Two more "Deaf Connections" to the R.O.M.

About a month ago, I wrote a Blog about my volunteer involvement at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. I included some information about a Deaf staff member there who had two signed podcasts on the museum's website.

Now, I want to add two more connections about the Deaf there.

Right now, and continuing until July 13th, there is a special exhibition called "Out From Under: Disability, History and Things to Remember."  The exhibit uses some objects and photos to tell stories about how disabled people, or people with differences, were treated in the past. Although there is not a section about the Deaf, many of us will see similarities between how differently-abled people  were treated and how Deaf children (and their families) were used. 

The Museum has also created a series of podcasts in ASL that describe the exhibit and which can be downloaded by people who might want to take them and use them at the museum. The entire podcast can be found here. Or, you can find the 15 individual sections of the podcast that describe each part of the display at this link.

If you go to the Royal Ontario Museum, make sure you also visit the "First People" Gallery. Last time I talked about the museum, I mentioned the signed podcast that described a Canadian artist who did many painting about the native people of Canada. His house was later purchased by a Deaf Church in Toronto. However, I forgot to mention a much more important artist in the same gallery.

One section of the First People Gallery has several paintings by native artists. If you look at them, you will see one near the centre of the display called "Loneliness and Desire". It was painted by a great Deaf artist named Sam Ash, who started painting when he was a student at the Ontario School for the Deaf, Belleville. I remember Sam, when he was at the school, and saw some of his paintings there. Today, some of Sam's art hangs in important galleries across Canada. You can read a little about Sam at this link and also here.

Keep Supporting ASL/Deaf Culture

I have been away from home for the past two weeks, working at scoring tests for the government. This means that I have been away from my home computer and from my web cam and it has been impossible for me to do any Vlogs.

Recently, on the pages of DeafRead, people have been complaining that too many postings have been showing up by people supporting cochlear implants. It seems that many of them (not all) oppose ASL. DeafRead permits all topics that are posted by Deaf people or topics that are related to deafness and some days it looks like anti-ASL bloggers are taking over DeafRead.  To me, it seems that there is only one way that can happen .... if the pro-ASL and pro-Deaf Culture bloggers and Vloggers stop posting their opinions and information.

A couple of months ago, when I first started looking at DeafRead, there were lots of  interesting and creative people adding ASL Vlogs that I don't see any more. I keep hoping that those people will return to the world of Blogging/Vlogging again soon.  There is no reason why they can't outnumber the people that try to put down ASL and Deaf Culture.

I don't think DeafRead should ban other opinions, or put them in a separate category. We should know what they think and they should know what we think.  All of us may find that we have some ideas or opinions that are the same. If people disagree, that's okay as long as we make sure we really know what we are disagreeing about.

Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto

In my last 4 years living in Toronto, I was a volunteer at the Royal Ontario Museum (R.O.M.) downtown Toronto. It's an amazing place, with thousands of things on display. If you haven't been there, or if you haven't been there for a while, since the huge expansion, you really should go.

Check out the Website here.

A former student from the Ontario School for the Deaf in Belleville, Liliane Lortie, was in my class many years ago.  Liliane works at the R.O.M. and has hosted two Video Podcasts for the museum.

One of Liliane's Podcasts is about Native Indian beadwork at the R.O.M. Click on the link to see her.

The other Podcast by Liliane is about Paul Kane, a famous Canadian artist. Paul Kane is interesting for the Deaf in Ontario. Why? For many years after Paul Kane died, his house at 56 Wellesley Street East was owned by the Deaf men and women of the Evangelical Church of the Deaf.

Tribute to a Deaf Gentleman

Jim Clelland was the only Deaf Staff member at the Belleville school for many years. First he was the farmer. Later, after the farm was gone, he was the groundskeeper. I have good memories of him. Here is one of my comments about him.

Jim died in 2003. The Canadian Cultural Society of the Deaf has an obituary about Jim. You can read it if you click here.

Here are some more of my memories.

Bermuda "Borrows" a Teacher

One afternoon in November 1965, I was teaching a Science class in the Senior School at the Ontario School for the Deaf, Belleville. I got a call on the school communication system. The secretary told me that I had to go and see the Superintendent in his office after class!

Oh, no! I wondered what was wrong. I didn't think I had done anything bad, but why would the Superintendent want to see me?

When I arrived at his office, he was not alone. The government inspector of schools was there with him. I thought I must really be in trouble! Then, the Superintendent told me that they wanted me to consider an offer.  He told me that the Ontario Minister of Education, William Davis, had recently been in Bermuda and met the Bermuda Director of Education. He found out that Bermuda was having a hard time getting teachers of the deaf for their special education school.

Mr. Davis had told the Bermuda Director, "No problem, we have lots of teachers of the deaf in Ontario. I will lend one to you."  When Mr. Davis returned to Ontario, he ordered the inspector or schools to find someone to send.  One reason why they thought of me was because I was young and single. They thought it would be easy for me to move without much warning.

The plan was for Bermuda to "borrow" me from January until July while they tried to find another teacher to come and stay in a permanent position.

So it happened that the first week of January 1966, I flew from Toronto to Bermuda and took over a class of young deaf children at the "Happy Valley School' near Hamilton, Bermuda.

Here's a picture of me with my class:

I had a wonderful six and a half months living and working in beautiful Bermuda. While I was there, some people in the Bermuda Department of Education tried to convince me to stay. I was very tempted, but I had a problem with some of the leaders in the Department of Education there who had racist attitudes and I was not comfortable working with them. Also, the kids were expected to be completely oral and I could not use any signs with them.

However, I discovered that one of the reasons they had a hard time keeping teachers was because the school system there was very British and they usually hired teachers from England. Teachers from there signed a contract to stay for three years, but after staying for that time, most of them felt isolated from their home and refused to stay longer.

I suggested to them that teachers from Canada or the U.S. would be better, because it was closer for them to fly home at vacation time and they would not feel so isolated. Also, I mentioned about the teacher training program for the deaf in Ontario. In the next couple of years, Bermuda did send some Bermudian teachers to Ontario to get the training and then return home to teach in their own country.

Teaching in Bermuda was a terrific opportunity for me and I was glad that Bermuda "borrowed" me for that time.

A Vlog Apology (and explanation)

After I looked at my first and second Vlogs again, I realized that I was signing very stiff and awkward. Sorry! I need to learn how to be more relaxed and comfortable when I use WebCam.  Also, I wanted to explain why my ASL is poor - even though I have many years of experience with the Deaf community.

Teacher Learns a Lesson

A student taught a hearing teacher (me!) NOT to say "can't" to Deaf people.

The BIG School; Part Three

In Part One of this topic, I mentioned that the students in the Toronto school came from various elementary school programs and had different communication abilities. Of course, this meant that teaching these students was a big challenge for the staff.

In their first year in the secondary school, the students would have most of their classes in the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Department. This meant that they were in small classes with trained teachers of the deaf. Most of the teachers used a total communication style - speaking English with signs added. However, the communication issue was complicated. 

• The students from an oral background could be confused and distracted by the signs. 
  
• The ones from the hard-of-hearing (auditory) program - who considered themselves "hearing" - would be upset that they were being treated as deaf (and often if the teacher was deaf, they would complain that the teacher's voice was too soft for them to hear with their hearing aids). 
  
• The students from the ASL elementary school would be confused by the signing too - using signs in English order often destroys the sense and meaning of the signs.
  

In the first year,  the new students usually had one (sometimes two) classes in the mainstream hearing school. Often it would be physical education (gym) class and/or an art class. A sign language interpreter or an educational assistant would go with the students to those classes. In the following years, more and more of the courses they took would be mainstream.

The students who did not come from the ASL background had a big problem with the use of interpreters (of course). The frustrating part was that our school did not require them to learn ASL before they were sent into those situations! In fact, although the school did have an ASL course provided, it was mostly offered to hearing students in the school who wanted to learn. Deaf and hard-of-hearing students could take the course, but usually they didn't until their second or third year in the school.

By contrast, when I came to Belleville, the entire school environment was ASL. Any student who arrived at the school with no ASL background would immediately be provided with the help and training to acquire it - receiving instruction, but also being immersed in an atmosphere that was ASL positive and supportive.

As I look back over my years in The BIG School and recall the many students that I taught there, I really regret that most of them never had the opportunity to live and learn in the kind of school environment that they could have had in my first and last "home" school!

The BIG School; Part Two

The idea of putting a Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing department inside a huge secondary school was probably intended to make it possible for the students to have access to a wide variety of mainstream courses. It is true that the school in Toronto (with 2,000 students) had a huge selection of possible areas of study. Not only regular "academic" courses were available, but many choices in the arts, in technology, in business, and trades.

However, there is another part of the school experience which is just as important for the healthy development of a young person. This other part is the opportunity to explore and learn about themselves as people. Students in high school participate in various extra-curricular activities such as varsity sports, clubs and interest groups, student government and debating. Students develop a sense of identity and self-esteem when they have access to ways of trying out their abilities and passions. 

For the deaf students in this environment, it is next to impossible to have these experiences. First of all, they are so few in the midst of the hundreds of hearing students that they feel invisible in the crowd.  Because all of the leaders and stars in the school are hearing, how can the deaf develop any sense of self-esteem?

When it comes to involvement in lunch-time or after-school clubs, a student generally would need the assistance of an interpreter. The educational interpreters are hired for classroom service, but would have to volunteer to assist at other times - this has been known to happen, but the few staff can't be present for every club or activity.

A student who wanted to compete for a place on a school team would have to impress the coaches over dozens of other hearing athletes (and then try to make sure that an interpreter would be willing to show up for all the practices to facilitate communication with the coach and teammates).

It's a tough place to find your identity and your confidence in yourself.

By contrast, when I found myself back in my "home" school in Belleville, the total environment was Deaf Positive and full of opportunities. Of course, all of the student leaders were Deaf and every event, club or sport was fully accessible - with staff advisors/coaches who were either Deaf or who communicated in ASL.

The high school students that I encountered there were self-confident, aware and positive about their identities as Deaf and capable. This was their attitude, not only within the school environment, but also to the wider world around the school and in their home neighbourhoods and cities.

The BIG School; Part One

The last sixteen years before my retirement (1991-2007), I taught in Toronto. The secondary school where I worked has close to 2,000 students! It was a school that had a wonderful reputation in the city. The staff were known to be highly qualified and caring. The students were active in a variety of ways; sports, dozens of extra-curricular clubs and charitable work. (Example: every year, the students raised between $15,000 and $20,000 for the United Way.) It was a busy and challenging place to work.

Part of this school's attraction is the fact that it caters to a number of exceptional needs. It has a large program for "gifted" students and an even larger department for learning disabled and special needs students. These two areas serve hundreds of young people in the building. And, in addition, there was the deaf and hard-of-hearing department where I was located.

In the time that I taught at the school, our department averaged between 35 to 45 students - just a few in the midst of a huge school population that hardly even knew they were there! 

Our department's students came from various elementary programs across the city. 

• A few came from a city school for the deaf - where the kids had been taught using ASL.
• Others came from programs that would be designated "oral" - possibly with some signing available. 
• Hard-of-hearing youth came from classrooms where the emphasis was on listening and, with hearing aids, acting as much like the hearing kids around them as possible.
  

As teachers in that department, we were faced with the challenge of teaching classes that generally contained a few students from each of those backgrounds at the same time.

I want to say that it was a good school and our department had hard-working and committed teachers and students with great abilities and talents. It was, in some ways a great place to be, but it was not adequately meeting the needs of the deaf students in my opinion.

I'll Blog more on this in the future.

My Old Belleville "Home"

My First Blog (with trepidation)

In September of 1962, I began my full-time working life at The Ontario School for the Deaf (as it was then known) in Belleville Ontario. I was 20 years old, a graduate of Teachers' College and ready to begin my introduction and training to become a specialist in the business of educating deaf children (I thought).

Forty-five years later in 2007, I had formally retired from teaching and moved from Toronto back to Belleville. I accepted a one-year contract teaching in that same institution where I began my career - now re-named The Sir James Whitney School for the Deaf.

Unfortunately, health issues made it necessary for me to resign this contract after only two months.

However, the act of coming full circle - back to the place where I began my life of work and involvement with Deaf people and the Deaf community - made me do a lot of thinking about all the changes that have happened over those 45 years!

• In 1962, the educational approach of the school was nominally "oral" in the classrooms. There were 550 students, ages 5 to 20. I can't recall how many staff the institution had in total - certainly more than 100 - but of all the employees at that time, only one, a groundskeeper, was Deaf!
• In 2007, I returned to a school with less than one hundred students, but a school where the educational policy was officially "Bi-Bi" with American Sign Language taught and used as the language of instruction throughout. Deaf staff are prominent in every area of the school and Deaf Culture and Community are regarded with respect.

I wish now that I had come back "home" sooner!

This is just the beginning of my thoughts and memoirs. Hope you enjoy reading. [I also intend to include Vlogs later in my sometimes awkward ASL.]