Deaf Students Struggle To Converse
Commentary: This is why we must fight to maintain high quality education at Gallaudet, so many students can enjoy the experience of deaf classrooms, where they are not 100% dependent on interpreters. There is also  a severe shortage of qualified interpreters, made worse by VRS.
So it is important that deaf students have a choice. Some can tolerate mainstreamed classrooms with interpreters, but for others, having a deaf-oriented classroom with a visual common language meets their academic needs better. Gallaudet supplies that niche. elizabeth
Media Credit: Jordan Flower
Read my Lips: Jerry Claus is an exceptional student here at the University in spite of being born deaf and struggling as a child with “hearing schools.”
By Stephanie Guigou
Guest Reporter
Before the age of 7, Jerry Claus thought he was alone. Every friend and every family member spoke a language Jerry would never understand. His mother and grandmother were the only family members who learned how to communicate past Jerry’s deaf ears by hand signs.
“I remember when I was [a] little boy going to [a] hearing elementary school. I thought I was one of few deaf people in the world,” Jerry, now 27, typed on his worn-in computer keyboard. To Jerry and most of the deaf community, there are two types of schools: deaf and hearing.
In 2005, he was one of 37,500 deaf students in the United States, according to the annual survey by Gallaudet Research Institute. Because English is their second language, deaf average American18-year olds read at a fourth grade level. The deaf community may struggle to communicate with the hearing world, but as the president of Gallaudet University, King Jordan said, “Deaf people can do anything anyone else can – except hear.”
Jerry, who now attends BGSU, was placed in the multiple-handicap classroom in kindergarten, but the class was repetitive and too slow for him. His mother, Sue Claus, said that if the teacher gave him a worksheet he’d seen before, Jerry would scribble across it, “I’ve already done this!”
“When I saw the frustration my child was going through, I decided to send him away to college,” Sue said with a chuckle, talking about a deaf boarding school in Columbus, Ohio. The Ohio School for the Deaf houses and teaches about 200 deaf students from elementary to high school.
“When he walked around campus and saw deaf people, it was like someone turned on a light,” Sue said. Jerry realized he was not alone in the silent world. Sue admits that the teachers and staff at the Ohio School for the Deaf essentially raised him – except on the weekends, holidays and summers when he returned home to Sandusky, Ohio.
After graduation, he began college at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., which educates about 2,500 deaf students from around the world. Throughout his time in the deaf schools Jerry played soccer, track, cross country and basketball. He served as the student body government president, worked in theater and joined a fraternity.
Last year when he met a former classmate from the kindergarten multiple-handicap class, Jerry was thankful for his move to a deaf school. The deaf student had continued in the public education school system.
“Really, they were very low-functioning, and it really shocked me,” Jerry signed to the interpreter. “If I would’ve stayed, my education would’ve been much lower and I wouldn’t be here [at BGSU] today.”
After 18 years in a deaf education system, he has returned to a hearing school. In 2003 he arrived at BGSU to finish his undergraduate education. It’s his first time using interpreters to communicate to others.
“I had to sit down and watch the interpreter [the] whole class time without turning my head,” Jerry typed. “I have to rely on note takers. I can’t jot down and watch the interpreters at [the] same time. I must have a full focus on [the] interpreter to understand everything.”
He has two interpreters, provided by the University, who come to each of his classes and alternately interpret because the job can be demanding. While he appreciates their work, depending on interpreters and other classmates was uncomfortable for Jerry at first since his mother brought him up to be independent.
If Jerry and his mother, Sue, were at McDonald’s and he wanted ketchup, she would have him go ask for it himself, she said.
Sue, a single parent after her husband’s early death, never let anyone pity him.
“The most important thing [she taught me] was to accept responsibility and to confront obstacles and overcome them,” Jerry signed to his interpreter.
Jerry also attributed his independence to living on his own in a dorm from the age of 7. His room now in the Harshman residence hall is a simple bachelor pad with over 20 small photos of women in bikinis on the wall and an Ohio State director’s chair facing the OSU football game on TV.
His desk lamp blinks to notify him if someone has pressed the doorbell outside his room or if a friend is calling him on the videophone. The videophone is a small box with a built in camera placed on the TV that allows interpreters or deaf friends to communicate by seeing each other’s hands.
Commentary: This is why we must fight to maintain high quality education at Gallaudet, so many students can enjoy the experience of deaf classrooms, where they are not 100% dependent on interpreters. There is also  a severe shortage of qualified interpreters, made worse by VRS.
So it is important that deaf students have a choice. Some can tolerate mainstreamed classrooms with interpreters, but for others, having a deaf-oriented classroom with a visual common language meets their academic needs better. Gallaudet supplies that niche. elizabeth
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By Stephanie Guigou
Guest Reporter
Before the age of 7, Jerry Claus thought he was alone. Every friend and every family member spoke a language Jerry would never understand. His mother and grandmother were the only family members who learned how to communicate past Jerry’s deaf ears by hand signs.
“I remember when I was [a] little boy going to [a] hearing elementary school. I thought I was one of few deaf people in the world,” Jerry, now 27, typed on his worn-in computer keyboard. To Jerry and most of the deaf community, there are two types of schools: deaf and hearing.
In 2005, he was one of 37,500 deaf students in the United States, according to the annual survey by Gallaudet Research Institute. Because English is their second language, deaf average American18-year olds read at a fourth grade level. The deaf community may struggle to communicate with the hearing world, but as the president of Gallaudet University, King Jordan said, “Deaf people can do anything anyone else can – except hear.”
Jerry, who now attends BGSU, was placed in the multiple-handicap classroom in kindergarten, but the class was repetitive and too slow for him. His mother, Sue Claus, said that if the teacher gave him a worksheet he’d seen before, Jerry would scribble across it, “I’ve already done this!”
“When I saw the frustration my child was going through, I decided to send him away to college,” Sue said with a chuckle, talking about a deaf boarding school in Columbus, Ohio. The Ohio School for the Deaf houses and teaches about 200 deaf students from elementary to high school.
“When he walked around campus and saw deaf people, it was like someone turned on a light,” Sue said. Jerry realized he was not alone in the silent world. Sue admits that the teachers and staff at the Ohio School for the Deaf essentially raised him – except on the weekends, holidays and summers when he returned home to Sandusky, Ohio.
After graduation, he began college at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., which educates about 2,500 deaf students from around the world. Throughout his time in the deaf schools Jerry played soccer, track, cross country and basketball. He served as the student body government president, worked in theater and joined a fraternity.
Last year when he met a former classmate from the kindergarten multiple-handicap class, Jerry was thankful for his move to a deaf school. The deaf student had continued in the public education school system.
“Really, they were very low-functioning, and it really shocked me,” Jerry signed to the interpreter. “If I would’ve stayed, my education would’ve been much lower and I wouldn’t be here [at BGSU] today.”
After 18 years in a deaf education system, he has returned to a hearing school. In 2003 he arrived at BGSU to finish his undergraduate education. It’s his first time using interpreters to communicate to others.
“I had to sit down and watch the interpreter [the] whole class time without turning my head,” Jerry typed. “I have to rely on note takers. I can’t jot down and watch the interpreters at [the] same time. I must have a full focus on [the] interpreter to understand everything.”
He has two interpreters, provided by the University, who come to each of his classes and alternately interpret because the job can be demanding. While he appreciates their work, depending on interpreters and other classmates was uncomfortable for Jerry at first since his mother brought him up to be independent.
If Jerry and his mother, Sue, were at McDonald’s and he wanted ketchup, she would have him go ask for it himself, she said.
Sue, a single parent after her husband’s early death, never let anyone pity him.
“The most important thing [she taught me] was to accept responsibility and to confront obstacles and overcome them,” Jerry signed to his interpreter.
Jerry also attributed his independence to living on his own in a dorm from the age of 7. His room now in the Harshman residence hall is a simple bachelor pad with over 20 small photos of women in bikinis on the wall and an Ohio State director’s chair facing the OSU football game on TV.
His desk lamp blinks to notify him if someone has pressed the doorbell outside his room or if a friend is calling him on the videophone. The videophone is a small box with a built in camera placed on the TV that allows interpreters or deaf friends to communicate by seeing each other’s hands.
