I Fill This Small Space: The Writings of a Deaf Activist

Talks Before Parent Groups

158 Talks Before Parent Groups Icannot help but be amazed and pleased that more and more of us deaf adults are asked to speak before parent groups. Only a few years ago we had difficulty being given a chance to be “heard” while those who were “paper smart” were usually asked to speak. We still are seldom, if at all, invited to speak before parent groups that have strong oral leanings. This is unfortunate because such groups need to be more broadly informed, to hear the other side of the story discussed and ventilated and to be aware that many of us deaf adults can bring to them the smell of reality. I have noticed in many speaking engagements that deaf adults are becoming more involved. They attend to publicity, prepare refreshments , do the necessary leg work, appear and mingle with parents at meetings. This is a commendable and vital part in our march forward to better education for our deaf people. Because my talks are too long to appear in one column I have divided them into two parts. The second part, which deals with my deaf daughter , will appear in next month’s column. The following talk is a composite or adaptation of talks given at Las Vegas, Nevada; at Tucson, Arizona; and at Redlands and San Diego, California: The moon se levait au-dessus du Rhone. A man qui descendait at this moment par un chemin etroit des Vosges, had just perceived it a travers les feuilles. If you did not know French, did you strain to understand what was being said? Did you hear the comforting English words only to be irritated by the French ones? Did discomfort or uncertainty bother you? If your answer is yes, then you have some idea of what it means when we deaf people try to read the lips. When you heard the word “descendait” perhaps you thought of the English word “descend” while at the same time cocking your ears for the other French words that followed. If we tried to do the same thing, other words would have come by rat-a-tat-tat and our eyes would have missed them all. The Deaf American (June 1972) 159 If you, dear parents, could develop a sense of the difficulties involved in speech reading you will be taking a giant step in understanding one of the biggest problems we have in our role of a deaf person. We wish, oh how we wish, it was simple to speechread. Because, for the majority of us, there are too many insurmountable barriers when it comes to speechreading we are forced to use, invent or sneak in other visual clues. The alternative would be to choke in our own silence, to suffer mental stagnation or to become paranoid. Groups of parents, educators, in fact, the whole and allied fields in the education of the deaf, are split because we deaf people ourselves sought and fought for alternative visual clues, the greatest and most common of which is the language of signs. A mother who shouts “I want my deaf child to go with hearing people and be like hearing people” should carefully weigh her words against what I have said and against the background reality of the worldat -large. So should many educators who use catch phrases such as “This is a hearing world and the deaf must live in a hearing world.” Of course, we know that the world is full of hearing people and that they do not talk with their hands. If we cannot speechread most of them, if we cannot turn on the television set and follow the dialogue, if we cannot attend the opera then what alternative do we have? Should not every effort be made to see that deaf people are educated ? Educated deaf people can enjoy poetry instead of hearing music. Educated deaf people can enjoy books and magazines instead of staring blankly at a television set. Educated deaf people can think and thus adapt, cope and live productively in a world of the hearing. Is it not time that we deaf people are no longer looked upon as if we were disembodied beings with mouths and ears and protruding eyes floating around? Instead, should not primary consideration be given to our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions and, above all, to our happiness? I wear three hats—as a deaf adult, as an educator for 22 years and as a parent of a...