Mishka Zena

Being out of town for the last two weeks,  I was away from the computer most of the time, especially in the first week. The break from the Deaf Cyberspace was refreshing while I attended to important family matters. Now that I’m back, I’ve decided to cut down the amount of blogging to some degree from now on to the christmas holidays, then I’ll take more frequent breaks afterwards.

Yesterday I came to this interesting trivia. Over the years I’ve noticed that the name Gallaudet is often misspelled by hearing people. Apparently it is also the most mispronounced word by hearing people in D.C.. According to this article, many people pronounced it Gal-yoo-det instead of Gal-luh-det.  A commenter mentioned that Baltimore is actually pronounced Bawl’mer by the locals there. Who would have thought of that? In my opinion, English is a difficult language to pronounce.  For example, it is not always obvious to people who cannot hear that the t in fillet is supposed to be silent.  But, hey, it could be worse.  I think mastering the speech and lipreading may be harder for Deaf Asians since the phonetics of their written languages appear complicated, but I really don’t know. I have never thought of asking my Deaf Asian friends with oral backgrounds during college.  Hmm, now this brings up a question… which language is most difficult for Deaf people to master the speech and lipreading? Does anyone know?  Washington City Paper: City Desk – The Most Mispronounced Word in D.C.

Great news for Deaf and HoH mainstreamed students in Rochester area! As we know, some Deaf and HoH students, especially teenagers, have problems socializing with their hearing peers due to communication and/or attitudinal barriers. Now with this new program, now they have more opportunities to socialize with other Deaf students after school hours at Rochester School for the Deaf. $900,000 for Rochester School for the Deaf – 13WHAM.com  I wonder how many schools for the deaf offer similar programs for the mainstreamed students in their districts, The funding and awareness of the deaf state educational programs are increased, which will help the schools stay afloat.  Incidentally more and more state schools are offering diverse programs than before, such as outreach program and infant-parent education programs. [Barb informed me it isn't a new program. I was planning to ask her about it yesterday, but I was still crashing from the long trip on the road.  She also mentioned that her kids benefited from the interactions with the mainstreamed kids in that program, which is neat.]

The protest last spring at St. Mary School for the Deaf over the firing of a very popular mathematic teacher was victorious. Ms. Nettie Brewer will return to her math position in September.  http://www.smsdk12.org/suprpage.htm . The secondary principal, Ms Michalek had moved to a new position as the Curriculum Director while the Physical Education Dept Athletic Director’s position will be decided.  A new associate superintendent position was made two months ago to promote a smooth transition  to the new superintendent position when the current Superintendent Bill Johnson retires early. Personally I thought the protest was well-planned and organized. Unlike Mississippi School for the Deaf and North Carolina School for the deaf where the protests were carried successfully by the students alone, this school protest received more support due to the intense involvement of the parents and the alumni and was covered more thoroughly by the local media.  Unlike NCSD students who were disciplined harshly afterwards, the SMSD students weren’t penalized for exercising their rights to assemble peacefully and speak freely during the off school hours.  The result is a better and healthy discourse between the SMSD administration and its stakeholders with mutual respect from both sides. 

The concerned parents and alumni of the Phoenix Day School for the Deaf have been working with the PDSD administration for some time, bringing up issues they feel are obstructing the quality and accessibility of education to the Deaf students. Some of the grievances include lack of ASL knowledge, paucity of ASL-proficient teachers, the tendency of teachers to use oral and Sim-Com methods, and prevalent audism among the teachers and the staff, including the administration, toward Deaf people and students. At the end of the school year, the concerned stakeholders held a peaceful rally, promoting ASL.  Over the summer, the administrators have come up with a plan to address the ASL issue, which includes increasing  ASL awareness, which is a good start. Hopefully the administrators will address more issues as the school year starts anew.

Witnessing the emerging empowerment of Deaf students and concerned stakeholders in state schools for the deaf is inspiring.  More parents and alumni are getting involved and helping the Deaf and HoH students receive their much-deserved high quality academic programs with better communication accommodations and a reduction in audism, long unrecognized as a serious problem within the deaf programs.

If you are bored and want to play a game, here is one where you can click on the ball to change colors. It’s not so easy, is it?   http://mazzanet.id.au/ball.php

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 8:07 am and is filed under ASL, Deaf Education, Gallaudet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.