The Art of "Listening"

This Friday November 30 and Saturday December 1, there will be a conference held at Purdue University in West Lafayette sponsored by Cochlear America and administered by HEAR Indiana, a state chapter of Alexander Graham Bell Association.

The theme of the conference is "Changing Face of Deafness" and "Why Listening is Important for Literacy". In the brochure received at work - it also talks about communication options; however, in their workshops, nothing is even mentioned about American Sign Language and its importance to various issues/topics.

AG Bell Association is well known for its support for oralism. What is Oralism, you may ask. Oralism is a method of communication that uses spoken language and lipreading (speechreading) as its primary communication mode. Most of the people involved do not support American Sign Language, much less any type of manual (signed) language. AGBA is also known for the perception of 'normalcy' - their children or any person with hearing loss is not normal, what's more is that if a person uses ASL or signs, that is a big no-no. Again, not every person who participates or is a member of AGBA believes or practices this. (I've stressed - information in any blog about specific group of people are general at best, no stereotyping).

Also this weekend, there will be a rally at the conference - Deaf Bilingual Coalition. Unfortunately, I cannot participate either at the conference or at the rally. Bilingual - what is that? As most will know, lingual means language used by a person or persons. Bi means two. Bilingual means two languages. For many deaf people (persons with hearing loss in general), we are automatically bilingual - we use ASL and write English. These two are two completely different languages (other than words used in language such as run, write, two and etc). The DBC rally's purpose is to bring awareness of ASL and its importance in deaf children's lives.

But I can participate in several ways, by providing support to those who are attending the conference and be in spirit with the DBC and its rally. Why would I want to, some parents or oral advocates may ask.

First point - listening. Society says 'listening' is hearing information. It is indicated in the Encarta's electronic dictionary and American Heritage College dictionary that 'to make an effort to hear something' or 'to pay attention to something and take it into account'.

The information conflicts with the biological perspective. Our five senses are listening tools - hearing, smell, taste, touch and sight. Society loves to ignore the biological aspect of being human and twist things around to their own satisfaction - which is why we often have an 'isms' problem (racism, audism, etc).

How can the five senses be listening tools? Lets take Thanksgiving into account since this was last week - our popular food other than turkey would be pumpkin pie. Can you hear a pumpkin pie? This is not a rhetorical question but a literal one. How do you listen for a pumpkin pie other than enthusiastically waiting for it to come out after all the food (when you thought you were full)? You can smell the pie then see it, see it then smell it or at the same time.

Listening is a form of collecting information - so how can hearing be the sole formation of listening. Just because a person loses his/her hearing, doesn't mean that information stops coming to that person. We listen by sight as our primary sense and the remaining three senses becomes our tools. So why is it so bad that a person who can't hear is stupid, dumb, inadequately educated and so forth?

Essentially - 'Why Listening is Important for Literacy' needs to include ASL as an important aspect of literacy development. Lipreading??? Sure - 30 to 40% of the English language can be read on the lips - try it.... mat, pat, and bat. Look in the mirror and try to read what you're saying (tune yourself out or say the words out without using your voice). So how can listening by lipreading be a tool, especially if you can't hear.

AG Bell, himself, had a deaf mother and a deaf wife. He knew ASL, used it but he believed that the use of ASL in the education of deaf children were limiting their opportunities. He also even believed that deaf can't marry deaf. Realistically about 90 percent of those deaf-deaf marriages have hearing children. Oh and...90 percent of those deaf people have hearing family members. Biology trumps Society.

Prior to oralism's rise in the education of deaf children, deaf people held jobs as teachers, doctors, factory workers, politicians, newspaper editors and the like - the world was open to them, hearing people didn't have much of a problem with working with deaf folks ... until Society interferes by saying deaf people are not normal because they don't speak English. After that, we had our 'Dark Ages', educational achievements dropped, oral deaf people were showcased while leaving those who couldn't speak in the dark and worth not an ounce in Society's perspective. Sure, there are successful oral deaf people, but what about 80% (approximation) of the deaf children that were left behind because they couldn't speak. What opportunities did they have?

That is why the DBC has its rally - to bring attention that ASL is not something to leave behind for deaf children. It enhances the ability of the deaf child to be successful in communicating through the resources that they have learned and utilized. That is also why the ASL program at Purdue University was upset with the Speech and Audiology Department (in which the ASL program is under - not even Foreign Language which is the appropriate place to be) because the Department rejected the ASL program outright, not even including them for the conference which is held on campus! We have dissent in the ranks at Purdue University.

Aural methods don't always work for each child - it is a case by case situation. The same rule applies to cochlear implants. Most companies will not implant hard of hearing children because once they're implanted, they become profoundly deaf by destruction of the cochlear where the implant is placed. How do children learn to read? Sound only? I can imagine the literacy level to be way low - say second grade if the literacy importance is based on sound only (aural). So how can a profoundly deaf child be able to read when the educators require him/her to 'listen' by sound - that is why there is a reading level of 5th to 7th grade level, because of emphasis on aural methods rather than visual or a combination of both (depending on the child's hearing levels).

Second point - Deaf people are as human as hearing people. There is no biological superiority at play here. None what so ever. Hearing loss has been around for more than two millennia - we have adjusted fine with no problems, thanks to our other four senses. Heck, we have the capacity to be bilingual with no problems other than common issues of acquisition. We have the capacity to work with hearing people, frequent frustration is the hearing person's inability to communicate (generally speaking...again). We do not expect hearing people to sign, it's great if they do, it shows effort and acceptance of the person and his/her hearing loss - but you know what... it also shows acceptance that the person who is deaf is also .... human.

We go through the same process of life as any one who happens to be different from us. We automatically categorize ourselves into one subculture because of our common denomination - hearing loss (note: nothing about sign language and/or culture) at this point, just like blacks (or African-Americans) categorize them by their common denomination, where they or their ancestors come from. How did this come to rise? The 'superior' attitude illustrated by the hearing and white category (generally speaking again). Remember folks - they're human too. Society interferes with biological processes - once again. I guess our brains and mannerisms really interfere with our ability to accept differences as a part of our diverse human culture. Sad, quite so.

Third point - Y'all probably heard this over and over and over again - 'It takes a village to raise a child.' Note - it's an African proverb. How does this relate to the conference and rally this weekend? I keep hearing 'fifth grade reading level' again - you know what? What is a village? What people are part of the village? No sole, single person is responsible for the child's upbringing. Maybe I gave birth to my son and my husband is his father; however, we can only teach him so much, the world out there teaches him in different ways. Let's break down village.

Village - a group of people living in one place/location, sharing culture and language. Considering this is America...it can be a bit more complicated than France.
Type of people?

• Families
• Educators
• Employment (people sense)
  
• Athletic programs
• Children
• Adults
• Organizations
• Neighbors
• Friends
• You can name a few more...

So for a deaf child - educators are not solely responsible for their upbringing. Even the education system can fail the child. Why should parents decline their responsibility to the child - 'He can't hear, there's nothing I can do.' and leave him to devices without disciplinary accountability and responsibility towards household duties, making friends with others in the neighborhood, and etc. Maybe someday the deaf child would be interested in participating in a local organization, the child wouldn't be encouraged to do so because of other people's feeling that 'he can't do it because he doesn't know how to communicate'...hello, it's the other side too that doesn't know how to communicate just like the deaf child. It's a two-way highway - not a one way.

Interaction within social development is a critical aspect of a human child's life. It doesn't matter if the child is hearing or deaf. It shouldn't matter if the child has cochlear implant, hearing aid or nothing - their lives are in the hands of the village. Denial of access to resources in that village, denies them the opportunity to live a full life. Literacy is more than education, it is social and it is also biological. Every single one of us human beings are born with the capacity to learn, no matter what our differences are.

Fear is a barrier, can we remove it?

Fourth point - "Changing Face of Deafness", I guarantee you the meaning at this conference means technology. It has nothing to do with biological and social change. Technology has impacted our society on all levels of our human development - compared to 30 years ago. Let me tell you this, I appreciate myself more when I read information about technology, how fast it is progressing. There will always be sign language and culture. It will evolve as any subculture has throughout millenna. I do not doubt that. What I doubt is the attitude of people within Society to accept the change, address the change and maintain some traditional aspects of our differences.

A note to hearing people - cochlear implantation changes how you feel about the person, it does not change their biological difference. A profoundly deaf non-cochlear implant user can speak as well as a well-spoken hearing person. A profoundly hearing person can speak as bad as a bad-spoken deaf person. It has nothing to do with our differences but everything to do with our sameness, after all we are human.

You may say - hey what about social change??? It is still the same - human fellows - it is the attitude towards our differences that remain the same. Implanting a child without understanding the biological and social ramification towards the the child's upbringing, purely for the selfishness of adults, that hasn't changed at all. Education system is still unbalanced - teachers are feeling that it is their job, not the sense that their teaching has an impact on the children's lives. (Generally speaking...again). The community at large basically ignores or rejects difference when it can spice up their place of employment, organization participation and the like.

It is 2 am for me - last point, being human is diverse, not accepting our differences (personal or not) will get us no where. Perfection is not evolution, neither biological or social. Listening is not aural based - it is based on the five senses that are biological gifts (and curses) to the human race. Listen to what the real world is saying...not what our Society says what we are. Listen with your heart, your mind and your soul.