Seeds of Disquiet: One Deaf Woman’s Experience

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I was eight years old when I showed up in Woolrich School's third-grade classroom. I had been in town for almost a month, but I hadn't met many of my classmates. Most of them came by bus; some were from remote areas. My new school was small and stable. It had only one class for each grade. There were twenty-seven kids in my third-grade room, and most of the other grades were the same size. Only a few families moved in or out of the area each year, so I was more than the usual oddity. My teacher, Mrs. MacKenzie, made me feel welcome and tried to smooth my entrance to her class. I was beginning to be desperate for friends and anxious for some routine in my life. I was still trying to adjust to sounds that didn't make sense while being surrounded by new faces and returning each afternoon to a house I wasn't used to. The stress level increased when I discovered that I couldn't read any writing on the blackboard. Arrangements were quickly made to take me for vision tests, and I was fitted for eyeglasses. I hated my glasses because they always seemed to fly off when I was playing baseball or freeze tag. Mrs. MacKenzie was alert to my progress. When she saw that I couldn't grasp the multiplication tables my classmates 17 Seeds of Disquiet were studying, she notified my mother. Mom was ripe to become Mother Martyr of the Year. She took me aside when I arrived home and started to drill me on the tables. I tried everything in my repertoire to get out of those drills over the next few days, but neither tears nor screams budged her resolve. She was going to drum those tables into me if it killed her, and she looked plenty tough enough to live to a ripe old age. I quickly learned to multiply, but I also learned something else. I never wanted to endure my mother's drills again. I watched my classmates carefully and made sure Mrs. MacKenzie wouldn't be making any more calls. The Cold War was on and the Red Menace was in high hysteria. I lined up with the other students at Woolrich School for regular bomb drills. But most of the time, I was being nurtured by wonderful teachers, and I flourished under their attention . Midway through the year, Anna Belle Emerick took over third grade from Mrs. MacKenzie, and she stayed to become my fourth-grade teacher. Mrs. Emerick had lost some of her hearing, and my fifth-grade teacher, John Randecker, had limited use of one arm. Their experiences with disabilities must have given them insight into the struggles of a confused deaf child. They were marvelous teachers. After Mrs. Emerick's arrival, my grades improved, and during elementary school I never again was graded "average" or below in any class, save a lone "C" for the first quarter in sixth-grade geography. The school principal and sixth-grade teacher, John Barry, kept a stem demeanor to hide his marshmallow-soft heart. I was blessed several times in seeing him without his disciplinarian 's mask, so I knew a gifted and gentle teacher that few other students did. Rounding out the team that taught me at Woolrich School was my speech therapist/tutor/super booster, Tom "Mr. Z" Zelinske, whose presence had persuaded my father to make the move. Interpreters and assistive listening devices didn't arrive in 18 Seeds of Disquiet time to help me get through school. But the confidence my teachers had in me inspired me to try things I didn't know I was capable of. My teachers let me work at my own pace, and when I was unable to participate in class activities, they allowed me to read books. Every Saturday, my parents drove to nearby Lock Haven , where I checked out seven books, the maximum allowed, from the community library. I also borrowed books from the church library, but it was small and I quickly went through all the interesting titles. I enjoyed reading so much that I would hurry to finish assignments so that I could bury myself in a book. I was keen on mysteries during fourth and fifth grade; I read every Agatha Christie and Erle Stanley Gardner book I could get my hands...