Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!olivea!oliveb!bunker!hcap!hnews!681!853.1!StEpHeN.wHiTe From: StEpHeN.wHiTe@p1.f853.n681.z3.fidonet.org (StEpHeN wHiTe) Newsgroups: misc.handicap Subject: Re: Hearie signers Message-ID: <18120@bunker.UUCP> Date: 15 Mar 91 04:49:01 GMT Sender: news@bunker.UUCP Reply-To: StEpHeN.wHiTe@p1.f853.n681.z3.fidonet.org Distribution: misc Organization: FidoNet node 3:681/853.1 Lines: 180 Approved: wtm@bunker.UUCP Index Number: 13960 [This is from the Silent Talk Conference] You write to Womack and Womack (sorry, couldn't resist!) TS> So, I'm curious.. (Excuse me but I'm new here.) you strike me as TS> a deaf indivual who signs ASL and is equally accomplished in the TS> English laguage.. If I am right. This is really interesting, TS> since I am "deaf as a post", deffie, whatever.. And ASL is my TS> first language. I have never met a "real" deaf person that is as TS> accomplished at slingin' the english lingo as you... Depends on what you mean by a "real" deaf person. Take me for example. I am "profoundly" deaf from birth, at 110db+ loss all throughout the frequency range. However, I have an _extremely_ rare form of deafness, which hasn't even been proven to exist. The range of volume between perception and pain is _compressed_. It would be better to demonstrate visually. db levels ------- | | | | | | | | ??? 300db | | <-- loudest deaf person can stand | | | | | | | | | | ??? 200db | | <-- loudest hearing person can stand | | | | | | ??? 150db |.......| <-- loudest I can stand before pain |.......| |.......| 110db |.......| <-- quietest I can hear | | 80db | | <-- quietest deaf person can hear | | | | | | | | 5db | | <-- quietest a hearing person can hear ------- I'm not sure of the upper levels... Remember that the db scale is logarithmic, which means that 11db is 2.71 times (or something like that) louder as 10db. Because of the rare nature of my hearing, there are a few strange results. Because of the lowered threshold of pain, I'm prenaturally sensitive to the sounds which fall within that bandwidth. At this point, I'll have to use a very inexact anology to give an idea of the differing amounts of perception of sound between myself and a normal deaf person. Imagine an upright post with the bottom stuck in the ground. If you push at top of the post, then the top of the post will move as much as your hand pushes it. If you push at the bottom of the post, the top of the post will move much further than your hand moves. Thus, I can perceive sounds, just a little bit above my lowest threshold, easily. I also have none of the distortion of hearing that usually goes with nerve deafness. As a result, with powerful hearing aids, I can hear sounds. It gets quite ironic. I am deafer than most deaf people, even the really deaf ones. However, I talk almost perfectly, and lipread excellently. I went to a normal school for most of my life, up until Year 12; then I needed more specialised help, so I went to a school for the deaf. The students there wouldn't believe that I am really deaf. They asked me what I was doing in the school. I didn't have any trouble making friends (I never do), but I never really meshed in. My sense of humour didn't fit the deaf sense of humour, being rather twisted, and of a hearie flavour. In fact, the deaf person is a remarkably humourless sort of fellow. I learnt sign language very rapidly, picking up in a month what it would take the average person two years. I was told that I only needed to do it for another two years (average person two years that is; the person didn't know how long it took to get to my current level) before my level of signing accomplishment would be almost indistinguishable from someone that had been signing since birth. Yet, I was unable to progress any further. Nobody was willing to correct me when I used English phrasing, not an Auslan (Australian Sign Language) phrasing. How am I supposed to learn to sign _properly_ when they don't tell me that I'm not signing properly? I've never really been part of either the deaf or hearing community. It is a lonely position. It has to be said; the deaf children in that school were a singuarly moronic lot. They were a bunch of rather simpleminded fools, not in the least bit interested in anything beyond the understanding of a child of about fourth grade. Note that I was the same age as them. I call them children because of their stage of development. I blame the teachers for that. It was a signing school, not an oral school, but the teachers were so incredibly incompetent in signing that they ended up talking most of the time. Those kids will be graduating with a reading and writing level of about fifth grade, and social awareness of third grade. The teachers were also appallingly foul specimens of the teacher genre. They screamed, ranted, raved, practised intellectual cruelty, and subjected the kids to all forms of repression; physical and mental. The poor kids never knew any better. I did, having come from a normal school; and I thought all the teachers deserved to be removed from their jobs with extreme prejudice. They still do. That year was _the_ worst year of my life. I came close to cracking under the strain they put me through. Almost every single day, two or three of my so-called helpers would call me out of classes and subject me to half hour sessions (an hour if they got into their stride) of abuse and threats of violence. I couldn't do a bloody thing. If I objected, I would be thrown out and my chance at University ruined. I just stared blankly at them when they screamed at me, ignored them telling the other teachers lies about me, and played truant for almost a third of the year because I couldn't face it. At 18 years old - legally, physically, and mentally an adult. I doubt many people could have stood the shit I went though. I used to dream of beating the shit out of my headmaster and the teachers almost every night. Pistols, bazookas, baseball bats, and lots of gore and pulped heads featured in great detail. After I left, it took me about 4 or 5 months before I had fully recovered from the trauma. I had the last laugh though. Without any real effort, I sat and passed my Matriculation exams, and got into University. So much for being an intellectual zero like they accused me of being. The teachers didn't know that. When the new year started, they told all the remaining children that I had failed (a breach of privacy; they broke the law there), and I had the great satisfaction of writing to inform them that I got into University, and that one of the offers that I had (which I didn't accept) was a Bachelor of Education, Teacher of the Deaf. To give you an idea of how perverted that school is - the year after I left, the headmaster (my worst adversary) hung himself. He was faced with charges of assulting students, sexual haressment of the female teachers, and had problems with his family. Good riddance to scum, is my opinion. May he burn in hell. Before anyone can argue about mainstreaming, try considering the type of vermin put in charge of deaf children. Hmm, I got rather sidetracked. The people in Abled will have have heard this spiel once before. You can wake up now! Anyway, I'm a "real" deafie from my perspective, but I don't know whether other deaf people would think the same. -- Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!3!681!853.1!StEpHeN.wHiTe Internet: StEpHeN.wHiTe@p1.f853.n681.z3.fidonet.org