“There remains entrenched at Gallaudet a strong deaf culture that perpetuates a very narrow way to live as a deaf person.”
This statement is from an interesting Washington Post article, Gallaudet University adjusts to a culture that includes more hearing students. It talks about how in the first time in history more and more students, deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing, are arriving with little understanding of traditional deaf culture and ASL. In other words, students who act more like people with typical hearing.
Well, I am not surprised by the news since more and more deaf and hard of hearing students are being mainstreamed in public schools, while utilizing hearing devices, and communicating predominately through spoken language. Times are 'a changing'.
But, the statement above made by Jane Fernandes (previously appointed president of Gallaudet-which many students and staff members protested) made me wonder. It got me thinking about what it means to be narrow-minded. If more and more students are entering the school not so "entrenched in deaf culture", then how many people currently at the school are? What does it mean to be "entrenched in deaf culture"? Do many believe that deaf culture and signing must be understood and practiced by everyone who attends Gallaudet University? I understand that it would be respectful and make more sense for someone who attends Gallaudet University to attempt to communicate in sign language. But, does it have to be mandated?
I think that someone who strictly focuses on one way of living, communicating, and interacting with others is narrow-minded. But, I do not know many people, especially the younger generation, to possess this way of thinking. For those who do, so what? If that is how they want to live, then so be it. If I only want to hang out with people who have similar personalities and interests, then that is my business. But, that is not me. I am very interested in hanging out with people who do not have the same interests or personalities as me, because if I lived and thought in only one way and hung out with others who were the same as me, I would get bored quickly.
It sounds as if there will be some struggle as Gallaudet University adjusts to the changes. I am very interested to see what happens. I hope things will get better and the issues they are facing get resolved in a reasonable manner.
Meanwhile, NTID (Rochester Institute of Technology’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf) never seems to have any type of 'culture wars' or problems with the way the students choose to communicate. They seem to be doing well with providing quality academic instruction. So far, I have not seen NTID presented in a negative way in the news.
Is there anyone who attended both Gallaudet University and NTID? Could you share what your experiences were like at both schools?
Just curious.
(e
This statement is from an interesting Washington Post article, Gallaudet University adjusts to a culture that includes more hearing students. It talks about how in the first time in history more and more students, deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing, are arriving with little understanding of traditional deaf culture and ASL. In other words, students who act more like people with typical hearing.
Well, I am not surprised by the news since more and more deaf and hard of hearing students are being mainstreamed in public schools, while utilizing hearing devices, and communicating predominately through spoken language. Times are 'a changing'.
But, the statement above made by Jane Fernandes (previously appointed president of Gallaudet-which many students and staff members protested) made me wonder. It got me thinking about what it means to be narrow-minded. If more and more students are entering the school not so "entrenched in deaf culture", then how many people currently at the school are? What does it mean to be "entrenched in deaf culture"? Do many believe that deaf culture and signing must be understood and practiced by everyone who attends Gallaudet University? I understand that it would be respectful and make more sense for someone who attends Gallaudet University to attempt to communicate in sign language. But, does it have to be mandated?
I think that someone who strictly focuses on one way of living, communicating, and interacting with others is narrow-minded. But, I do not know many people, especially the younger generation, to possess this way of thinking. For those who do, so what? If that is how they want to live, then so be it. If I only want to hang out with people who have similar personalities and interests, then that is my business. But, that is not me. I am very interested in hanging out with people who do not have the same interests or personalities as me, because if I lived and thought in only one way and hung out with others who were the same as me, I would get bored quickly.
It sounds as if there will be some struggle as Gallaudet University adjusts to the changes. I am very interested to see what happens. I hope things will get better and the issues they are facing get resolved in a reasonable manner.
Meanwhile, NTID (Rochester Institute of Technology’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf) never seems to have any type of 'culture wars' or problems with the way the students choose to communicate. They seem to be doing well with providing quality academic instruction. So far, I have not seen NTID presented in a negative way in the news.
Is there anyone who attended both Gallaudet University and NTID? Could you share what your experiences were like at both schools?
Just curious.
(e
I'd take the article with a grain of salt. A former teacher and colleague from Gallaudet posted this on her Facebook wall, and it garnered a lot of anger from people who work there, go there, and have studied there. There has always been mainstreamed students and non-signers who attended- I was one when I enrolled in 1993. The writer also gave undeserved credit to the current president, when the changes mentioned were already in place before he became president. It was interesting for me to read the people's reactions to the post. I haven't been there in a while (two years) so I've been out of the loop. But I can say, just before I left two years ago, there were slightly more non-native signing students and more students with CIs, but not so drastic as the writer seems to make it. In one of the las classes I taught, out of 15 students, 4 or 5 had CIs, and only one continued to wear it. The others felt that being in a deaf school, they didn't need it. I'm curious to see what other people say here :)
ReplyDeleteJanel K
There's always hearing/non-signers enrolled at Gally. Always. The article indicates that the numbers are getting bigger. I would agree since more deaf/hh are mainstreamed.
ReplyDeleteI think we will see more in the future.
Gallaudet need to change to acommodate the changing dynamics of students enrolling at Gallaudet.
The good part is, Gallaudet was never strictly a voice off/ASL only campus. Never was. So...it's not really something new, but we're seeing more increase of one segment of deaf/hh than another.
I attended Gally. I visited NTID, hung out there one weekend. I'll say back in the day, there were more mainstreamed and more hard of hearing kids at NTID than Gally. I think maybe Gally will become more like NTID. I was never a full time student at NTID so, I could be wrong.
Candy~