Episode 3: Part 1: Teaching the Deaf - And All Things Education

Host Crystal Hand sits down and talks with a teacher of the Deaf and discusses all things deaf education.  Covering topics like how Deaf education has changed over the years,  how communication modes, ADA laws  and technology have impacted deaf education,  game changing strategies for helping students succeed and so much more!  This is the first of two episodes covering this topic.     

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. 

Transcript

[Crystal]  Welcome back to the other side of deaf.   This is your host Crystal Hand.  If you have listened to some of my previous episodes you know that my goal with this podcast is to explore different perspectives in the deaf community and those that surround them.   Whether that is hearing family members, teachers or medical professionals, everyone has an opinion.  Today's topic however is all things education from the perspective of a teacher of the deaf.   For those of you who don't know, a teacher of the deaf is someone that specializes in the education of deaf and hard of hearing individuals and all that encompasses. These teachers wear multiple hats including coming up with creative specialized teaching techniques to adapt regular education curriculum,  advocating for deaf and hard of hearing children in a school system and educating parents and school staff on deaf students' needs in order for them to be successful.   My family has been very fortunate over the years to have access to several wonderful teachers of the deaf and today I have one of them with me.   Miss Kristen Stewart has a bachelor's degree in deaf education, a master's degree in reading education, and she has worked with deaf and hard of hearing children for over 35 years.  In the past Kristen has worked as a teacher of the deaf in both mainstream schools and deaf schools and is currently working in a deaf program in a mainstream school for middle school and high school students.   She is currently my daughter's teacher of the deaf and has been an invaluable part of our lives as we navigate the school system.   So today we are going to be talking about, like I said, all things deaf education.   How things have changed over the years, strategies that have made deaf children overcome barriers, what the common denominators are for successful families, and of course the opinions of deaf and hard of hearing teachers on things like technology communication mode and the best ways to educate our deaf students.   So let's get started.  Kristen thank you for coming today.   So let's get started.   Tell us a little bit more about your background and how you got into this.  

[Kristen]  I got into deafness totally by accident.   It was a family friend of ours, the superintendent and the headmaster for a school for the deaf.   His name was Phil Cronlin and he knew my,   I knew him when I was a peanut at a camp in new jersey.   My senior year I was still back and forth between what I wanted to do in college. I was looking at music education, I was looking at music therapy and he said well why don't you come to my school and see what's going on.   Check it out and I said all right.  So I went and spent a week at a school for the deaf in New Jersey.   And one night he and his wife who happened to be deaf as well um they took me to see "Children of a Lesser God" on Broadway and Phyllis Frielish was,  she was a deaf actress and had the lead role um and it was basically her life story and I was mesmerized.   Phil's wife was friends with her and so after the show I got a chance to meet her and talk to her and I felt totally inept.   I couldn't communicate.   I couldn't talk to her and i thought you know this is what i want to do.   So that's what kind of tipped my hand into becoming or pursuing a degree in deaf education.  

[Crystal]  So when you first started this career and you got your degree was there anything that you expected or you know point of view that you had while you were in school and you were learning about it but you weren't in the field yet that was different when you got out of school?  Like maybe something that surprised you or a different expectation that you realized was unrealistic?  

[Kristen] I think I think it was just the communication piece in general.   You can take a sign language class you can practice with videos on YouTube and in your little cocoon in your little bubble you're great because you know exactly what you're saying.  And then you have to go out of that bubble and you have to put it into real life practice.   And I remember being in my practicum scared to death because I knew those kids wanted to talk to me and I had my head down walked straight to my cooperating teacher's classroom because I was afraid I wasn't going to understand them.   So I think that was my biggest fear and my misconception coming out of it.   going into it you think you have all the skills and then you have to put it into practice.   And yeah that took a little bit.  It was a bumpy start for me.  

[Crystal]   And deaf children they are so much more fluent.   It's very interesting recently because I think Samantha is really fast.   She signs way too fast for me.   I'm always telling her to slow down but now one of her friends has just started going to deaf school and she is coming back and Sam's like whoa she signs way too fast for me now.   Just even in that atmosphere, being around an all deaf culture, her friend has become so much faster and more fluent.   And even talking to her parents they've said she's so fast that we can't understand her sometimes because she just is going going so fast.   So I can only imagine as a new teacher what that feels like going into it.  

[Crystal]  So one of the questions that I had for you earlier today was do all teachers of the deaf know sign language or are there some that just focus on speech?

[Kristen]  When I first started in the field most of the focus was on oral.   My program that I went to focused on the oral part of it speech articulation, um knowing the placement of the tongue things like that and I kind of thought that was weird.  But again, you know, the thought was we were to fix them.   That they were somehow air quotes broken and so no not all teachers of the deaf know sign language.   I was the one that said well that doesn't make sense.   I mean if we want to communicate then let's understand their language so I kept pushing for sign language.   You have some focus on oral,  some focus on total communication,  some focus on sign language.   I think the primary thing is to get the language.  

[Crystal]  So statistically speaking is there more teachers that focus on one or the other or is it kind of a just a mix?

 [Kristen]  I don't know.   I would hope that more lean towards sign language and some form of total communication but I'm  sure there's lots of people out there with the school of thought that you know their kids need to speak and they're going to send them to a school that they focus on the oral aspect of it.   So I'm I don't quote me on this I mean I would say there's probably a 50 50 but I'm hoping more people lean towards the sign language piece of it.   That's just my bias.  

[Crystal]  Okay well you know everybody does have a bias whether they like to admit it or not.  So you have worked in this field for 35 years.  That's a long time and a lot has happened in between here and now.   What about the different schools of thoughts?  It used to be that there was only oral taught that was kind of pushed, sign language was pushed for a long time, total communication, a bunch of different things.   We also have cued speech which a lot of people have not brought up and so over the last 35 years there's been a lot of different things so how has that, as well as the disability acts being passed affected your position over the 35 years.   What's changed?  What stayed the same? What has improved? What kind of insight do you have on what's changed and what stayed the same? 

 [Kristen]  I think many things you're right many things have changed.  Many different communication modalities have been brought forth to do the best as what they thought was appropriate.   And I think the American with Disabilities act really kind of opened the gates for more accessible communication.  Whether that was interpreting, whether that was captions, whether that was cart,  different forms of getting access to communication.   I think that was the biggest thing.   It opened that door up for people with hearing loss and people with deafness.   I think what has stayed the same is the teachers have always wanted to come at it for the best way to communicate with a student or a child.  There are oral schools and they're going to continue to focus on that.  There are total communication schools and they're going to focus on that.   I think it's always making sure that there's been access to information access to communication that has always remained consistent through the years.   For me I always knew that sign language was.. It was the modality I was going to use.   Certain students I could use more speech.   Most of the time I turned off my voice and just signed because that was more comfortable for them.  So that has been the consistent piece for me.   I've always kept it to sign language.  

[Crystal]  As we kind of alluded to, hearing technology has changed a lot particularly the invention of cochlear implants.   Doing a little research I didn't realize cochlear implants are a lot older than we actually think.   They've been around since like the 1960s in a very rudimentary form.   But in the 1980s they started using them in adults.   They started implanting them.  It wasn't until late 90s early 2000s that we started using them on children.   They got fda approved for children and so now we have the early detection and intervention action, which for anybody who doesn't know in the United States any baby born in the United States is required to have a hearing test before they leave the hospital,  so we are getting early detection.   Cochlear implants now are being used where children can be implanted as early as 12 months and so how has cochlear implants changed your job? Do you see that more kids are going towards an oral communication? Has it become easier to teach deaf and hard of hearing students with cochlear implants or has it become harder because you know,  there are there's a lot of current controversy around cochlear implants.   There's been a lot of uh a lot of people who love it.   And especially hearing parents, they really want this for their children, especially our profound deaf children.   And then the deaf community has really kind of pushed back on that.   There's valid points on both sides.   So how has that whole dynamic affected your position and how you've taught deaf children?

 [Kristen] I think the early detection has been hugely beneficial for families.   Um more so now than they were before because usually um parents weren't finding out till one or two um and i think there's been more push towards children getting cochlear implants at a younger age.   And families have to just make that decision for themselves and what's going to be best for their child.   It hasn't impacted my job all that much and I think the making that decision really is a family decision and i have no i have no say in that matter.   That's that's a personal decision.   You really touched on that when you were talking about that in your first podcast about you know having two children both children having hearing loss you have to make the decision as a family.  And as I'm just an educator I can't really weigh in on that.  

 [Crystal]  It's a very difficult decision because I know that when I was going through that.. So Samantha didn't become a cochlear implant candidate until she was five.  So when she was first diagnosed or identified I should say she actually had a moderate loss so she only qualified for hearing aids.   And actually interestingly enough, both of my children passed the newborn screenings and so one of the things that I've kind of been outspoken about over the last couple of years is,  there needs to be a hearing test between birth and five years because really if your child passes the newborn hearing screening unless they see a problem they don't get their hearing tested again until they're five.   Which there's a lot of years in there that something wrong could happen and with both of my children that's what happened is that they both passed their hearing screenings.  And about we think around two years is when they started to lose their hearing.   We still don't really understand why but all that said they have a progressive loss.  And so Samantha started off as a moderate hearing loss and when she became five she became profound deaf and at that point in time we went to a children's hospital and they told us that they wouldn't implant past age five.   So if we wanted to implant her we had to do it right now.   That's different now, they do it much differently, but you know, well 10 years ago, it was that way.  It was a very difficult decision for us because at that point in time she was already using sign language and she was loving it.   She preferred it.  Um our son was non-sign language.   He hates sign language.   Even to this day he really doesn't like it.   And so he was always completely oral and we thought we would do the same thing with her.   And she just has a different personality and she would scream and cry when we tried to do speech with her so we did sign.   But when she became a cochlear implant candidate we got a lot of pressure from a lot of people.   Um audiologists came to us and I had audiologists tell us she would never learn how to communicate,  she would never learn how to read,  if I didn't get a cochlear implant for her and then I I remember talking to a different teacher of the deaf and and her saying cochlear implants are are okay,  but they're not everything that everyone says they are.  

 [Kristen]  They're not the magical cure.

 [Crystal]  And so I was like huh.   And it was such a heavy decision for us because you know as a mom I felt man if I make the wrong decision I'm just gonna totally screw up my child's life.   That's really the weight of most parents.   They feel like if I make this wrong decision, for the rest of my child's life it's totally gonna be screwed up.  Which is absolutely not true because the truth of the matter is is that you as a parent you make whatever decision and and then you make it the right decision.   Or you make it work.   But I can definitely say that every profession that I've talked to has a different stance on it.  

 [Kristen]  I have to applaud you because you've really looked at your children as the individuals that they are and you've approached it with your son Luke and he's been more oral and Sam has always been sign language and that's amazing.   That to me is just absolutely amazing.   You're honoring them for who they are as their individuals and  you looked at their communication needs as what was what was going to benefit them and what was going to make them successful.   The outside pressures are just I wish that would stop.  That's not that's not fair to you as a parent.   That's not fair to anybody who has a child with a disability, regardless of what it is.   Being deafness, blindness, you're going through all of that emotion in the beginning.   What do I do?   I broke my kid.   

[Crystal]  A lot of parents with children with disabilities of any kind they feel like my child is not hitting the same milestones at the same time as all the typical kids.   So you know there's this pressure that we have to catch up.   And going into that,  so I remember when my kids were little there was an old statistic that said that deaf and hard of hearing children graduate with a third grade reading level.  And I remember being horrified and being upset.   And in one degree it motivated me because in my mind I was like that's not gonna happen to my kid.   But for a lot of parents that's very discouraging.   That is like I give up, my kid's never going to have a normal life, they're never going to be able to do all these things.   So let's first of all let's talk about that statistic.  Is it still true?  

 [Kristen]  It's no it's not still true and I heard that same thing too when i was coming through all my training.  And I heard it all throughout different places that I worked and I was like you I'm like well that's ridiculous we need to do something about that and i think that's what motivated me to get my master's in as a reading specialist.   Like this is ridiculous this is this is the statistic that's out there this is the myth.   I can say that I graduated kids who were on grade level when they left high school.   I have a seventh grader who is reading on grade level.   I have a ninth grader who's reading on grade level and I think it just depends on how you approach it.   There's been lots of advances in reading and reading programs.   There's a great program that we use at the elementary level called reading milestones very simple very very introductory to getting kids into reading and understanding books and understanding what they are.   I spend a lot of time teaching and reading about figurative language.   Um the parts of a story.   The parts of characterization.   We talk a lot about that.  And that's been my biggest motivation was that myth that they're all going to graduate with a third grade reading level.   I'm like no not on my watch.  

 [Crystal]  That's right and it is a very daunting thing.  I mean  I remember a regular education teacher telling me that that Luke would never be good at reading.   Because we they were doing rhyming in their kindergarten class and of course rhyming is very difficult for deaf kids because everything sounds the same to them.   Because you know they don't hear every single letter.  And  I remember being like don't tell me that.   And so I sat with him and I wrote out like a bunch of words that rhymed and had the blank at the front and did all of the different rhyming words and have him fill that out and sound it out and immediately he got it because he had to see it.  And I think that's the other thing a lot of regular education teachers don't understand is that everything has to be visual with deaf and hard of hearing kids.   It has to be visual or hands-on.   And but I that was very motivating and irritating for me.  

 [Kristen]  And it was it was for me too.   I mean I think of what I've done in elementary things in my elementary classes when I was teaching younger kids.   We would teach about word families and you teach word families in first grade in kindergarten in regular ed.   But we did it differently because it was all shown it was all visual.   I mean now I'm in my in the high school,  I'm working with students and believe me trying to put Shakespeare which has to be heard versus seen.   And there have been some wonderful national theater of the deaf have done wonderful plays of Shakespeare.   But that's something to be heard.   So that's a challenge for me and I kind of like those things.   Okay how can I make this visual.   I like that challenge.   So turning Shakespeare into visual.   Turning poetry.  But poetry is kind of interesting because there's so many beautiful deaf poets out there that they can take a poem and show it visually and then our students get it .  So yes so turning everything into something visual doesn't mean they're going to be stuck at third grade reading level they're going to get it.   I'm just excited that every kid that I've had come through my classroom has had a love for reading.   They always have a book with them.   I have a student right now who is like obsessed with this one particular author and is reading all the books that they can possibly find on this particular author at grade level and that to me is like all right.   You know to get a kid to like reading whether they're hearing or deaf is a huge accomplishment.   I i still love the fact that I we got Sam to read the harry potter series.   She used to tell me that when she was in sixth grade and in fifth grade I always want to read harry potter.   I want to read harry potter.   But I think it's too hard for me.   And uh when we read it to the whole series together it was just that was joy just to watch her enjoy it and get it and understand it.   Yeah that was that was a huge accomplishment.   I enjoyed that.  

 [Crystal] And those books are hard.  

 [Kristen]  They are hard.  And they're British.  

 [Crystal] And they're British and there are a lot of made-up words because it's very fantasy fiction.   Yes,  for a lot of kids and particularly deaf kids reading is hard.   I remember when Samantha was little she did not love reading and i was the mean mom who over the summer would say you have to read for at least 20 minutes a day.   We would set a timer.   It was required.   You couldn't play video games until you actually read your 20 minutes and finally we stumbled upon some books that she really liked.  I think it was the "my weird school" books.   I don't even know who it's by but she loved those books because she thought they were hilarious.   And so all of a sudden she started reading them and what's interesting as a parent is you see that switch go from teaching them to read to now they're reading and they're learning things as they're reading.   And so it's it's an exciting thing as a parent. I'm sure it's exciting as a teacher because then it's like okay now we can do all this other stuff.  

 [Kristen]  And that's the you know the beginning parts of education especially for young children.   In deaf education  we're teaching them how to read how to put those things that string of words makes sense that it has meaning and then once they get older you're teaching them that they're reading now to for understanding.   Their reading for comprehension and that is a huge thing to see when that light bulb goes off and they get it like oh that's what that means.   Oh that's yeah, that's pretty cool.  

[Crystal] Let's talk about visual phonics because that was a big game changer for Samantha.   We didn't use it with Luke I don't, I think it was just starting to come up when Luke was learning how to read.  But with Samantha it was a big game changer.   All of a sudden she was able to to kind of see things.   And visual phonics is not sign language. It's something different.   It's not a language at all.   It's not a communication mode at all.  It's just something that you use to learn how to read.   But I truly believe that was a big game changer for Samantha and I have heard that it's a big game changer for a lot of deaf kids is that true?  

 [Kristen]  I think so.   It really is a wonderful tool to help kids understand how letters sound.  The initial sounds the blends the ending sounds.  I think that's really crucial especially on young children to know what they are and so what visual phonics does is it gives them a visual reference on the mouth, on the tip placement of the tongue, the pointing on the face on how things are going to sound.   And I think it's an amazing tool and I've seen it work beautifully for a lot of young children.   I have a friend who is .. she's a trainer for visual phonics.   She has a lot of parents in her courses to help them.   As they've been... they have their children who've been identified early and I've also seen a lot of elementary teachers regular ed teachers doing visual phonics just to help them.   The more we can try different modalities for children regardless of hearing loss or hearing I think those tools should be implemented and visual phonics is definitely one of those tools that has just been a game changer as you said.   Whoever came up with that good for them.  

[Crystal]  And it's something that parents can take.   It's really a it's a day class because I know around here you can take maybe a one or two day course and learn how to do it.   So it's not like learning sign language where it's a lifelong pursuit.   This is something that you can learn in a couple of days.  So it's something that even parents can take.   So if there's opportunity for them they don't have to rely on their teacher at the deaf or even a regular education teacher to learn this.  

 [Kristen]  My sister's a kindergarten teacher and I've seen her use aspects of visual phonics in her classroom because every kid is differently.   Some kids are more visual, some are more tactile, some are more movement.  And I think it incorporates all those things for everybody.  It has some a little bit of something for everybody.  So it's yeah it's a good tool.  

[Crystal]   Okay so we have talked about so much already but we still have so much more to talk about.  But in the interest of helping break up all of this information into bite-sized pieces we are going to take a break.   After my first few episodes people reached out to me and told me they preferred shorter podcasts to help digest everything, but there is so many great things to talk about with Kristin that I just couldn't limit it so we are going to be doing a part two of our discussion.   Which you can download right now at the very place that you downloaded this episode whichever that platform is.   But I encourage you if you've listened to this and enjoyed it come back for the second half.   There are so many great things that we are going to talk about like having realistic expectations for our 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.   We're going to dig into all of those different topics so you don't want to miss it.   So keep listening.   Download that next episode and of course don't forget to like and subscribe to my channel and check me out on Facebook and Instagram for any updates on upcoming episodes.   Alright for now I'm signing off.