Transcripts of Deaf Senior University Lecturer

Sure, yeah that's interesting, I did go to a deaf school for a very brief period of time when I was probably, what kindergarten, first grade, maybe second grade? So there was a very short period of time there. Now my parents took me out of that deaf school because they felt that I was ahead of them educationally, so I wasn't benefitting. So they took me out and put me into the public school for the rest of my education. But in that brief period of time, that's where I really began to learn about deaf people, how to interact with them. And again I would say my mother she's the one, she taught me how to finger spell, but I had to use this with other deaf children so that was, I would say, my very first exposures to deaf, the deaf community in a sort of microcosm sense. But understand that at that school there was also a strong emphasis on speech, and oralism. So we signed outside of the classroom in the hallways. And I remember many of the signs that we used in the hallways outside the classroom even though it was a very short experience for me. My parents knew that I would always be deaf. Which meant that they had to socialize with deaf adults. So my parents made some friends with some deaf adults. And so I was able to, from time to time, to interact with deaf adults. But it wasn't a daily thing, it wasn't a regular thing. My parents also developed a friendship with other parents who had deaf children. So periodically then I had exposure to Sign Language and deaf kids. 

But ASL as a language that I would use everyday, I didn't begin that until I was about 15. I was lonely at school, and my parents knew that I was lonely, that I was at the point where I needed to be able to socialize with deaf peers. So they found a place on Long Island, called like the "Teen Club" more or less. And there were lots of kids there who were mainstreamed as I was, so we would socialize at the club, with other kids from the deaf school, who would come as well. And so that's when I really started to learn Sign Language. And it wasn't until college, when I took a formal class in American Sign Language that I started to understand it was truly a language, and I've been using it ever since. Now my parents were of course afraid that my speech would be damaged because of it, that I wouldn't be able to speak as well. But that has really not been the case. So, that's my involvement with American Sign Language, how I got started with that. I do have some stories related to ASL, using ASL in relation to written English. One of my understandings of the concept of meaning in sign, really helped me to understand about the written language of English. Technology helped yes, for me to understand English. But with English sentence, oftentimes I understand the words and think I get it but I don't really understand the full meaning of the word. 

And the ASL helped me to really understand the meaning. So interacting with other deaf ASL users really helped me to kind of understand that better, and that's something that I'm still learning even today. We'll get to technology in a little bit but first there's a question I really want to ask, because if you really began to learn Sign Language around the age of 15, what I'm struck by is that now your vocation, your career, is as a Sign Language teacher. And a very good one, I might add. And do you see a connection there? With, what do you know about, how do I say this? Learning ASL, do you think that impacts you as a teacher? Or helps you as a teacher? Do you know what I mean? And I think that there are things about the way that we learn to read and write that often then transfers to other people that we might teach language skills.  Remember that my family was very interested in other languages. I went to school in France for a little bit, So I'm also fascinated with languages. And I've always been interested in analyzing how people use American Sign Language. And so that sort of developed my knack for applying language experiences to teaching. I would always enjoy teaching because there are so many wonderful rewards to teaching. And so when you put that, the rewards with my interest in Language, it really seems to fit well. Understanding how people acquire language is something I have because of my own experience learning language. And for some reason I do feel that learning a language is not just about the words or about the structure of the sentences. It really is about how you connect. Where you connect, with the language itself. 

What makes it a successful connection? And so, you know, there are several approaches to learning language. But I don't believe that story telling is one, and I don't believe that's the only way to learn language. It's about where you're at with language. That's really where you can begin to internalize, and really understand it. This is based on my experience now, but I would say that people in general are aware of vocabulary. And they know maybe a lot of vocabulary words in a particular language. And they may know how to ask questions and respond to questions. But what really makes it click, what really makes it work, what really makes them internalize the language is about their understanding of each other, and how to make those understandings merge. So it's about where you're at, and that's what makes it easy to acquire language. And that's what happened to me. Because as I was growing up I wasn't exposed in a limited fashion to anything. I mean I had a few years of ASL, and then I didn't have much more exposure from then. But when at 15 I began to be exposed again, I remembered those experiences and I was able to pick it up more quickly. Ok, now we'll go back to... You articulated that the teenage years were very important, it seems, to you, in terms of literacy development, on a lot of different fronts, with a lot of different languages in fact. So what happens then in college? Because I think a lot of times people don't realize that there's a lot of literacy learning going on in college too. We tend to think about the earlier years, as the important years. But what happened in college?  That's interesting because during college, is where I became more sophisticated with my writing skills, it was an environment that forced me to become more sophisticated. But the funny part about all that is that I was afraid to major in social work because I knew that that was going to require me to write more compared to some of the other majors. So looking back I see how my, my sense of my writing skills really did affect some of my decision making, particularly about what my major was going to be. I avoided a major that required more writing. 

Now when I got to graduate school, then I took the very brave step, and began to really improve my writing skills. Because you know, graduate school, requires so much, and it helped me a great deal. And it also helped me to feel better about my writing skills. So in terms of technology in college, I mean that's really where I learned how to use a computer. We didn't have a computer at home, during my high school years. The only technology we had was captioning, TTY, and the typewriter. But college, that was my first experience, my first exposure to using computers. And I had to do that as part of my classroom requirements. It was exciting to me because of course I had already been using the typewriter and using the TTY. So it seemed like a natural transition into the computer and I've been using it ever since. And I felt more comfortable and confident writing English through the computer, really, than writing it by hand. There was something about the typing that made it easier for me. And I don't know maybe it's because I was using both hands. And so that felt more natural than using one hand. Using one hand felt negative to me. Because you know, I had been criticized while I was growing up for the way that I wrote. But when I typed, I felt free to just express myself. And I had no fear of making mistakes when I was typing. But writing by hand feels very negative to me. 

Ok, that's what I was going to ask if you, some of the reasons that you might think about why it was that the computer made you feel a lot freer in terms of using English literacy. Because you get to express that you weren't confident yourself in your English writing skills. I had no idea, I've always seen your writing as very, very skilled. So what do you think exactly about the computer? What are some of the things that it did? You said the double-hand connection? 

Oh, gosh, I'm going to have to think about that a little bit more. That I hadn't, I sometimes ask myself the same question about why is that? And I haven't really figured it out just yet. But what I've been thinking is writing by hand, the experience of then being criticized for that, having negative feedback from people that I was interacting with about it. People saying "Oh, you're deaf, so..." The expectations were considerably lower. The attitude about that experience. It just was not an encouraging, nurturing kind of experience. There was stress and pressure, it felt depressing There was no real place for me to really be creative. So you know, there was no place to play with it, no opportunities. It was all about doing it correctly. And what the expectations, following the expectations, matching what they wanted exactly. That was what my experience was. So that's why I think it felt so negative. On the computer. Because I was in college at the time. Well wait, I think I remember, yes the typewriter, when I was working on the typewriter that was a fun thing. It was just fun for me to play with, there was no one giving me feedback about what I was typing. You know I would write a letter and send it off. That felt, what, positive. Then when I was using the TTY, and it was making communication accessible. Because remember I was in this hearing family and we sit around the table at dinner and the phone would ring and my sister would be the one who always ran and answered the phone. And I could see her lips moving, and then my mom would go "Oh, yeah!" And my dad would: "Oh!" And my brother would respond and I would think "What's going on?" So I didn't have access to that kind of information. Now with the TTY I felt like this is fair. 

My sister and I would fight over using the phone. Because now I could have my friends call me, and I would be on the phone for a long time. And my sister would get all mad because her friends couldn't call and she had to wait and wait. And so that felt like you know, sibling rivalry. And it felt very equal to me. Then when I transitioned to the computer, you know, I had had positive experiences from typing. And so I think that that might be the reason that I found the computer to be freer. Very, very good. What other ways are there other ways that you use computer, that's connected to literacy? Besides just typing a case report when you're in social work, or letters or other things. What other ways do you use computers, then and now? Obviously I use e-mail. That really opened the world for me. The internet of course. That gave me access to all sorts of things. And it really was a blessing. I feel very fortunate that during my lifetime this is happening. I cannot even imagine how deaf people, older deaf people, didn't have this kind of access. I can't even imagine it. So I feel very fortunate to have this. And it also opened up access to relationships with family members that I didn't have previously. It has been really a great help. Because I remember when I was in college, my sister was also in college, at that time. And my brother had not yet begun, he was still in high school. But my contact with them was all through the TTY. My parents bought each one of my siblings a TTY, so that they would still be able to communicate with me. And now that's unnecessary, they're just sitting around, not being used. They've been replaced by e-mail and access to my nieces and nephews, I can e-mail with them now, which is very nice. 

And I don't need to worry about a phone. My parents don't use their TTY either, they send pages to me, or e-mail me. So the world has really changed, and it has made my family far more accessible to me as well. Oh, and, this is something fascinating. I have a better sense of my family's use of the English language than I ever had. You know all these years I'd catch words here and words there and maybe a sentence or two. But now, through e-mail, I have this really solid sense of how they use English. Whether they're using more sophisticated English, or business language, or using broken English. I can see how they use their language. And where they're at, you know. Whether they're sort of average English users, or if they're using a bunch of big words or... I really can see how they're doing this, and I find that very cool. I know exactly what you mean. I have a younger sister who doesn't, who didn't ever really talk very much. But she has a very dry, ironic sense of humor. That apparently was communicated through tone largely, I would never get it. But now I see it all the time when she sends e-mails to me. It's a kind of sense of humor that I love, but with her speaking it, I would miss it, most of the time. Right, not only that, but I also, I mean I know my sister like I said was very verbal, so how she types is very different. She's more brief, more direct in her e-mail than she is when she's talking. Now my brother, he's a businessman, and he uses very formal terminology. And I think "Huh, Ok, I didn't realize that's who my brother was." And so I'm learning something else about their personalities through how they write. 

And my mom, you know my father's gone, so I have no real sense of his language use. That's the one I don't know about but it's just fascinating to me, and kind of nice. Yes, go ahead. Well e-mail, and then you said also the internet, they've opened up a lot of communication, sort of equal communication channels, particularly in English you articulate. What about in Sign Language though? Has it also aided communication connections? Oh yes V-logs, yes those V-logs, I love those. They're the best, they're the best. Also the video phones, also the good stuff. So do you pretty much, do you access blogs, v-logs, everyday? Several times a week? Oh no, daily, every day, and the video phone also I use every day. To interact with people. Really it's kind of interesting. Ever since the internet became so much bigger and so much more influential. I've noticed that deaf people have become far more sophisticated with their ability to discuss, with their knowledge of language. I remember growing up that deaf people talked about, didn't talk about language, analysis, and interpretation process. That, you know, that was part of the interpreting community. But now deaf people using video phones and v-logs are having great discussions and dialogues about the interpreting process and Sign Language. And so the deaf world has just become far more intellectual. I see so much more intellectual debate out there. And I'm thrilled because I've always longed for that, my whole life. And so to have that kind of discussion happening out there is... It's just, it's changed my life. It's really, it's just changed my life. And I can see the future is just, deaf people will change the world. I'm letting you know that right now, deaf people will change the world. I believe that deafness is a gift, and we have a lot to give, and we're going to be able to do it now that the internet is out there. And deaf people will change the world, and deaf people will become recognized for the gifts that they have. I have absolute confidence that that is going to happen.