Mr Pnutt's Dog & Pony Show Returns!

Mr Pnutt Gets Serious For A Change, Pt 2: The Big Lie

Truth is, teachers are coming into an broken educational system, one that has not only failed the students, but continuously failing gifted TEACHERS. Students believe the Big Lie, soak up the excuse that english is a "hearie" thing, and are not only confused by the conflict of  being told to "learn english" and then having every unspoken addition of: but since ASL'ers can't learn english well, we won't push you too hard or come down on you too hard if you fail. 

When we speak of "third grade level", we're actually referring to english proficiency, not academic proficiency or ability. 

Many deafies in institutions  learn computers, math, art, dance, vocational skills etc. at the institution,  within programs which, if they could only compare & believe, are as good or even better than the classes their hearing counterparts get. 

I speak here from experience - CSDB had a better computer dept, drama dept, Recreation dept.,athletic department (in terms of resources), vocational classes, etc. than the hearing high school I finished my last 2 years of high school at - and i went to a good school, on a military base.  These schools tend to BETTER, not worse, academically than the surrounding public schools, too -  discipline runs deep among the "Air Force Brats" & if U got in trouble, your DAD  got called up on the carpet and then caught hell from HIS commander, and then, when he got home, YOU caught hell..  Shit truly flows downhill in the military, folks.

Also, as deafies in state institutions, we are exposed early and often to the kindness of strangers. 

 Our teachers are more widely traveled, socially liberal and often much more dedicated to us than their hearing counterparts are to their students.  They're often part of our social lives after we graduate (if they're deaf, anyway.). These people may have unintentionally exposed us to the "Big Lie" of english, but, never forget, hearing or deaf, these people often  FIGHT for us,  to provide us with terps, to provide us with experiences, and give us opportunities to see the good side of people.  When we succeed, they cheer louder than anyone.

It's no accident that we tend to be good at making friends in strange places.  We got that from the State school experience.  In the hearing world, only military brats, who  move often, can compare - and for them, once they move again, all those friendships are lost.  Ours aren't.  

Remember, during the protest when the BoT was meeting at the Hilton and Dr. Hank Klopping, the longtime  (hearing) CSDB Superintendant, flew in to speak in support of the pretestors?  No grad of CSDB/F was surprised. He is one of the best friends deafies have ever  had. he is one of the most dedicated supporters of the civil rights of the deaf in California, and probably one of the sweetest men I've ever met in my life. 

I arrived at CSDB knowing no sign language.  I had a very rough childhood, the kind they make depressing TV movies out of , and had no social skills at all. I was small in those days due to bad nutrition (but filled out later) and, not to make too fine a point on it, was basically a little asshole with a mean mouth and a snooty attitude.

So I was pretty lonely for a while, although later on I did acquire rudimentary social skills and made some very good friends as I learned to sign awkwardly ( I was only there for 4 years,  then my dad's squadron moved again and so did I.) But I never experienced the "rejection" by my schoolmates.  I was never popular, but somehow there was always one of my classmates engaging me in conversations, trying to include me in activities, etc.

I faced down my first bully there, and learned how to stand alone when I had to My first kiss, first love and first heartbreak were all during my CSDB years.

I used to wander out of the dorm, go to his house and knock on the door - and he would just invite me in, fit me into the life of his family. I played with his kids in the den, ate treats his wife Bunny made - and, I'll never forget the time he wandered into the cafeteria one sunday, discovered that my dad never gave me any money for the snackbar or anything else, reached into his pocket, pulled out a five and quietly stuffed it into my shirt pocket.  A great, great human being, who will be sorely missed when he retires.  

I am just one of HUNDREDS, if not thousands, of CSDB  who welcomed into his house & took under his wing.  I don't know how he found out that I didn't have much in the way of a home life, but he knew, somehow, and did something about it. 

Many other CSDB students  can tell you stories about Dr. Klopping as good as mine, or better. 

Deaf  Audism  cuts these people off from us since few of the hearing teachers and administrators are ASL'ers - and therefor minimizes the gifts and support they can offer us.  We cut them off - and they sadly go back to the hearing world and treat teaching like a job.  But they start out as idealists, ready to join us and help change the world.   

Another example of an advantage we have that public schools don't:

At CSDB, pro athletes from the (then) Oakland Raiders, Oakland A's, SF Giants, Golden State Warriors, etc  visited the campus every year, guys  who were no great shakes with a pen but had a god-given physical gift and a big heart.  We got free tickets to Candlestick Park for SF games and also went to Oakland A's games, free, every year. 

My  friends at the gumflapper schools were ENVIOUS of my experiences at CSDB, and not just baseball, but the whole dorm experience & the many trips we got to take (such as the first California Classic basketball invitational basketball tourney; hearing kids rarely get to travel across  state lines and have a blast, like we do via sports, the Jr. NAD camp and events, etc. They get opportunities that we don't, but WE get opportunities THEY don't.  It evens out, in my opinion.

At CSDB, we often took trips to a leadership camp located on a beach in  Monterey, after driving thru the Napa wine country - some of the prettiest land anywhere.)  After some really fun team exercises, the counselors fed us, turned us loose, and we played on the dunes late into the night. 

Thru CSDB, I had backpacked the Sierra Nevada mountains,witnessed first hand the social upheaval of the period (Black Panthers were still around then, and UC Berkeley was, like, 4 blocks from our campus.  In fact, the old CSDB campus is now part of the UC campus.) traveled to beautiful places, camped on the beach not far from Big Sur, etc. (Deaf Boy Scouts - I was later an assistant scoutmaster at MSSD while still a Gally student, paying back a little.)  I and many others experienced our first loves and our first broken hearts at State schools. 

The only trips I ever took during my final two years in public school, except for day trips to sports matches,  I can recall clearly - because there were only three  of them, one to the State finals in cross country running, and two out-of-state academic competitions (Which I tied for first at - 90 different high schools from 3 states participated, it was held on a college campus and we hade a BLAST).  That's IT.

But the  "Big Lie" whispers to us that we're missing out on freedom, independence, the opportunity to flip- burgers at Mcdonald, driving privileges,  etc. that hearing kids have - and so turns all those great opportunities into something that eats our souls like acid: CHARITY. 

 This poisons everything. 

The world treats all these things as "charity" given to the poor weak-minded deafies, from the generous mighty hearies up on there mountain, (and, sadly, so do many hearing folks) instead of what they REALLY are: OPPORTUNITY. 

Opportunity to travel, to meet people, to get access to financial source for college, that no hearing school can MATCH. 

First hand experience speaking here,  folks.  I'm sure you can come up with more.

Mr Pnutt Gets Serious For A Change, Pt 1: Deaf-On-Deaf Audism

Audism has two faces, folks.  There's the one the FSSA so bravely and persistently defeated, and the other, much more ugly one, that is now beginning to rear its very ugly head.

I'm speaking of the form of audism that comes FROM the deaf community, as opposed to the kind imposed on us by the gumflappers whose ears are good for  more than holding their glasses up. 

Don't get me wrong. I supported the protest and the FSSA - donated a little money here in Illinois at our Tent City,  went alone to  Ray LaHood's office here in Illinois (he's my congressthing) and told his staff, at great length,  what the FSSA was fighting for, and wrote comments in others blogs,participating in that wonderful, freewheeling discussion that was going on,  and hoped and  prayed along with everyone else.

I am a DEAFIE, folks, a Gallaudet Alumni (e-84, ASP, B nB, etc.) and proud of it. 

That being said, I'm more than a little bit disturbed at the backlash and nasty comments I'm  seeing in print against people who came to ASL late in life, people who were raised as oral, C.I.'s, Cuers, SEE, SIMCOM, etc. as a component of the recent successful upsurgence in pride at Gallaudet. 

Any deafie seen using anything except ASL is automatically branded a traitor &  tool of the oppressors. C.I. kids face intense pressure to unhook.  The thing is, the C.I. kids usually had ZERO say about whether or not to be implanted.

NONE of us had any choice about where we learned signs, or what sort educational environment we got. Take me: my dad was career military, so I ended up atytending 10 schools in 12 years all over the U.S. & Japan.  When we returned to the US in the early 70's, people who should have known better told my dad that sign language was for dummies - so I was tossed into every kind of classroom over the years: a self-contained classroom (here, I got my first exposure to sign. AZ teacher handed me the old SEE dictionary and told me to learn signs.  By myself.) 

 My father was in the Air Force for 20 years.  We moved often, following his squadron, and I ended up attending 10 schools in 12 years, often moving several times per year.  I've been in every kind of program there is (or was, back then) except for cued speech. Oral, mainstreamed but in a special deaf classroom, mainstreamed without a special classroom & no interpreter, institution (CSDB, 1974-78).

Most of the time, I was just tossed into the public school system without any support whatsoever - and, folks, while I used to be able to speak clearly, having lost my hearing @ age 8, my speech degenerates more and more each passing year.   I now have such a hard time making myself understood orally, now,  I am as as dependenton on terps as everyone else is.)  

You get the point. It took me years to get comfortable expressing myself in sign, and I didn't really become fluent until my Gallaudet years.  It was fairly rare back then, but much more common now, I believe.  

We're like Londoners that way.  We can judge a person and sense their history according to the way they communicate, what signs or mode they use, etc. 

At any rate, a distressing and  unspoken side effect to this is: anyone truly skilled and comfortable with written english is suspect.  Big vocabulary, can write like a gumflapper buts signs like a Pigeon or simcoms?   Aha! here's  spy, an interloper, Comrades! Take him outside and shoot him!

Punch up the comments on Ridor and other blogs using a keyword search "simcom."  Its' pretty representative.  

We need to throttle this particular breed of snake RIGHT NOW.  Why? 

• One,  It reminds me too much of what's happening in the African-American community, where, in poor areas, people consider academic excellence a "white" or "asian," thing to excuse their own failures. The "deaf crab barrell" ain't the only barrell of crabs out there

• Two, people reading these things might think that we "tweeners" (my word for deafies raised outside the system, cuz we tend to get stuck between two worlds.) will run into more rejection from the deaf community, on top of the rejection of the gumflapping world.  We lose a LOT of talent this way. Besides...    

• Three, this sort of Deaf-on-deaf Audism is  HOLDING US ALL BACK, BOTH AS A COMMUNITY AND AS INDIVIDUALS.  Institutional teachers at all levels K-12  believe that vicious old lie that deafness and grammar just don't mix, since they either grew up with it themselves or because this is hammered into them from above (principals & Superintendants) below (students) and from each side (staffers) and so they either stop trying, or never try at all, although they would phrase it differently.

Sigh, OK,  rant over...for now.

Mr Pnutt's Bob Davila Story

I first met Bob Davila in 1974 or so, when I was 12 years old & a student @ CSD Berkely. I was coming out of the auditorium and bumped into him. He happened to be visiting the campus that day, and asked me very nicely what I was doing.  I told him I was in a play.  He stood there and talked to me for about 15 minutes about his experiences at CSDB. 

I left thinking, "what a great guy!"

Fast forward to my NSO year @ Gally.  The welcoming speaker was none other than Bob Davila. He told the following story:

When he was a senior @ Gally, all the male students were expected to dress nicely - ties, etc. Now, there was a tradition @ the time that underclassmen were not allowed to wear tie tacks - only seniors were permitted this piece of self-adornment.  Bob, being a senior, wore his proudly.

On the first day of NSO that year, he bumped into a small, skinny little guy, very young looking, wearing a tie tack.  Bob told him to take it off, and the guy complied.

Later in the day, he bumped into the guy again - wearing a tie tack!  Bob chewed him  out but good & made him take it off. "ONLY SENIORS!!!!"  Again, the fellow meekly complied.

The next day, classes started.  Bob walked into his chemistry class, and guess who the teacher was?

You got it -  the young-looking little fella Bob had been chewing out the day before.  whoops....

Upshot: Bob passed the class.

About 3 years after I left Gallaudet to work for a bank in DC, I moved into a house owned by Bob and his wife.  They'd been renting it to deafies while he was working in New York.  It was a very nice house in a good neighborhood - and those deafies DESTROYED the place.  I felt so bad when he moved back in and saw  how much needed to be done - but he never said a word about it.

 He is coming out of retirement to take care of us all one more time; I truly believe he could have had the permanent post if he wished.   Along with his charm (when he wishes it) he can be a VERY hard-nosed, tough-minded individual, and that's what Gally needs right now.

He's facing a mountain of problems, but that's nothing new for him -  he came to the USA from Mexico with his family, and spoke no english at all (or Spanish, really, since he was the only deafie in his famkily).  They were migrant workers, travelling from farm to farm picking fruits & vegtables as they came in season, and, as you can guess, were very, very poor.

But somehow they heard about the school for the deaf in Berkely, and sent him there - still speaking no english or sign language.  It didn't hold him down or keep him back for long - we all know what a success story he became after that.

What might not be as widely known is that the current US President, George W, offered him a position in the new administration (US gov't, not Gally) and Bob turned him down. He really is coming off the bench one more time for Kendall Green.

I wish him all the success in the world! 

Mr Pnutt's Dog & Pony Show: The Fun Begins