More Than Meets the Eye: Revealing the Complexities of an Interpreted Education

Chapter 6. What Remains to Be Seen

164 Chapter 6 What Remains to Be Seen Although many Deaf and hard of hearing children access education through interpreters, research on educational interpreters is scant and has focused on revealing inadequacies of underqualified interpreters rather than examining exactly what it is that qualified interpreters do.This volume provides the most thorough description to date of what K–12 interpreters do and what factors inform their decisions. My examination of interpreters at work and in interviews revealed the complexity of classroom interpreting . While educational interpreters certainly (a) interact with others and (b) interpret or transliterate, they also (c) assess and respond to a complexity of contextual, situational, and human factors. Moreover, interpreters (d) seek and capitalize on resources needed to do their jobs more effectively. Finally, K–12 interpreters (e) take on additional responsibilities as situations arise and needs present themselves. Furthermore, what interpreters do is largely affected by what is going on at any given moment. Based on my observations, I chose to focus on what interpreters do in response to contextual, situational, and human factors relating to just three desired objectives for the students with whom they worked: optimizing visual access, promoting learning of language and content, and cultivating opportunities for participation and inclusion. I did not include myriad additional factors likely to affect interpreters’ decisions, such as working with teachers who are not as open to adjusting their teaching styles or working with Deaf and hard of hearing students who have more serious social, cognitive, linguistic, or behavioral issues. Neither did I address how Deaf and hard of hearing students might participate fully in social interactions with their peers outside of the classroom and in extracurricular activities. Much still remains to be seen about the roles interpreters play. What is clear, however is that educational interpreters need specialized knowledge and skills in order to meet the unique visual as well as language and learning needs of Deaf and hard of hearing students . Additional support structures and systems must be put into place if the promise of inclusion is ever to become more than merely a promise. What Remains to Be Seen : 165 TAKING A HARD LOOK AT DEAF EDUCATION Much has been written about the illusion of inclusion, especially in regard to the lack of interpreter qualifications (Jones, 1993; La Bue, 1998; Russell, 2006; Schick et al., 2006), but also in terms of power dynamics (Glickman, 2003), social implications (Power & Hyde, 2002) and accessibility of the school context and academic discourse (Ramsey, 1997; Winston, 1994, 2004). “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 interpreter-mediated education remain. Certainly the school experiences of Deaf and hard of hearing students working with interpreters are far different than those of their peers. According to Kurz and Langer (2004), “A constellation of factors has to be properly aligned to achieve adequate access to education through an interpreter. Even if that alignment were achieved, these participants are quite aware that they still would not have equal access to education because of inherent alterations associated with the interpreting process” (p. 11). The popcorn-reading scenario is one of several school situations I observed in which inclusion and equal access were not achieved. Certainly, participation is of the utmost importance. Students who do not have the opportunity to participate regularly are likely to become observers, relegated further and further from the core of the classroom interactions and school culture. Educational interpreters must avoid making decisions that contribute to the creation of discourse patterns and expectations in which the Deaf or hard of hearing student becomes a passive learner, in danger of drifting further away from her classmates both socially and academically. Creating change in the learning experience of Deaf and hard of hearing students is imperative in light of the dismal statistics regarding their educational outcomes. To date, schools have largely failed to effectively meet the needs of Deaf and hard of hearing students (California Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Education Advisory Task Force, 1999; Commission on Education of the Deaf [COED], 1988). In a 2007 State of Education address, California’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction reported that only 8% of Deaf students and 15% of hard of hearing students scored proficient or above on English 166 : chapter 6 language arts...