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From: Jay.Croft@p0.f147.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Jay Croft)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: Multiple Uses Of Sign
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Date: 28 Feb 91 16:01:54 GMT
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Index Number: 13736

Schools for deaf kids, particularly residential, MAY be factors in the
supposed isolation of deaf people--but for different reasons.

The education of deaf children is largely in the hands of people who
have never been deaf one day in their lives and never will be.  Schools
for deaf children often have unwritten quotas on how many deaf people
will be on their staffs, and what they will be teaching.

So, the children are taught by people from a different culture and a
different outlook on life.  The problem is made worse when sign language
is repressed or forbidden.

Children in so-called "mainstream" classes are isolated even worse,
right in the middle of all those hearing kids.  Only 1% of mainstream
teachers are themselves deaf.  Because these mainstream kids generally
go to day classes, once school lets out they go home and sit in front of
their television sets.

|James Womack (may his tribe increase!) would probably agree that
mainstream deaf kids often lack social skills because the kids have been
sitting in classrooms facing the teacher, and have little opportunity to
interact with each other and even with hearing children.  And there is
little opportunity for them to participate in varsity sports unless the
deaf kid happens to be a very good athlete.

Residential schools serve a valuable function in many ways.

--
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