Deaf stuff: November 2003 Archives

FLEETING THOUGHTS
Alison Aubrecht

Revisiting Audism

Though by now many of you will have already be aware of what I am about
to include in my article, there are still numerous people who would
benefit from an introduction to the word Audism. So, keeping in mind
that some of us believe that deaf people, too, are capable of being
audists, here are two quotes to contemplate. They are from Harlan Lane's
THE MASK OF BENEVOLENCE. I encourage you to respond with your thoughts.

"Audism is the corporate institution for dealing with deaf people,
dealing with them by making statements about them, authorizing views of
them, describing them, teaching about them, governing where they go to
school and, in some cases, where they live; in short, audism is the
hearing way of dominating, restructuring, and exercising authority over
the deaf community." (p. 43)

"What would become of the audist establishment if deaf people were
allowed to educate deaf children using their most fluent language, the
language of their nation's deaf community? What would become of the
audist establishment if deaf children who chose not to wear hearing aids
were no longer required to do so; if deaf people were so well educated
that they required rehabilitation serves as infrequently as hearing
people? The answer is that if cultural deafness were accepted by hearing
professionals, the practices of some would only be slightly affected;
many otologists, audiologists, and hearing aid specialists, for example,
treat primarily hearing people who have become deaf, frequently late in
life. Other audists, however, would be more crucially affected: This
group includes teachers of deaf children, school psychologists and
administrators, and rehabilitation specialists." (p. 49)

The Tactile Mind Weekly #32 (see previous post for more info).

*****
HIGHLY QUALIFIED TO CRITICIZE?
Pamela Wright-Meinhardt

I'm so frustrated with this topic, from work related issues as well as
things that I have read, that I absolutely have to crawl out of my
carpal tunnel induced dexterity-impaired haze to poke away at the
keyboard and continue my haphazard series. There's obviously a need for
people outside the "deaf education system" (henceforth called the
System) to understand what's happening inside the System. Now, with a
jest on the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law and its expectations that
every teacher be "highly qualified," I write this article.

I'm of two minds right now. On one hand, it constantly amazes me how
much the deaf education system is criticized by former students
everywhere. I wonder, how can someone who only experienced the System as
a student believe, with full honesty, that they can target elements
inside the System? How can they determine what is wrong without
experiencing the System in a different capacity than as a student? Maybe
experience it as a teacher? Or an administrator? As a parent? Or even as
an artist-in-residence? Do they know how much research is really out
there on the System? Do they really know what the literacy research
says? Do they realize how expertise, positive and rich, has been and
continues to be totally disregarded by people outside the System?

Let's just say, I'm often appalled at the ignorance outsiders display
when they criticize without really knowing the System.

Okay, on the other hand. . . *sigh* I understand! As a former student of
the System, and as an (admittingly) unrepentant Critic, I completely
share the indignation that so many of us feel. We go through the System
and are able to see what was done/not done, what happened to our friends
or classmates, or obvious literacy gaps, that we formulate opinions from
our conversations and readings. So we attack! We criticize, chop up,
pick apart, and scrutinize the System under a microscope. And that's not
all bad. Those inside the System do need to hear what outsiders do have
to say. Some mini-Systems are so shut out from the outside that they
perpetuate the same crimes from generation to generation.

Why do I jest, using the NCLB law? Because the people who advocated the
law and virtually all of the people involved in creating the law were
not from fields of education. They were psychologists, linguists,
doctors, politicians, and a celebrated speech therapist. The politicians
decided that all teachers must be "highly qualified" in their field of
expertise. So. That means what? Honestly, it means more paperwork, not
more quality. It means that people who are not the least bit cognizant
of how teachers function, or what truly makes a qualified teacher, are
making the rules for teachers.

Change the System? Yes! Please! I wish for nothing more than for my
students to become fully literate and say that they whupped the 'hearing
standard,' which, by the way, is an overlooked, over-celebrated 7th
grade average. Teach the Six Traits (check the website)? Oh yes. More
communication? Sure! A definition of literacy that encompasses more than
just English? YES! Bridge ASL and English? Yes, yes, yes!

But, dear me, talk to the insiders! We already have to deal with a
federal law written by clueless politicians... the last thing we need is
a literacy-rescue program created by people who know *zilch* about the
multitude of issues lying around the average System classroom. Believe
me, there are plenty of those out there already.

Keep criticizing, keep discussing. Don't stop! But, meanwhile, complete
your homework.

From The Tactile Mind Weekly #32 THE TACTILE MIND WEEKLY Copyright © 2003. All rights reserved. THE
TACTILE MIND WEEKLY is a free e-zine of the signing community, published
by The Tactile Mind Press (http://www.thetactilemind.com). To subscribe,
go to http://www.thetactilemind.com/weekly - Submissions are welcome.

MAN ON THE STREET
Christopher Jon Heuer

He Wrote About Ring Baloney and Disappeared

This is my version of hell: I'm condemned to float around for eternity
on a giant piece of ring baloney in a huge subterranean cavern that's
half-filled with ring baloney juice. The steam rising from the
bottomless depths sticks to my skin like a wet rubber hospital glove. I
have nothing to eat except lukewarm ring baloney chunks, I have nothing
to drink except lukewarm ring baloney juice, and there's just enough
murky light to assure that I'll always be able to see my ring baloney
raft bobbing up and down in the gentle lapping waves...

I tell you this not only because I honestly believe that ring baloney
numbers among the foodstuffs of Satan (which I do), but also to advance
the theory that a Deaf writer can write about something other than
deafness and not spontaneously self-combust. A lot of Deaf writers I
know start out with the intention of helping to make Deafness known to
the outside world. . . which is a good and noble intention, to be sure.
But we should (gasp!) also be writing about that outside world as if we
(gasp!) already lived in it, because we (gasp!) already do!

Take ring baloney. Does my opinion on this putrid, gut-wrenching
substance somehow not count because I'm Deaf? Are there some additional
social or physical criteria I have to meet before I can write about ring
baloney any old time I want to, just like a hearing writer can? And I
write my opinion on this nauseating non-food down, does doing so somehow
make me less Deaf because ring baloney has nothing to do with Deaf
Culture? Or is it possible to remain Deaf and still write about ring
baloney?

Hey, you never know. Ring baloney has lots of evil, hidden dark powers
that we don't fully understand. It could go either way.

Still, I think we should at least test it out--we could try being Deaf
*and* write about things other than Deafness once in a while. Just to
see if lightning bolts don't come thundering down out of angry black
skies, or if the pulsating (when we aren't looking) ring baloney in our
refrigerators doesn't come creeping up on us in the middle of the night,
entwine itself around our flailing limbs, and drag us shrieking off into
the gloom.

So I've written about ring baloney, and now I'm going to bed. If I'm
still around come morning, great. If not, remember me as brave and send
generous monetary donations to my wife and cat.

From The Tactile Mind Weekly #32

Laurene informs me that under no circumstances does she want to become the next president of Gallaudet. I accept her choice. It makes sense - she spent a decade (or more?) jumping through adminstrative hoops in order to get to where she is now, why should she give it up after only a few years?

Perhaps another opportunity will come around in several years and she will feel - then - that it is the right thing to do. Maybe not. I think someone who has worked so hard and tirelessly for so many years ought to be able to do what she wants - finally! - for as long as she wants to do it.

Go Laurene! :-)

THIS seems like who I want to be: "the critic needs an enormous amount of 'Negative Capability': the ability to exist 'in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason' (Dewey, 1934, p.33)" (121).

"...the intent of a critical servant [is] no less subject to critique than the actions/he proposed.......the critical rhetor takes on a more specific role than the 'social actor' proposed by McKerrow (1991, p. 62). Servitude as douleia is a giving over of one's will to fulfill the important function of addressing the needs of the community.....The agency of the critical servant is obtained by understanding the agent's subjectivity as a combination of the individual and the social......When critic and servant are combined in constant interplay, the rhetor is a moral and political agent who sacrifices his or her self-interest to the community, and through this loss gains knowledge and power.....The critic interprets the history of a community, showing how past choices led to the present conditions...Future actions are ones the community could have chosen in the past but did not....the critical interpretation...thus remakes the past with an eye toward a brighter future....This new constitution is powerful because it is grounded in a subjectivity that is actively both individual and social. In this critical service lies the possibility for ongoing transformation....

"The critical servant perspective pushes critical rhetoric to take 'as one of its tasks an investigation of what the good is or might be' (Charland, 1991, p. 73).....it draws on and articulates the experience of the audience even as it moves them toward a new position....maintains its legitimacy by remaining open to further challenges (Wellman, 1971) by its critical servants....helps rhetors manage the paradox of proposing a course of action in an ever-changing world" (118).

"The servant is duty-bound to strive for the best for the community....can...play the 'ethic card' without denying its role as an ethic. Ethical appeals can win an election and reorient the audience toward an ethical position entailed in the community's history but not yet fully realized in everyday practice. Is it this position that the critical servants offers as the best possible goal......Critical servants situate their knowledge of possible actions within the history of the community...knowledge...is always temporally relative, always situationally contingent, and always subject to further critique and revision....knowledge must be tied to a historical moment.....In the past lies transformative potential for the present community, potential that can be used in radical ways....By initiating a transactional interaction between past and present, the critic calls into question the good endorsed in the present as much as the good of the past. The critic offers a judgment on the past and, as such, draws on the history of the community for good" (118-119).

"As we look to notions of the good that a critical servant may articulate, it is important not to confuse community history with community standards. All communities have a history of practices that can lead to new practices. In every act there is some unanticipated opening that the actor did not intend. Rhetors have the freedom to take up a past practice, explore its potential, and discover its previously unexplored use. THus history can be seen as the resource of a potential that has yet to be actualized. Critical servants can transform local knowledge by drawing on the history of the community and the history of discursive practices that produced that knowledge. By looking to the past, critiquing it, refocusing and reorieting it, the critical servant can produce critical interventions and suggest courses of action with positive transformative potential" (119).

All quotes from Norman Clark (hope the link is to the right one?!), "The Critical Servant: An Isocratean Contribution to Critical Rhetoric." QJS, Vol 82, No 2, May 1996.

My good friend Laurene Gallimore is a potential candidate to become the next President of Gallaudet University. A grassroots campaign is already underway, as demonstrated by THE TACTILE MIND WEEKLY, whose October 2003 issue (Vol 24, No 3) asked: "Who Should Be the Next President of Gallaudet?"

Some excerpts: ìÖthe next president must be a fluent signer. Someone who signs like a Scarecrow or a Tin Man will not do. We demand someone who can sign like... Laurene Gallimore. Actually, Laurene Gallimore wins my vote. She's Deaf. She signs with enough power to light all the kitchens in America. She is a graduate of that famous boot camp for leaders in our community, Youth Leadership Camp. And she is a special kind of teacher: she teaches teachers. If anyone knows the business of higher education as it relates to ALL education, it is sheÖ. We need someone to mean to Gallaudet what Beethoven means to music, Milton to poetry, Shakespeare to literature, and what Laurene Gallimore already means to the education of deaf children. (John Lee Clark)

ìI would probably put the most energy into campaigning for Laurene GallimoreÖShe has a heart of gold, a sharp mind, and nerves of steel. She is a powerful speaker without being offensive. Over the years, her work with youth has shown volumes of information about her abilities. She opens her arms and welcomes people, giving them a chance before judging them. She is willing to listen to all sides of every story before she makes a decision. And seems willing to allow that decision to be swayed should a compelling argument come up. Laurene is, simply put, the most amazing woman I have ever met. On stage, she is dynamic, convincing, and can move you to tears. Around her, there is an aura of confidence and knowledge. In person, she is humble and honest. She is approachable.
ìMy fondest memory of Laurene is watching her presentation at Deaf Way II. I sat through the whole thing with tears shimmering in my eyes.
Thinking, this is a woman I would love to be. I left the presentation
feeling full of positive energy and certain of possibilities even though
the topic she discussed was a solemn one. She was able to take one of
the most hopelessly draining topics and leave us feeling as though there
were things we COULD do to better the future of our Deaf children.
ìAnd then I met her in person. I felt so stupid approaching her, so wary. This, a woman whose reputation is known all over the world. What could I say? All I could think of was to tell her how inspiring she was. I told her that I was struck by her courage and determination on stage in the face of so many people who are not willing to acknowledge the oppressive nature of hearing people--to the point where they will trample those who speak up. Laurene was wonderful. She first blushed and then went on to admit she was terrified standing up there on stage that day. Immediately, I felt comfortable with her. One of us. Someone we could look to as a role model, and feel as though we could someday become like her.
ìShe's Nobel Prize material. Go Laurene!î (Alison Aubrecht)

ìFor the next president of Gallaudet University, I say that Dr. Laurene
Gallimore has proven herself a surefire choice, having accomplished so
much in the last few decades. I realize my choice of words, "few
decades" might make her out to be old, but she is not. It's her soul
that is old and wise.
ìDr. Laurene Gallimore is one of the trailblazers in promoting the
Bilingual-Bicultural philosophy in the Education of the Deaf. She is an
eloquent presenter, having signed before countless of respected
educators and politicians alike. To be an eloquent speaker, one must
have the heart of a lion and wisdom that reflects the experience of
millions.
ìHeavily recruited by Gallaudet University, she was recently appointed the Director of the Deaf Education, Graduate Program. Before then, she was the Coordinator and Professor of the Deaf Education program at the Western Oregon University. While she has her plate full, she also serves as an advisor to the Black Deaf Student Union and sits on the Board of District of Columbia Area Black Deaf Advocates. She is a tireless civil rights advocate, continuously educating in America and overseas.
ìTo be a President of a University, one must possess the following
qualities: ability to connect with the masses, ability to understand the
intricacies of politics, and understand the power of education and the
importance of investment in students for the future comings of
successful alumni.
ìDr. Laurene Gallimore has surpassed the listed qualities by far.
ìDr. Laurene Gallimore for President of Gallaudet University!î (Ryan K. Commerson)