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!