Part 2 of Interview: Host Crystal Hand sits down and talks with teacher of the Deaf Kristen Stewart and discusses all things deaf education. In the second half of the interview, they cover topics like having realistic expectations for deaf children, which is better deaf schools or hearing schools according to a teacher of the deaf, how has Covid affected our kids and so much more.
This podcast is produced and owned by Crystal Hand and not associated with any other company, business or government entity. "The Other Side of Deaf" podcast and associated websites and social media pages represent the opinions of the host and her guests on the show and do not represent or reflect the opinion of any organization the participants are employed or associated with. The content here is for information purposes only and should not be used for medical or legal purposes.
Part 2 of Interview: Host Crystal Hand sits down and talks with teacher of the Deaf Kristen Stewart and discusses all things deaf education. In the second half of the interview, they cover topics like having realistic expectations for deaf children, which is better deaf schools or hearing schools according to a teacher of the deaf, how has Covid affected our kids and so much more.
This podcast is produced and owned by Crystal Hand and not associated with any other company, business or government entity. "The Other Side of Deaf" podcast and associated websites and social media pages represent the opinions of the host and her guests on the show and do not represent or reflect the opinion of any organization the participants are employed or associated with. The content here is for information purposes only and should not be used for medical or legal purposes.
[Crystal] Hello, welcome back to the other side of deaf. This is Crystal Hand, your host and you are listening to part two of my interview with Ms. Kristen Stewart, a teacher of the deaf with a degree in deaf education, a master's degree in reading education, and experience with working with deaf students for over 35 years. If you haven't listened to part 1, please go back and listen to that. We talk about so many great topics like how ADA laws, technology, and communication mode trends have affected deaf education. Game-changing strategies that have helped our children and debunking common myths. After my first few episodes people told me they preferred shorter podcasts to help digest everything but there is so many great things that Kristen and I have to say that i just didn't want to limit it so enter part two of our discussion. So I am going to just jump right into where we left off and start with my next topic. So Kristin let's get started. Okay so the next topic is kind of a weird question but I want to bring this up because as we got involved in the deaf community there were a lot of times that I saw parents kind of be restrictive of expectations of their child. For me I never let that be something that I allowed in my house. My children know that I've always told them that their deafness is not an excuse to not succeed in something they just have to work a little harder for it. But that's not an attitude that we have with a lot of parents. I see a lot of my children's friends have lower expectations for their children in not just education but the activities that they can be included in or participate in whether that's sports or music. So is that something that you see a lot and how does that affect the child as far as their future? Does that set them up to feel like they can't accomplish things? Is there a correlation there?
[Kristen] I would agree. That's a big pet peeve of mine. I think we as educators, wherever we set the bar the kids are going to try to get to the bar. Kids they want to please you as an educator that's been my experience and they want to do well and so I'm going to keep moving that bar up. I think it's a detriment if you just set the bar at a certain level and say okay that's as far as we're going to go or this activity that's all we're going to do. I think you're limiting the abilities and the passions. And how far is that student going to know how far they can push themselves if they are constantly hitting a ceiling or like they've been told oh that's all you can do. I have told my students for years that I think it's important that you can do anything you set your mind to but you're going to have to work. It's not all sunshine and roses and like oh here's your sticker you you did well today. No you're you're going to have days that you fail. You're going to have days that you are going to be successful and I think keeping it realistic and being honest with them. This is what I expect from you. I think is really important. I think many of my colleagues would agree with me that if we set the bar low they're going to go there. I think it has to be higher for our population because they already have one strike against them being deaf. And I don't even think that's a strike against them they're just going to have to work harder. They can accomplish whatever they want to do. Whatever the goal they set for themselves I see them fulfilling it. So yeah that tweaks me a little bit. I really hate it when I see bubble wrapped kids or oh we can't do that because they're deaf. why not? Why can't they try that? if it was easy everybody would do it and life's gonna throw us curves and life's gonna make it hard for us so let's set the expectation and say let's see it.
[Crystal] So as a parent I can tell you it just takes a lot of work and I do feel like there's sometimes that parents just aren't up for it. Unfortunately that is the case. But I know that there have been times where they've both come to me and said this is what I want to do and I'm like okay I don't feel like this is gonna go the way you think. Particularly when Samantha said she wanted to be in the musical. And this is not a musical that everybody makes. You have to try out and I looked at my husband and I said okay but I don't think this is gonna go the way she thinks. And I prepared my entire house. She's probably not gonna make it. We need to be prepared for tears because she doesn't know her limits. And then she comes back and she actually rocked it and got into the musical and then got a special part as well being a dancer. And then she comes to me and says she wants to play trumpet, a brass instrument where she can't even hear the sounds and yet now she's in marching band and she's rocking that. So she continues to defy even my expectations. I've learned over the years to keep my mouth shut and I figured okay I'll let the world teach her what her limitations are not me and every time I think that it's gonna happen, she just has a switch in her head that says if somebody tells me I shouldn't be able to do this I'm just gonna do it. Not every kid is like that. As a parent it's easy to say I don't think this is gonna work for you but they can do it. And they're doing it all the time. Samantha is certainly not the only deaf kid that's doing it. I'm sure there are deaf kids all over the country or all over the world that are pushing those limits everywhere. Which is amazing. But it is very easy for hearing people to put that expectation because it is a lot harder and the thought of doing all of that work is daunting to anyone.
[Kristen] We're kind of biased in the field that we're in because we both work with students who have hearing loss. And when you're in that realm we know where we need to back off and when we need to go. And I think the regular population really doesn't understand. And it's kind of fun that they set the rest of the the regular world on edge. Going oh didn't know they could do that. Well that was your expectation and Sam is definitely is leading the way. Like don't put those kind of expectations on me because. I'm going to defy them and I'm going to see how far I can go. And I think she has a sense of realism in terms of how far she can push it. She goes, I might make it I might not but she's going to try and I think that's the thing is the spirit of trying. Why not? You won't know until you try. I mean what's the worst thing that could happen? You fail? Okay so we'll try something different next time. I think it's just amazing and I think more and more people need to take a page from her playbook.
[Crystal] So I think that there is this expectation amongst not just hearing parents but the hearing community in general.
[Kristen] yes
[Crystal] That there are limitations and there really isn't. There just are limitations in our head of what we think we could do. But they don't know that they can't do them.
[Kristen] So it's interesting to see. Your guest on your second podcast said something that just absolutely struck a chord with me and i think she nailed it beautifully we have spent so much time getting accommodations for our kids but what has the world done to them to help accommodate them. Even with the ADA. What are we doing to accommodate them? They've come to our standard with hearing aids and sign language interpreters and all this. What more could we be doing to accommodate them to make them more part of our world. The hearing world needs to start accommodating too.
[Crystal] Over the 35 years that you've been teaching is there a common denominator of what makes our deaf and hard of hearing children more successful than others? Or when I say success I mean success in not just education but also social success as far as having friends and academically being on par with reading and graduating with those things is there a common denominator?
[Kristen] That's a big one to unpack. I think the social piece is kind of difficult especially for students who are mainstreamed. That's always my biggest concern of our students they can perform in the academic fields. They can perform on the arts and entertainment and be on the stage and do all sorts of amazing things there but my biggest concern and always has been especially for mainstream students is the social aspect. Because deafness is very isolating and to try to find ways to get students to try new things interact with other people. Some of the teachers that I work with have done a deaf lunch, where students have invited their friends and they learn sign language while they eat lunch together, so that they have someone to talk to. That is my biggest concern more than anything else. I mean in the school for the deaf you've got a ready-made community right there. You can sit down to lunch. You can go to track practice and you'll be able to communicate with anybody and i just worry a lot for the students who are mainstreamed more so because that is just such an isolating piece of it. And I think like any parent you worry you want them to be friendly and social and talk to people and feel comfortable but at the same time I wonder could we be doing more in that aspect.
[Crystal] So bringing that up, so let's talk about mainstream school and deaf school. Okay, so as you said in the deaf school you have all these classes everything is immersed but the other thing about kids with hearing loss is that not every kid is deaf.
[Kristen] That's true.
[Crystal] There's a lot of children who are hard of hearing who don't feel like they fit in the deaf community. My son is actually one of them. He has never felt like he belonged in the deaf community because he is not a signer. And as there are more children who are using less sign language, particularly the cochlear implant kids, you know you have this whole community of hard of hearing children that would not really necessarily thrive in a deaf school and they're mainstreamed. So how do they fit into all of this? And even with the profound deaf kids is it always better to have them in deaf school or is it sometimes better to just keep them in a mainstream school? Like what is your overall picture of that because again this is another thing that's a very personal choice for families? Um and we also have to mention that there are some culturally deaf families, who have deaf parents and deaf children, so it makes more sense for them to be in a deaf school because it's their culture and world but as I said before over 95% of our deaf children are born to hearing parents. So you have a blend of this wanting to be in the hearing world, wanting to be in the deaf world and then this whole group of children who on the various degrees of hearing loss. Whether that's mild hearing loss to severe hearing loss, they don't fit into that deaf culture world and they're mainstreamed. So how does that all fit in when we're talking about school and making friends and learning to communicate with other people? Because as my son has said before I don't belong in the hearing world, because I'm not hearing. But I don't belong in the deaf world because I'm not deaf. And I feel like there's a lot of kids in that area.
[Kristen] I think you're right. I'm seeing more of that. I'm seeing more students who have unilateral hearing loss and are not aided with either a hearing aid or a cochlear implant and I'm not sure why that is. I'm seeing a lot of kids who have a mild hearing loss may have a hearing aid and they're mainstream and they're in the regular educational classroom. My opinion on that has changed over the years. When I first started in education I felt that deaf schools were the way to go because it provided that social peace. But I thought that was quite naïve and I was very young and it was you need to know sign language and you need to be in a deaf school and mainstreaming is bad. But as I've gone from working in both deaf schools and being a mainstream teacher of the deaf I kind of dance in both worlds. I think now and look at helping those students who have the mild and moderate hearing losses who don't know sign language but yet need those accommodations. Again the judgments that I made when I was younger are not the things that I can do now. Because I think it comes down to what's going to be best for the child? What's going to be best for their education? What's going to be the best for them to grow and be a social happy well-rounded student and child? I have students in the middle school and in the elementary buildings who have mild hearing losses and some of them wear fms and some of them don't. I have one student who is completely deaf in one side and has no hearing mechanisms, no cochlear, nothing in the one side and only has one side that he can hear. And so it's educating the populace of how can we accommodate for them instead of them accommodating to us. Yeah deaf schools versus mainstreaming. I have colleagues who are deaf, who were mainstream and they turned out fine and they signed. I think it's getting the communication to them early. I think bottom line is about getting them the access giving them the language and language can be sign language when they're younger. I mean look how many students who have been non-verbal when they are younger they have hearing but they sign. There's a lot of students who have autism that use sign language as a form of communication. That language is the biggest piece. You're going to get language whether you take your student to a deaf school or you take them to a preschool and they sign.
[Crystal] Yeah and I think a lot of parents when they're younger don't realize that it's not a one size fits all. We have decided for our family that we did not want Samantha in a all deaf school. All I know is that where she's at she is doing so well academically that to make a big change like that I don't know it would be beneficial for her. But with that said, one of her best friends just recently went to a deaf school and in talking even with Samantha she has said that is the best place for her. And some of it has to do with the fact that when you have a more culturally deaf child that is not verbal that relies mostly on sign language and no other communication, again just my opinion, but I think mainstream schools are much more difficult for children like that because they can't communicate without an interpreter and when you're talking about teenagers they want to have conversations where there's not an adult around listening. And when you have an interpreter standing there it's not as fun.
[Kristen] And that's the incidental learnings that we as hearing people take for granted. The things that we've picked up in hallways as a kid. The whispers amongst the class. You learn all your social rules and regulations and all those cues from incidental learning just from things that you've overheard. So those things are really important and. crucial for our kids.
[Crystal] Let's talk about working with regular education teachers. So I can tell you that 90% of our experience with regular education teachers is great. I have friends and family members who are teachers. I know how hard they work and especially the current culture has definitely changed their entire profession. But I always with each one of my kids. I always have that one teacher. We joke about it now. I'm always like well that's the teacher that's that one teacher who refuses to accommodate. Who comes back to me four months into the school saying " do we really need them to have note-taking" or "does she really need an interpreter for this" or even last year there were a lot of times where my daughter would show up to virtual class because it was during covid and the teacher would accidentally kick the interpreter out. And so let's talk about regular education teachers and how how do we manage that because like I said 90% of them they're great. They want to do wonderful things. They want to help our kids but they also have 25 other kids in their class and some of them also have ieps and behavioral problems and all of these other things. And sometimes you just get a teacher who is just not great, let's just be honest. You know and I hate saying that because I don't want to give a bad name to teachers in general. Like I said, most of them are awesome. So what is your experience with dealing with that?
[Kristen] I've been working really hard these past few years in the district that I'm in to educate the regular ed teachers. And it's finesse and communication and trust. I spend a lot of time just talking to them and saying this is not going to be as difficult as you think. It is laying their fears because it's the unknown that's coming into their classroom and how do I prepare for that? How is this going to take over my classroom? What's it going to do? And teachers when they are on and doing their job they're the sage on the stage. And sometimes that gets a bad rap using that but they're there doing their job and they're performing and they're doing what they need to do. And so to have somebody come in like an interpreter, they think that that's going to distract the rest of the students or they think it's going to be more problematic. And so it's just been a a constant education to them, saying you know , this is what the interpreter does. Some are better accepting of it than others that's true. Some of us as educators we have our way we're going to do it this way and by gosh that's the way it's going to be done. But I've been really fortunate in that the group of colleagues that I've worked with over the past several years have been amazing and they're curious and they want to know how they can help. At times I've had to intervene and say yes this is what the student needs and yes it's a part of their iep and yes you need to accommodate them. And yeah it's a fine line I have to walk. But it's also it's human relations and public relations and getting them to trust me that they're going to be okay.
[Crystal] And I think that's something that a lot of people don't think about as part of a teacher of the deaf's job. And honestly I can say that having teachers of the deaf for my children is probably the biggest thing that I would tell other parents that you need to have. When they are in a regular education setting , even if they don't have accommodations where they're seeing a teacher of the deaf for speech or whatever that is. Having a teacher of the deaf in the school that's at least checking in with your child a couple times a week is 100% the most important thing in my opinion. Because how many times do I come to the teacher of the deaf before I go to the regular education teacher and I say" hey this is an issue you know maybe you can go and observe the class and seeing what's happening. Because I can't tell with my child if they don't understand the content or if they're not getting the accommodations they need. Or if there's a teacher who my daughter has said 20 times I need closed captionings they keep forgetting. Instead of me being the angry parent going in there and stomping my fist, I can call a teacher the deaf and say hey can you take care of this. And it just takes a huge burden off of a parent because you don't feel like you're by yourself. The other thing is is being in iep meetings it's very daunting for a parent. I have actually been in IEP meetings where the entire staff has actually sat on the opposite side of the table as me. So I really feel like I'm totally alone and it's very intimidating. But I have been very fortunate I've always had a teacher of the deaf that has been sitting next to me and in that moment I'm so grateful for them. Because from a professional aspect sometimes the school district doesn't want to listen to a parent but when you have a professional that's sitting next to you that this is their area of expertise, then you can say hey you need to listen to this mom and these are really what this child needs. It takes so much of the burden off of a parent to fight for all those things. So for any of my listeners if your child doesn't currently have a teacher of the deaf you need to get on that and make sure that they're that they have access to one. Even just for checking in and making sure are these teachers following the iep. Because your children are not always honest about it.
[Kristen] Kids are going to complain regardless but yes the SDIs in a student's IEP are huge and those are the things that benefit them and help them to learn and get the content and if those SDIs are not being met then then there's a problem. I have had encounters with certain teachers who have a difficult time providing notes because again deaf students need to watch their interpreters and the notes just gives them the backup and they can review those notes at their leisure or with the teacher of the deaf whenever they work together. Is it cheating? No, it's their accommodation. So that they have that same access at the same time that the rest of the hearing students get their information. Not oh I'll copy them and give them to you a day late. Why should our student always be the one who gets it a day late and a dollar short? When everybody else is getting it at the same time. It's that equal accessibility so those SDIs are important and the teacher of the deaf is there to help you get those so that the regular ed teachers understand what they need to be doing. Is it going to ask them to do a little bit of extra work? Absolutely but that's what we have to do.
[Crystal] So let's talk about covid because it's 2021 and we can't go without talking about that. Whether you agree or disagree with masks or all this other stuff that's currently in the political arena it has definitely affected our children. So I know for my children they had and still do have a lot of anxiety about masks. It makes it very very difficult for them to socialize in school. It has isolated them in a way that
[Kristen] More so than it was before.
[Crystal] Yes because they can't see their lips and although in our ieps we can say teachers have to wear clear masks we cannot ask that of other children. And so it essentially has limited the ability for my children to interact in a meaningful way at a peer relationship. And then of course we have virtual learning which has gotten better over the last year but when we first started was a complete disaster. Do you feel like this is going to permanently change our way of teaching in our way of life in school and will our children have detrimental effects years from now?
[Kristen] I hope not. I think what it has done for regular ed it really has pushed them to think outside the box and provide ways to reach students. I think it pushed everybody outside the box to think differently about how we present and teach. And it really brought to light that there are good captions and there are bad captions. I could write a dissertation on "but the movie has captions but the video has captions" If I hear that one more time I think i'm going to scream. Because not all captions are equal and not all students are going to catch what's said and some captions are fast and so on and so forth. So I think what Covid did for regular teachers is they had to think outside the box. They had to find a way to present their material in a way that was going to reach everybody. And we talk about multiple modalities in our classroom. We're constantly, if we're not writing we're reading, we're acting we're moving around and there's all that multi-disciplinary that we can do to reach kids. Tactile, visual, movement all of those things and that went away with Covid. And zoom only did so much. Depending on what platform I mean zoom was one platform there were other platforms that were horrific because it would target whoever the speaker was but you had to pin your interpreter. Oh it was just a nightmare for our kids. I talked to teachers about wearing the clear shields and educate them about that and how a student with a hearing loss is permitted to have a clear shield. And I think it comes down for those teachers to be comfortable whether they're comfortable with it or not. I hope it doesn't become something that becomes part of our norm because I do think it has a detrimental effect on most of the special ed populations. But deafness in particular because they're completely cut off more so now than they've ever been. So I hope it doesn't stick around. I hope we're able to get back to a normal way of communicating, interacting but it's been a challenge for educators. For everybody, even as a teacher of the deaf was challenging for me but it brought to light to me ways I can do things online. Is it ideal? No, nobody wants to be online learning for hours on it.
[Crystal] And the other thing is too is that deaf children or hearing children , not every child has a home environment that's learning conducive. And so at our house we are lucky enough that both my husband and I have been able to work from home. We've been here to help but there's a lot of families that that's not working for. And virtual learning is very difficult for visual learners who or tactile learners. I have a very good friend of mine who has a son who is ADD and he does terrible with virtual because you can't get up and move around. You got to sit in front of the screen the whole day and it's just it's horrible. I would say that for covid the biggest challenge for us has been the masking because I can't tell you how many times my kids have come home and they're just discouraged. They're like I can't hear anybody and then even at lunch time they there for a while now it's gotten better but there for a while, they would make them sit six feet apart. Well my children can't hear anything from six feet so even the moments that they weren't allowed to have masks on they still couldn't communicate with their friends. So I think what I'm hoping for is that if it doesn't go back to normal that we come up with a better solution because I really feel that not just deaf kids but also regular kids there's a lot that they're missing. It muffles your voice and so there's a lot that's being missed. And I really wonder sometimes are we gonna see a lot of speech delays amongst our our youngest kids right now when they get a little older because of the muffled sound because they can't see their lips. You know, even thinking about speech therapy and I'm hoping in the next couple of months I'll have a speech therapist on here to talk about us. But you know speech therapy relies a lot on being able to see your face and lips and how has that changed? I mean I'm curious to find that out because I don't know the answer to that . But t that's definitely some things that are worth mentioning because i think as a population we've been so focused on the health and safety of everyone which is a valid concern but we forget that some of these decisions have bigger consequences on some of our smaller communities or our communities with disabilities whether that's hearing or autism or ADD or whatever. There's a lot of kids that are in those particular categories that are suffering right now. And so I think that's something that we've all put on the back burner but it needs to be put front and center soon. Sooner rather than later.
[Kristen] Again I do a lot of the education that I can with my regular ed teachers and providing shields. Providing um there's two different types of shields that we've used. I know that there's the mask with the clear plexiglass in the center but that just gets fogged up and doesn't really work well so I'm hoping. I give my students the chance to take off their mask. I stay masked in the room. They take theirs off just to give them a chance to be normal so they can communicate and talk to me. I agree with you on that one there needs to be something better.
[Crystal] Okay so one last question because we've been talking for a while and I don't want to give our listeners too much listening fatigue which we know is a real thing. So what is your advice to those teachers of the deaf that are just coming in and what expectations should they have and what's your advice for getting started in this?
[Kristen] My advice would be ...be open. Be flexible. Be ready to change and adapt and to be a an educator not only just to the student but to the populations that your student's going to be with the educators. I think it's a great profession> I've loved it. I still love it. It challenges me every day. It makes me be creative in ways I never thought I could be. It pushes me. It's never the same every day. Like I don't come in going okay this is what we're doing it's going to be the same thing as it was the day before. It's never the same twice and I think it's the best profession anyway. For me I think it's been the best profession ever. I love it. I absolutely love what I do.
[Crystal] Well, thank you very much for being here.
[Kristen] My pleasure.
[Crystal] I appreciate all the wisdom and hopefully my listeners have gleaned some information. Okay so if you enjoyed listening to this podcast I encourage you to listen to my future episodes coming up. We're gonna have some amazing guests with a lot of different perspectives on things. Don't forget to like and subscribe to my channel. Check me out on Facebook and Instagram at the other side of deaf podcast and of course keep listening to the other side of deaf. But for now I'm signing off.