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
I never fail to be in awe of how many hours and hours of practically worthless speech lessons (and translate that into thousands if not millions of dollars) for just a few words–and many times not even that!
I just wish we weren’t subject to the false hope (I speak for the parents as well) and am in even more awe that so many of us survived basically because of ASL and other Deaf people and of course many very loving and supportive families.
Do we wish that on our babies and children when we have experienced the truth? Its our opportunity to stand up for them NOW!
Michele,
I agree with ASLPride that even though its painful to tell the truth for both sides, its best in the long run. That reminds of another story from my childhood with my Deaf “foster” brother. Mmmm…best to share that in another vlog hopefully soon.
December 20th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
Smiling . . . but we need to face the truth. Current generation of d/Deaf babyes (please allow me the freedom to use the lower case d for those who are medically deaf and have not been exposed to ASL nor the culture) are not like our generation or the generations of our Deaf friends, parents and grandparents. My son has a mild hearing loss with CI. He has no trouble learning speech and in his IEP meeting of last week, his speech intelligibility among unfamiliar listeners is at 80 percent. He enjoys speech time as it is meaningful and fun. He has functional hearing. He would feel the same as you, me, and others hating every minute of speech if he wasnt implanted. He was born with 105 dB bilaterally.
Speech time is arduous, depressing, and hopeless for most of us. I remember having to blow a feather over and over again. My hand on the SLP’s throat, etc. It was humilating. My speech intelligibility is on the word level only, sometimes even less if this makes sense! Years of speech for what? Missed educational time in class, that!
to conclude this, please remember and keep an open mind and hear out the facts that kids with better hearing are more likely to enjoy speech time. On top of that, speech therapy is meaningful now than it was during our times.
ASLingly yours,
anna s
December 20th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
Touching story. Very tender and thought provoking.
Thank you for sharing and Merry Christmas to you too!
~ LaRonda
December 20th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
I can identify with you, growing up oral before escaping to the Deaf culture world and learning ASL.
I feel, honestly people take advantage of us and even subject us to mockery, because I have experienced trying to learn to talk, or to use my speech and the very same people would look at me and say “you don’t talk good like a hearing person, your voice is too low.” So what is the point of being oral or even talking at all when I am mocked at? Even the very same people I grew up with and the same speech therapists, they whisper and say “John doesn’t speak that good, he uses sign language.” I feel like a frog croaking in a movie role. That is not me. I might have grew up oral but I am NOT an oralist. I might be able to speak well enough to communicate with a hearing person but, that is only to be mocked at.
But when I sign, people go “wow, that is SO cool! Is that what ASL looks like? Wow!” They actually look up to me and ask to learn some signs. They ask if I know Marlee Matlin?? Of course I don’t but gee, people look up at me and ask if I know her. If I said, I did meet Sho’, they will ask “Really? Was she a cool gal?”
That is a better response. And if I try to talk, people will ask me “Say again? Huh?” They do look at me if I am chewing a big piece of breaded pretzel. It becomes like as if I am a puzzle to understand. It is really a waste of time, plus we can be subject to mockery.
I really believe the public is enthralled with ASL, and fascinated with Deaf culture. They see actors and actresses in TV shows and movies that are Deaf and equate us with them. That’s their peek into Deaf culture.
Oralism? We better brush our teeth and floss, make sure all food particles are cleared out, and gargle some mouthwash, and maybe we’ll be OK. And choose a few words, like “Merry Christmas.”
Or maybe wear a shirt that says “Merry Christmas,” that will work.
Otherwise, in regards to oralism, forget it.
December 20th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
I could easily relate myself to your experience with this speech therapist as well as this mother of your schoolmate. It could be very discouraging at times. Having taught both college composition and ASL, I must agree that I did find myself “lying” to my students that they were fine. It was a Catch-22 situation.
Happy Holidays! See you in 2008!
December 20th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
Oh darn it, I thought you’d speak “Merry Christmas” at end, but you signed them out. Haha. I have had one experience which is very similar as yours. Happy Holidays to you, too!
December 21st, 2007 at 12:45 am
As good a point as ASLPride had re: honesty, what person/organization would commit “suicide”? Just saying…sad, yes but just saying….
December 21st, 2007 at 5:14 am
storytelling is a very important artform for documenting and passing on shared experiences
other cultures rely on the oral traditions for passing on such common experiences with audism (not cuz teaching speech is a bad thing but spending one hour for 2 words and not investing anything in other ways to communicate Merry Christmas nor being honest in how effective the speech was definitely communicates that the view to speak and hear is superior to not being able to speak and hear – that is what audism is all about so this is a prime example)
it is nice to see that vlogs and the www can be used to storehouse our visual traditions of storytelling that relate to the Deaf experience
see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHtF33qzHp4
for an example of what Ritchie Bryant had to do for a glass of lemonade
and Jackie Schertz’s story of the snatched badge http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_GpLCbw008
im sure there are many other similar stories out there
pls share
thanks ella and Merry Christmas to you. may the light of the new year shine on all of us
peace
patti
December 21st, 2007 at 5:35 am
Ella,
I had that same experience. My speech teacher must have me look at the mirror. She even put her finger in my mouth to urge me to speak “ng”. I was scared. If I were little older and little rebel, I would bite her finger.
I have an interpreter who is not certified . I got used to understand her style of interpreting. Several deaf people asked me how I can understand that interpreter because they could not understand her. I pointed out that I got used to her style. The same principle for your speech therapist who got used to understand you. The speech therapist had to say wonderful, wonderful in order to keep his job.
Telling the truth is the best but it can be hurtful. The mother of the deaf child told you the truth that she did not understand you so you know where you stand. You should be thankful to her for telling you the truth because you did not want to continue thinking that everyone understood you.
Keep up the good work with your pet, Flashlight. Looking forward to seeing your Flashlight often next year, I am.
Meeeeeerrrrrrrrrrryyyyyeeee Christmasssssssss!!!
Sandra
December 21st, 2007 at 7:07 am
This boy does have a chance of either walking or not, it depends on how he responds to therapy and if he has the determination.
As for speech training, I spoke with a speech therapist recently, I asked her why do some deaf people succeed at speech therapy and others fail. She said that it depends on their hearing loss severity, the kind of training they receive, if they can use hearing aids/cochlear implants well, if they are motivated to learn how to speak and all that. Then why is it that way? There needs to be some research done to see why some deaf people fail and why some succeed. Because it is a interdependent outcome and that is why speech therapists have hope that deaf children can speak well just like we hope that this boy will be able to walk somehow in the near future.
December 21st, 2007 at 7:08 am
Wow, very interesting!!! I used to attend to speech therapy at school and clinic for some years. It made me so bored with speech therapy! At school it took 15 minutes for me to practice speech therapy, but at a clinic, it took 45 minutes for me to practice speech therapy. My parents spent lot of money on that ones! What a waste money???
Also, people keep asking me, “Do you lipreading?” I keep saying “NO” and say “Write a note” I can see them expressing facial and not want to write note because they feel like boring to write! They want FREE SPEECH than write a paper.
I never forget one situation I had to face at my work. My boss ordered me to go to speech therapy. I said, “No” then he suspended me for few days without paying. I felt this is discrimination on my deaf right. I found out why he wanted me to learn speech therapy is because he was getting tired of writing a note to communicate with me. He forced me to call the person and see how much cost etc….. Till someone convienced him to drop this issue. He did drop it and let me come back to work from suspending for few days. That is too sad!
Now, I say MERRY MESSIAHMAS (jewish way to say CHRISTMAS) to you and HAPPY NEW YEAR 2008!
ROBIN
December 21st, 2007 at 7:14 am
Do you all think that if research or if some kind of method that will enable deaf people to speak well without any failure rate, would you all support this or not?
And also do you all think deaf people need speech therapy or not? Should we fight to eliminate speech therapy for deaf people or make it something that can be measureable where it can be determined if a deaf person would be able to speak well or not?
December 21st, 2007 at 8:49 am
Hi Ella- I’ve always enjoyed watching your vlog- I experienced almost the same with my speech teacher, Ms. Dale Sampson- chain smoker- can you imagine I had to endure the smell coming from her mouth when she showed me how to say Eeeeeeeeeeee, Fffffffffff, etc- ha ha and when I made perfect “t” sound, she called all teachers to come and witness my “accomplished” speech- they all went crazy clap clap clap… I wondered why they did that- maybe it is because I come from deaf family and no hope for me to learn speech??? I wished I could ask Ms Sampson some questions- and I can’t because she died of lung cancer some years ago… rest her soul. Merry Christmas to you too!!!!
December 21st, 2007 at 9:11 am
I wouldn’t waste time discussing “WHAT IF” situations. Instead, focus on what would work for each individuals. Some speech lessons worked very well for some; fairly for some; poorly for some. I believe for those who wouldn’t benefit from speech lessons, their times would be best invested into language skills (both L1 and L2) and other subjects (social, science, literature, etc etc).
December 21st, 2007 at 10:15 am
You’re such a pleasure to watch! Very soothing. MC to you too!
December 21st, 2007 at 10:46 am
Response to CLICK HERE
Merry Christmas from us family
Northtrue
December 21st, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Greg
You make me laughing so hard from your vlogs to Ella. You are not only one. I was member of Camp Fire Girls and had to be with hearing girls to give our choir to people for Christmas at mall. I had no voice to sing and hide from the standing. That was so funny!
ROBIN
December 21st, 2007 at 12:44 pm
I can envision a mental picture of your profound disillusionment. Thousands and a student are falsely praised by speech teachers. Their parents are either used to their children’s oralism or pretend to understand them. A number of deafies being shooed out in New York City is legion. I lived in Brooklyn with a Jewish family who screamed at my roommate for bringing an oralist for a Thanksgiving dinner. “Show her to the baloney. Send her home early after the dinner” because they were impatient with the oralist’ improper control of intonations and pitch. her pitch properly.”
There are few, I repeat, few, excellent oralists out there. They have picked up manna from the sky. I recall having discussed with a curator of a mueum about the rarest talent of a painter who neatly painted this tiny eggshell. Tongue in the cheek, he smiled knowingly and wrote on paper: “Europeans call him an “Idiot Savant”. Poor students obey speech therapists slavishly. Now you (and other deaf people) can look smart by signing and writing bilingually: “Merry Christmas” without using the voice.
Joyeux Noël et bonne année!
Jean
December 21st, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Thanks for continuing to share similar stories. As Patti Durr pointed out, it’s important to keep collecting stories AND examine them. They are going to make very valuable resource for others to better understand what it means to be Deaf….and especially to understand why in spite of all the “attention” of speech (and auditory) training, we still flock together and cherish ASL.
ASL Pride and Greg Eyben,
GROAN!!! yet funny! Thanks for adding your stories to this accidental collection IN ASL. A treat! I gotta figure how to add video comments (tried but no luck!) and how to insert VideoEgg comments (yes yes i know, someone described how to do it in a v/blog on DeafRead…need go see it)…
Peggy Ann,
Ohhhhh….another groan! And interesting comment you made about the teachers exhibiting deficit thinking especially because you came from Deaf family making it extra special if you could speak something correctly???
Anna S and michele,
You know, every one of us make choices in life…some of our choices are good, some are part good part bad, and of course, some are bad.
And you know we don’t know everything about ourselves… We need others to expand our perspective and knowledge about ourselves in order for us to make better decisions.
I dont know the name of the 4 squares (I think in psychology)…the one where the bottom left square is what others and i know about myself, the top left square is what I know about myself that others do not know, the bottom right square is what others know about me but I don’t know and finally the top right square is what both others and me don’t know about myself.
If I remember correctly, its ideal to expand the square what both others and myself know about myself to overtake all three other squares. Correct me if I am wrong. The reason I brought up these squares is the importance of getting feedback from others and making decisions based on your own assessment of the feedback. When indepth and honest communication happens, one increases knowledge of themself and hopefully become a more whole person.
Anyway, I am hoping my response to you will be part of this process of us knowing ourselves better.
You have made your choices….Anna S to implant your child even though your child is 4th generation of Deaf family members, and michele to stereotype Deaf people by asking “ALL OF YOU” questions which is pretty unfair and is impossible to answer. I can only answer for myself based on my knowledge and attitude towards my Deafhood and the Deaf people I know around me and those I haven’t met but have heard about…
Here’s my response in form of questions:
Do you think any speech and auditory training which the majority of “hearing” children NORMALLY do not have, seem to focus on the “deficit” of Deaf children rather than working with what they HAVE–their brains, their eyes, their body, their families, their knowledge and experience?
Don’t you think that focusing on what Deaf children HAVE would have made them feel more “normal” even if they are different than some people around them?
Would you think the kids would feel normal because they are being treated JUST AS THEY ARE? Would you think the money and time would be better spent simply introducing the kids to the many many many people out there doing just fine as Deaf people as well as introducing them to the many excellent ways of dealing with their environment including non-signers?
Would you think that it would be more empowering to the Deaf child to see Deaf adults giving them constructive feedback on their behavior and progress without depending on hearing people for input…and being creative in dealing with things that we do not have capacity for.
For example, people do not have capacity to fly, but they created their own ways instead of having non-people operate on them and install feathers and transform their insides to be like the birds. Historically, many Deaf people have created various clever ways to adapt, like the vibrating or flashing alarm clocks, the door light, the videophone, ASL curriculum to teach non-signers ASL so they can communicate organically with us, and many more.
Suppose we convert all the money being spent on the operations and hearing technology and allow our Deaf geniuses create our own space and adaptions, what will that be like? That’s what I would call a Deafhood question…ideas and thoughts that focuses ON THE POSSIBILTIIES of being Deaf in this world..
Do you think it’s worthy and empowering to glue our eyes to audiologists, speech therapists, doctors, teachers who do not sign, and feeling stuck in having to believe them (without ever finding out for sure for ourselves) about what we ARE NOT FULLY CAPABLE OF…at least in organic ways?
December 21st, 2007 at 6:01 pm
I was used to be teaching ASL class for my local community, one lady (an interpreter) shared with me her story that one day she was interpreting a few deaf people at a worshop with a lot of hearing people while one guy was a strong oral so he gave a speech while she can’t process to interpret because she did not understand what he said, deaf were so shocked since when his speech finished and hearing people applaud and said nothing as polite that oral guy thought they understand what he said in all way, but they did not understand him at all. Can you believe that or not! That mean that oral guy doesn’t speak very well as same thing with us,deaf. Make no difference!
Interesting.
Merry Christmas & New Happy Year.
December 21st, 2007 at 6:09 pm
Hi Ella –
Your experience with a speech therapist is parallel to my past training. My mother refused to listen to a smart deaf child while listened to the speech therapist just for a lot of $$$$ plus an agreement with the public school who almost refused to let me in. So much hassle for mother to fight resources for me.
Some speech therapists had BIG MOUTH telling people about my family life. My mother became upset. So got a different one every 4 or 5 years. And later, my last speech therapist near my end of my high school years, finally, I have to admit, was a very nice sweet lady who was so honest and supportive in whatever I wanted to do. She only care about my well being because I wanted to get out of my so-called “hearing” high school so bad I started to feel so FED UP with them holding my education.
Yet, I was so thrilled to jump on the bandwagon on my road to Gallaudet University. Oops! There was one problem during my 1st year of college.
I was so lucky to start my ASL lessons with a Deaf teacher. Imagine that. My 1st first adult role model! About time to give back my strength and confident to continue to search for my path back that time. Now we called it a DEAFHOOD. Ah. Still a long way to go what I want to see inside what it means to be a Deaf person working so hard to keep the world in balance.
Happy Holidays to you all !
BTW – you can ride on BART to Civic Center
San Francisco Public Library – we have
Deaf Services Center here. Anyone is
welcome to check out the place.
– O.
December 21st, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Thanks Ella! I enjoy watching your vlogs.
Your vlog inspired me to comment! I am hearing, and have many Deaf and hard of hearing friends. I prefer of course to communicate in ASL. Sometimes Deaf people try to use their voice with me, but usually I do not understand them. I am amazed though how some other hearing people can understand them. However, I remember a former Deaf roomie of mine. When I first met her, I couldn’t understand her voice at all, however once living with her for a few months, I found that I was able to understand some of the things she said. I guess I got used to her voice!
Now, with some hard of hearing friends, I consider their voices easy to understand. (Still have that “deaf accent”, but I can understand them). And once in a while, they’ll speak to me, and I’ll respond with ASL. Then I remember one these same hard of hearing friends met one of my hearing friends. My hearing friend could not understand my hoh friend’s voice at all! I was very surprised, because I considered this particular friend’s voice to be very clear.
My point is, is that some hearing people are very good at understanding a deaf accent, and some are not. I hear often how some think their speech therapist lied to them. Though sometimes this definitely may have been the case, I suspect that the speech therapist is so used to the deaf accent, that is sounds genuinely good to them!
Merry Christmas!
December 21st, 2007 at 7:26 pm
*Grin*
Been there too .. As a former Deaf Oralist – During my junior high school year, my dad once mentioned to me if I practice my speech everyday — I will speak clearly like hearing people. One time during my senior year, I was doing some paintings with my first 5 years old nephew – Suddenly he told me I can’t talk. I was doomed and hurt. I immediately believed my nephew . My father was trying to make me happy but I rather him to be honest. Oh well — Happy Holidays, Diane
PS you don’t look in 50’s.
December 21st, 2007 at 8:45 pm
Hi Ella, that was a great story! Beautiful ASL. Can see it has brought back memories for many of us who had speech lessons. Jeff Float and I happened to share the same speech therapist off site at her home. In those days, pre-94-142, they didn’t offer speech classes at the school. How I hated repeating over and over and over the “s” or “ch” sounds. In my mind, it was like “who cares?”. Years later in college,I witnesses several oral deaf who would try to tell a sales lady in the store what they wanted, will never forget how they eventually broke down in tears, realizing no one could understand them. Speech therapy is one thing, but for those who had to go thru school in an all-oral environment with the same praise as your speech therapist, only to learn as an adult, in the real-world, no hearing person could understand their speech. Devasting to watch, but without understanding what I was witnessing at the time, their feelings were constantly that they were an “oral failure”. Each of these people learned sign language in college, realizing for the first time, 100 % communication. My response to these oral deaf friends who were upset, that there is no such thing as an oral failure. No, the failure is them for not learning sign language in the first place.
Though perhaps speech lessons benefited me growing up, I was still never comfortable giving oral presentations, because lets face it, we do not will not ever talk like a hearing person. First and only time I gave an oral presentation in a class where I was the only deaf person was in a Science class in 8th grade. Forgot what my project was, but had to do with origination of organisims. Kept repeating that word over and over in my presentation, only to see my classmates cracking up hard. Teacher kept trying not to smile or laugh herself but told the class to shut up til I was done.
Later after I sat down, a girl friend sitting next to me says, “Sheri, Sheri, its or-gan-is-im, not ORGASMS.
Ohmigosh! Totallyyyyy hillarious! Orgasms! Unbelievably embarassing!!! I don’t even think I knew what that word meant back then! Haha!
Still today, I can’t look at the word “organisims” without thinking “orgasms”! LOL!At least we can look back and laugh at some of these things!
And a Merry Christmas to YOU and all,
looking forward to a brand NEW 2008!
Take care!
December 22nd, 2007 at 12:13 pm
#29 -
Excellent anaylsis! Regarding the 4 squares you were talking about, I think you meant the Johari Window? See definition below.
From Wikipedia: A Johari window is a psychological tool created by Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham in 1955 in the United States, used to help people better understand their interpersonal communication and relationships. It is used primarily in self-help groups and corporate settings as a heuristic exercise.
4 areas are called Open, Blind, Hidden, and Unknown. If you google “Johari Window”, you will see some different words used for each area. We should look into that and start discussing more about this.
More information, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johari_window
Happy Holidays!!
December 22nd, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Great story, Ella! Sometimes I’m afraid to say Merry Christmas to hearing folks. Then they don’t believe I can’t hear.
2008 belong to us. Feliz Navidad!
Joe
December 23rd, 2007 at 5:51 am
Ella, Ella, Ella…….
As we, educators often say that critical thinking is an important and vital topic in education. A profound and insightful piece of ‘Merry Christmas’ A Speech Lesson. It is hopeful that this critical thinking theme on reflective narrative; will be the catalyst to the community and to equip Deaf children with the tools that they need to understand what it means to be a Deaf person. Hope this will be an eye- opening theme for people to be a reflective, creative and responsible individual that makes a measurable impact to the world and our Deaf children.
You ROCK!
Happy Healthy New Year
L’Chaim, Shalom
Love, Janis
December 23rd, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Hi, Ella!
Finally got time to watch your video just now… A couple days I tried to watch, but video had to be buffered, and I got interrupted from that… Opps!
Yes, in my last year of speech training at age 15, I got irked with the same words I have spoken and seen over and over. I said same words? This therapist claimed that I did not perfect them yet… She was frank with me, but I would love to see different words same pronoun whatever. Gosh. I felt so retarded that moment, yeah. Mom had to let me go. I wish they had different approach than that.
Anyway, once I got confided in being who I was especially after signing ASL fluently, my loved ones made remark that I spoke better. I came to realize, that once I felt good about myself, and that once I felt confidence in myself, that I speak better. I remember that I spoke with tense prior signing fluently.
Oh, well, better stop rambling. Warmest Merrist Christmas and Happy New Year!
Kathleen
December 27th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Ella,
You presented the excellent analogy of your experience with learning speech skills and your students’ experiences with learning ASL signs. It helps signers and non-signers better understand each other’s view. This is definitely the classic example of Deaf/hearing cross-culture.
Thanks for the invaluable sharing!
Happy New Year 2008,
Rick Garbacz (F.Y.I., I’m still living! LOL)
December 28th, 2007 at 10:26 am
EXCELLENT message!
It is very similar to what my Deaf mother has gone through. She was raised in an oral education until 15 years old, and then she went to the residential school. The teachers there didn’t understand her speeches at all. It humiliated her! Eventually she stopped using the speech.
Belated Merry Christmas and
Happy New Year to you, Ella, too.
Keith
January 7th, 2008 at 5:47 am
Ella,
I have been there. . .many times. I lipread well. I am profoundly Deaf and had speech class once a week at the residential school for the Deaf. I am often told I speak well. Occasionally my speech has been misunderstood. One of my most embarrassments was when I went to my doctor’s office for my appointment, the nurse was new. She asked me how old I was. I said 52. She stared at me hard. She stomped out. The doctor came in and looked stern. He asked me why I said F-you to the nurse. After that, I never speak again at the doctor’s office but write. To have an interpreter at my doctor’s office, it would be a miracle but I live in isolated town.
Thank you for sharing your speech experience. It’s nice to know I am not the only one.