Deaf in DC: A Memoir

22. Education Outside the Classroom

85 22 Education Outside the Classroom AS I WROTE EARLIER, MOST OF WHAT I LEARNED AT GALlaudet was outside the classroom. Since my deafness, I was forced to be my own teacher. I learned what interested me and learned when I was interested . Being part of a teacher’s captive audience for fifty minutes I found was not very conducive to learning. However, I never cut one class. I sat in the front row dutifully “listening” to each lecture with an eager expression as my mind drifted a million miles away. During each fascinating class session , I outdreamed Walter Mitty. I did manage to ask one or two questions in each class so the teacher would feel I was genuinely interested. I was learning a lot, however! People learn by doing things and talking about them. Gallaudet offered a lot of opportunities to participate in a number of extracurricular activities. During my first year, I started as the photographer for the Buff and Blue, the college newspaper. This was in addition to my photography job. I didn’t participate in other activities as I was not sure how much time schoolwork would take. After feeling the ropes during the first semester, I felt comfortable in joining various activities in addition to working twenty hours a week in the audiovisual department. I signed up to play soccer mainly due to pressure from my friend Leslie from Scotland. He was the captain of the team and a great player. The team was made up of foreign players, including Canadians. I had not played soccer since I left Gagret and even then it was sporadic. There was no soccer field or team in Gagret and we didn’t even have a soccer ball, so we played with rag balls or tennis balls. Even though I was already twenty-seven and not very athletic, the pressure to join the Gallaudet team was huge, so I joined. Needless to say, I warmed the bench during the whole year. My career as a soccer player was short-lived and painful—both physically and mentally. 86 d e a f i n d c But I learned a lot while practicing and playing. We players developed close bonds and had fun while not playing. I also learned that in America a coach does not need to know how to play the game. Our first coach, Mr. Bushnaq, fell down every time he tried to show us how to play. The fact that he had a cigarette in his mouth all the time didn’t help. Another coach, Mr. Minter, had never played soccer but knew all the rules from his classes. He had majored in PE, after all. ❖ In addition to becoming president of the Foreign Students Club, I also served as the managing editor of the Buff and Blue, class representative for the student body government and member of several committees. These activities didn’t cost me much time but provided me opportunities to learn communication and discussion skills. I lacked those because herding cattle in Gagret and plowing the fields behind a team of oxen were not fertile grounds to develop such skills. I felt really slow and stupid while sitting in those meetings watching other members overflowing with ideas—both smart and dumb—and sharing those eloquently. In India, we discussed issues informally and our conversations were short and to the point. All of those ideas that sounded so new to me were actually old ones. I was just in a new country. I could not get the nerve to get up and talk in front of other students for almost a year. Later, I began to feel more comfortable and started expressing my ideas. As I look back, these extracurricular activities helped in my career as a teacher and administrator. Standing in front of a class or the whole school requires self-confidence and the ability to think on one’s feet. Serving on these committees helped me develop these skills. The other productive learning opportunities were in the Student Union Lounge and dormitory lounges. The students talked and discussed things that were important and totally insignificant. They discussed politics , sports, girls, and issues specific to Gallaudet such as teachers, not necessarily in that order. Usually I listened as I really didn’t understand it all. American politics were new to me and the issue of the Vietnam War was never clear. Vietnam, which overshadowed all other issues in...