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154 9 Opening Our Eyes The Complexity of Competing Visual Demands in Interpreted Classrooms MELISSA B. SMITH Signed languages are visual languages. The importance of this quality was emphasized almost one hundred years ago by George Veditz, a prominent leader in the Deaf community and former president of the National Association of the Deaf. Veditz (1912) delivered a passionate argument in support of American Sign Language even in the face of intense political pressures, punctuated by the 1880 decision in Milan, Italy, to ban the use of sign language in public schools. In this address he characterized Deaf people as “first, last, and of all time the people of the eye.” The fundamentally visual nature of American Sign Language and the people who use it validated his case for the preservation of this language at a time when it seemed on the verge of eradication. Nearly a century later, some Deaf leaders are celebrating the process of discovering what it truly means to be Deaf (Ladd, 2003) and champion the essential aspect of vision at its core (Bahan, 2008; Lentz, 2007). American Sign Language has, in fact, not only survived but also attained wide recognition and support. The California Department of Education’s vision for California’s deaf and hard of hearing students states that each of these students will be provided with the means to “develop age-appropriate communication skills, in his/ her preferred mode of communication . . . which will allow him/her to acquire the academic, social, emotional, and vocational skills needed for the establishment of social relationships, economic self-sufficiency, and the assumption of civic responsibility ” (2000, p. 1). In a report of the California Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Education Advisory Task Force, American Sign Language is listed as one of the communication options that should be made available (1999). I am eternally grateful to all of the people who made this research and this chapter possible. Sincerest appreciation goes to Pam Long for teaching me to honor my writing process and for being an amazing writing coach. Thank you to Pam, Cheryl Forbes, and my life partner, Annette Miner, for invaluable input on numerous drafts and issues related to the education of Deaf students; to the UCSD faculty who advised me; and to the interpreters, teachers, school administrators, students and parents who allowed me to come into the classroom with video cameras. I am so lucky to have such a wonderfully supportive family. Thank you for the encouragement, time, and space I needed to work. Opening Our Eyes 155 Although ASL is largely recognized today, for Deaf and hard of hearing learners in K–12 classrooms, the struggle has now become focused on their true inclusion in and access to a quality education. The typical classroom environment makes meeting their needs inherently and intensely complex. To date, schools have largely failed Deaf and hard of hearing students (Commission on Education of the Deaf [COED], 1988; California Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Education Advisory Task Force, 1999; O’Connell, 2007). In mainstream education, students are expected to adapt to the regular classroom , whereby inclusion implies that the classroom and the teachers are supposed to adapt to meet the needs of the students (Stinson & Antia, 1999). “Philosophically, inclusion implies more than mainstreaming. Inclusion refers to full membership in a regular classroom” (Seal, 2004, p. 1). Many Deaf and hard of hearing students attend regular classrooms with interpreters, yet concerns about the efficacy of an interpretermediated education remain. There is no doubt about the moral imperative to create change in the dismal statistics on the educational outcomes of Deaf and hard of hearing students. In his 2007 address on the state of education in California, Jack O’Connell reported that only 8% of Deaf students and 15% of hard of hearing students attain a score of at least “proficient” on English language arts standards. Because school success is largely predictive of employment options, the stakes are incredibly high when making decisions about how to most effectively meet the needs of Deaf and hard of hearing students in inclusive classrooms. If the general assumption and legislative reality are that the provision of a qualified interpreter is a sufficient means for Deaf and hard of hearing students to be fully included in mainstream school contexts, then we have an obligation to determine the factors that need to be in place so that they are truly afforded the opportunity to achieve socially and academically to their greatest potential. Dean and Pollard (2006) have...

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