Transcripts of Jane Fernandes

It sounds like a fascinatingly rich environment. Across different languages. I'll ask about writing itself. Most of the time you talked about communication and reading but you know I know that you write and that you're a beautiful writer. And you wrote a dissertation. You and Jim just finished like a new book right? The two of them would be interested in that book I can tell. 

Ok well really one thing for me was late, late, so I was, say, writing with the last thing I had developed. I don't mean that I couldn't write, I could write. But with little errors and things wrong that I didn't know. Also I think captioning, that was another thing. Captioning on TV, I should add that. Captioning on Television and all of the videos that we bought. Because I needed captions that had captions. So there were seeing and hearing everything, all the time. Plus there were children who watched things over and over and over, I don't know if everyone does that, but again and again and again. So they had to get it, at some point it had to go through. I have a lot of records, I have a lot of records. I do have records, I wrote everything from their development but... I think signing, finger spelling, captioning, all of those things together made for good literacy development for them. So I want to say that I really learned how to write correctly, or well. (Chuckling) I don't know, correct isn't always well. But I would say correctly and well because I was clear about what I was saying. It was not until I was in college. And I will say I think it happened because I got fed up seeing my papers with all these errors. I would hand them in, I would get them back. Yes, the teacher, used the red marker. It was all over. Mistakes, all over. And I got sick of it. So I actually sat down, I made a chart, and I looked at, "Ok, it's a noun, verb... Mistake." I made a list of what my mistakes were, over and over. I was mad now I had this chart. So then what I did was instead of finishing the paper one day before it was due. I set it in my mind that it was due, but it was really one week before it was due. But I forced myself to feel pressure that it was due, so I finished it. Then I used the chart, and I went through it. And I found more mistakes myself that way, and I fixed it. Then through doing that for four years, then, I became a better writer. That story sounds as though a lot of different people, college students might benefit from that kind of application to learning to write well. (Laugher) Every single one. Get that on tape, and play it in the writing center on a continuous loop. But as you told the story, and I recalled what you said about your love of reading before that, I mean going through school. Do you feel that when you made that resolve, to learn to write correctly and well, that your hearing loss played any roll in that? That I decided to learn how to write? And the work that went into what you described. Or by then were you so comfortable with written language that you really went through the process that might apply to any student who decided they were tired of those red marks. And were.... Oh I think the motivation to make the chart. 

Well I'm looking back now, I'm not... I'm 51, so I'm looking back. The motivation to make the chart, that came from the challenge and opportunity I had as a deaf person. So I accept the challenge and make it an opportunity. But the chart itself could benefit anyone. To have the motivation to take a review of my own errors, and make a plan, have a plan to correct them, is not something anyone does. But the chart itself could help anyone, yeah. I mean the writing center should have the chart, because it's much easier to find mistakes that way. But the chart had the special value that you made it. And what I heard when you told that story was :"There's your mother's words, and phonetics all over the house." The visual representation of literacy challenge, do you think that's part of it? Maybe, yes, yes I'm sure that's true. We have ten minutes left, and I thought it might be a good question to talk a little bit about students at Gallaudet, and the notion of communication, communication by various media, and on different technologies. And what you're seeing at Gallaudet in the, in those terms, and sort of how you see literacy happening today in a deaf community like Gallaudet. In various media and with various technologies. Gallaudet is really technology rich. 

So we see a lot of video over computer. A lot of very popular deaf people signing on video to each other. And that's good. Same time, means they don't write and read. And there is a push right now, not only at Gallaudet but in the deaf community, to have American Sign Language serve as the primary language of the community. And so in some peoples' minds that means a diminution of English. Which is Ok if that's the way we're going, that's fine, but it does mean less reading and writing. And so it's probably not fine, because the world is operating with reading and writing. But.... How do you see that question connect with the development of the VL2 center, and the project that connected with that? Well we have, Gallaudet has a grant, it's a Science and Learning Center studying visual languages and visual learning. And I do see the potential for Gallaudet to contribute knowledge about how visual pathways for learning benefit all people. Including hearing people. That there are certain visual strategies that we can use that will help everyone learn better. So I hope that the people working on it will get information from the project. We have the concentration of people who learn through their eyes at Gallaudet that you don't have anywhere else. So it's preferable ground for developing visual strategies for learning and language that will help everyone. 

Now, since we have so few minutes, I wondered if there was anything that you wanted to say to hearing people or deaf people. About literacy, technology, your life... Anything that we haven't asked that you think is important to say. Last word. Last words? The floor is yours (chuckling). 

Well I think the most important work I have done so far on literacy is, it's called the Shared Reading Project. And I believe that the world should look into that project. And if they did then more deaf children would grow up as literate readers and writers. But what we did with that is we trained deaf tutors to go into homes of parents with deaf children. Mostly hearing parents with deaf children. And we trained the tutors in strategies for how to read books using ASL, to deaf children. And the tutors train parents. And then the parents read the books to their children. For a one week or two week time. We really give parents a great deal, a great number of skills and knowledge that they need to help deaf children become literate. And hearing parents would never get that any other way. We know that deaf parents like my deaf mother, even though she was not a signer, she knows what I need to become literate as a deaf child. So deaf parents know what to do, we took what deaf parents do, and turned it into principles that anyone can learn. And we now have shared reading projects are going on, probably, maybe 60 or 70 different schools in the US. And we're gathering data from them about how they developed literacy. We use CDs, we use technology and books to... It's all-encompassing. So I think the shared reading project is an important project that I hope people would remember about me. When they're watching this tape 100 years from now. (Laughter) Thank you very much, thank you for your time. And your good humor. I had a quick story to tell you when you told about your daughter. Was your daughter who didn't admit that she could read. My daughter went through a short period of not letting on that she could read. Because she thought, that we'd cut back on reading to her, at bedtime, if she could do it herself. (Chuckling) Oh yeah, yeah. Because she wanted you to continue reading. Yeah, it's so pleasurable. Thanks everybody. And thank you interpreters.