Transcripts of Warren Francis

Did the, were any of the schools better or worse about this? 

Yeah, it was especially difficult in California when I was in Elementary School. They, their gifted program was to take the gifted kids out of class and teach them playground rules and it was just, it wasn't very... Logical, it didn't make much sense. When I got to Middle School it was better. There was, I forgot her name but the woman who was in charge of Special Ed or however you want to put it, that was the category they put me in. She was very good at being an advocate. And my mom also. I remember many parent-teacher conferences, or individualized education plan, IEP meetings, that she just put stuff down on the table and said "You have to accommodate him." Once I got to High School there was a lot more freedom in picking what classes I wanted to take. In picking what I wanted to learn and... I feel like that was when I could really begin to do what I wanted to do, and all the accommodations were there. They were willing to help with whatever they wanted. 

I'm going to, I would like to ask, can you remember any kind of specific story also if you think back, particularly with Junior High and High School? Because what you're saying is that you were marked with this gifted, and also in this Special Ed category in some sense. So the advocacy and the cross over between those positions. Particularly at a time when the ADA was just opening up, as you were coming into school in 1990. And there were other laws behind that. But is there any particular story, like a memory that you have of them talking about your reading and writing abilities? 

Literacy abilities? Sitting in on those IEP meetings or any teacher that shined the light on any of this? Or didn't? Or didn't shine the light. I can remember two women in particular that... One, on the good side, in High School, was a woman named Kay Bishop, who knew that... She, her position was to make sure that I was being my own advocate. And to make sure that I was really getting what I thought I was getting. Because of my hearing loss and because your brain just kind of figures out the best guess of what someone said. And it was possible that I misheard homework assignments or due dates or all sorts of things. And so her job was to just kind of check with me, and make sure that I got all of those details right. The important parts of my assignments. And that, her advocacy, or her belief in me, and her help was just, it was a perfect combination. It was exactly what I needed to not have the frustration of my disability interfering with my performance in the school system. But also giving me the freedom to accomplish what I could accomplish. That was the good side of things. In Middle School, I think it was Middle School, there was a woman that was exceptionally bad at helping me be accommodated. I want to say it's Middle School. I can't remember. I remember what she looks like, (laughter). She, she was, she couldn't understand how I could be both handicapped and gifted, and she just wanted to put me in the handicapped category. Because it wasn't there was no option to excel, you just had to... I was an outlier, I was the one that caused a problem with their educational plan. And they didn't know how to help me learn, so they just had to try to keep me in the middle with everybody else. At first she thought, "Ok mom, you just think your son is special because you're his mom. And you just you think yes we should put him in the normal English class and all this stuff but he's hearing impaired he can't do that. He, statistics show..." And it's right, statistically I shouldn't be able to understand English as well as I do. But she, she turned around and she used that to tell my mom that she was wrong. Which, that doesn't work with my mom. So once she finally believed that I could perform, and do well in my classes. Then by that point, I think my mom had gone to enough of her superiors that she wasn't so much involved in my education anymore. But I remember being just a struggle, a constant struggle... IEP meetings. I don't remember much about the details of those meetings. I just remember going about my everyday classroom stuff, and then every once in a while we would have these meetings where people would say things that I didn't completely understand, but they were making plans for my education. And I knew that my mom desired the best for me, and thought that these other people didn't. It sounds like your mom was a very cool woman. A very strong advocate. 

And so you weren't frustrated by this, I mean, did you ever get angry and cuss at them or anything like that? Did you ever get angry and just... Get frustrated? 

I, there were times when I got frustrated. I don't think I was... Because for so much of my childhood the decisions were being made for me, I couldn't really get frustrated. I don't know, it wasn't my decision to make. I knew that I was in good hands. With my mom's advocacy. So I really most of the time felt like I was an observer kind of watching the plot play out. I, When I first started losing my hearing I was very angry. I was very scared, I was very frustrated, I thought that my future was going to be very small and very lonely. But by the time I got to... When I was in Middle School I had a neat experience. I got my hearing aids from Columbus Speech and Hearing Center, and every year they have a big luncheon. The Great Communicators luncheon to raise funds for what they do. They had asked me to be one of their poster children or whatever. Because I was learning to play the piano and the violin. Which I had to stop eventually... But they wanted to highlight me as one of their customers. And because of that, then 10TV asked me to do an interview for them, so I did that. And then because of all that attention, Columbus Speech and Hearing Center asked me to play the National Anthem on the piano, to start their Great Communicators luncheon. For 1997? I don't know, maybe. And that was a huge thing for me. I had never, people, anyway... It changed my attitude towards myself. Someone who is hearing impaired but someone who could still do great things and someone who was capable. My mom was trying to convince the educators of this, but when I got to Middle School I could use some convincing myself. It took me a while before I liked to learn again. I went through kind of a down time where I kind of just, I was withdrawing into myself and I didn't want to explore or be curious to learn anything. I didn't want to put out the effort. But because of this experience with my piano for the luncheon, I saw myself as capable again. I don't remember what your question was, but that was the answer. (Laughter). That was a very cool story actually. Do you have any other questions here? 

I was trying to think how old you would have been, about 14, 15, maybe? When you played for the luncheon maybe? 

I think if I remember right I was 13. So I don't remember what the timing was, but I was 13 when that happened. So by the time you got to High School you were your own advocate by that time, would you say? Yeah, I had decided that I was just... One of my favorite quotes is "A man knows not what he can do until he tries." I think it's by Emerson or Thoreau, one of the two. And I realized that I didn't know what I could do. And the playing the piano for the luncheon, the guest speaker was Colin Powell. Whoa. Yeah, for me that was, "Wait a second, I didn't know I could do this, what can I do?" And so I decided to figure out what I could do and find my limits, and that's what High School was for me, was figuring out what I could do. And so I focused on my schoolwork and decided to be my own advocate and just let the only limit be what I could do. And again I forgot your question, I apologize (laughter). 

It's alright, I'll keep reminding you. Can I ask for a second too about the hearing aids, about your relationship with the hearing aid? Because you said you wore them. 

Right, and because they are wrapped up in literacy, because they're obviously about how you access some communication as well. But they're also then about how people perceive you, the moment they see you. I don't have my hearing aids on today, I've misplaced them. (Laughter). So I need to find them again. It happens. I started wearing hearing aids shortly after they found out that I was losing my hearing. So since I've been 6 years old I've worn hearing aids, and I have no problem with people seeing that I have hearing aids on. To me it becomes an opportunity to educate other people. Because most people don't understand what it's about. And if I wear those little ones that go deep inside my ear then nobody knows, and they're going to assume that I am someone who has completely perfect hearing. And I'm not. And hearing aids are a chance for me to explain that to people. Hearing aids were another introduction to technology and computers for me. They told me that this little thing was a computer in my ear, and that was like "Wow. Computers really are amazing" And hearing aids have been very helpful for me, but they've been a huge frustration at times. I actually have Attention Deficit Disorder, so the number of times I've displaced those hearing aids is embarrassing. The number of pairs that I have destroyed is embarrassing. But they... I can remember many times when I just wanted to rip them out of my ears and flush them down the toilet. Like, I just was so sick of having to wear these things all the time. But there were a lot of times when they gave me what I needed. I, without the hearing aids it was very difficult for me to participate in classes and things like that. I think now, the reason why I can go without wearing them at times, is because I've developed the coping skills and I've learned how to be my own advocate and just speak up and say "I'm sorry, could you repeat that" I didn't want to put people out of their way when I was younger but now I know I have to. Or the opportunity passes. 

What are those other coping skills that you learned? 

That's a good question. Visual access. Being sure to position myself where I will be able to see people's faces. Before I go into a class or when I start a new quarter, or when I'm going to some kind of presentation. I go up and I ask someone who knows. "What side of the room will the person be spending their time on?" I ask if there's any transcripts of any videos that they're going to be showing or that they have shown. I just, and if I don't understand, I ask immediately. Depending on the circumstances. I try to get what I can from context clues. But that only gets you so far. I think a lot of what I do now to prepare is studying and just getting familiar with the material before I go into the class. So then I know the vocabulary and I know the sorts of things that the teacher will probably be referring to. And then I can just use what the teacher says to connect the concepts that are already in my head. So you use reading as a coping skill? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, literacy as a coping skill. And do you read lips? I do. Constantly. Do you read expressions? I mean do you read the text of a person's face? Absolutely. Yeah, if someone is, there's a lot more than just the words. To what someone is trying to convey. And without the facial expressions you lose a lot. I've taken a couple courses in American Sign Language, and in the middle of this I was dating a woman who was deaf, and we went to the zoo and it was dark. And I thought :"Someone should come up with gloves or something that lights up so that you could sign in the dark." And so for spring break I got some electroluminescent wire and I was playing around, and I soldered together these gloves that you could put batteries in, and they would light up and you could see the pattern of where the fingers were. And different colors for the back and the front, and I thought this was neat. And I videoed it and I showed it to my ASL teacher and he said "That's great, but without facial expression, they're useless." It's true, I was kind of disappointed, but he told me, but it's true. Did you patent that? Well no. Well now it's public domain, (Laughter). Such a good idea! But really without the facial expression, more than half the communication is gone. And it's true with, just with English communication too, with the prosody, the flow of someone's voice. I think that's most of where I get... After someone says something, if I didn't catch what they said, I might ask "What?" And then a few seconds later say "Never mind" Because I've figured out what they've said. 

And I think most of that information comes from just the pattern of what they said along with the context of what the topic is. Some words have certain patterns and rhythms, and with the combination of speech, with reading, with lip-reading, and hearing, the bass tones of the flow of the voice, I can figure out what they've said. Well I know that you're a linguist right, that you're studying linguistics, that you're in graduate school now. No, not yet, still an undergraduate. Ok, well, you should go to graduate, just a thought. So how did you get to linguistics? I mean this sounds, it sounds to me like you're very much your mother's son, you know what I mean? You were playing the piano, you're in linguistics. How did you get there? Well that's a good question. I didn't plan on it at all. I, my interests went from art to computer art, to computer science, or scientific visualization. Like there are people that just, their whole job is to take scientific data, and put it into pictures, and I thought that was a neat job. And then I decided, because I liked to program my calculator and, during calculus class when I wasn't paying attention, I liked programming. So I thought computer science would be something that I wanted to do. And no offense to Ohio State, I came here and I took my first computer science course, and I was sorely disappointed. And just decided that was not what I wanted to do. But around the same time I was taking a linguistics class that I had just been tossed into as my general ed. course. And it was fascinating. And I, other people seemed to be struggling with it but it all seemed to make sense to me, and I thought, "Hm, well maybe I have a brain for this topic." And I took another course in linguistics and I liked it even more, so I thought "Ok, well maybe I should change my major" But I was worried about whether I would get a job or not, and I wasn't quite sure I wanted to be a professor, so I added communications. I realized that that still didn't involve the computer part that I was really interested in, so I decided to drop the communications and just focus on linguistics, but just add computer stuff to it. Well in the process of all of this, and in talking with professors in computer science, I realized that I could add a minor or another major in computer science. So it kind of came full circle, and now I'm majoring in what I originally decided to major at Ohio State, but also with linguistics. 

Well tell me about the project that you're doing with, replicating your hearing loss, or replicating... Right, yeah.