Embracing The Deaf Culture Of The Mainstream Classroom

The book “A Journey into the Deaf-World”, by Harlan Lane, Robert Hoffmeister, and Ben Bahan, is about the different people who are considered deaf: hard-of-hearing, deaf, and CODA. People who are hard-of-hearing are people who don 't hear well; people who are deaf lack the power of hearing since birth; you can be born hearing and throughout time lose some or all of your hearing sense. People who are CODA (children of deaf adults) are often signing because their parents are deaf and CODA’s often are helpful by being interpreters. CODAs become a great link between their parents and the hearing world. This book explains about deaf culture and how sign is a visual and manual way of conversing. The benefits of sign language are many and the ASL “foreign language” is growing among hearing as well. About more than 500,000 people sign in America alone. ASL is dated from 1779, but probably even earlier. Sign language promotes cultural awareness; deaf culture uses sign language as their main form of communicating.

There are various ways to educate deaf students and one method is called mainstreaming. Mainstreaming is when a student with a disability, in this case being hearing impaired, is taught in a class with hearing students. Mainstreaming is supposed to be beneficial for the deaf student in both a social level, as well as on an educational level. Focusing on the social aspect of mainstreaming, it is important to look at deaf interactions with peers in the mainstream setting as well as the acceptance of deaf peers from the hearing students. Deaf students are more likely to succeed academically in the mainstream environment, but when it comes to peer relations and development of a healthy self concept, mainstreaming is not as successful.

First, this book allowed me to see the negative way in which deaf people were perceived. This book is not old by any means, and I was taken aback by the way deaf children were perceived by not only others in the community, but often times by their own parents as well. The term

In this book, Deaf in America, by Carol Padden and Tom Humphries, the two authors wrote stories, jokes, performances, and experiences of Deaf people. They also wrote Deaf culture and Deaf people’s lives from various angles. This book is great navigator of Deaf world for hearing people and even Deaf people as me. There are several factors attracting reader. To begin with, I could learn about backgrounds of deaf people and hearing people. Authors wrote about a Deaf boy who was born into a deaf family. Until he discovered that a girl playmate in neighborhood was “hearing”, he didn’t notice about “Others”. Authors

There have been some reviews shown that “the barriers such as standardized testing, lack of support services, discrimination, and lack of awareness of deafness among principals in hiring positions are keeping deaf professionals out of schools.” The deaf teachers do not receive support as much as the hearing ones do, making it difficult for a deaf person to want to become a teacher and be continually motivated to complete the program to become a teacher and to ensure that they can also get a job. The journal emphasizes that the deaf students need the appropriate type of teachers, deaf teachers to be

However deaf culture is still a closely guarded memory thing to many. The American Deaf community views and values ASL as the central hub of a culturally Deaf identity. Through American Sign Language, members are given a unique way for expression of their personality, a special and visual language that does need the use of sound and puts emphasis on

The Deaf community share a common history, values, morals and experiences as some other cultures. Deaf individuals come from diverse backgrounds. Deaf culture focuses on the stimulation of the eyes and the enhanced visual perceptiveness of Deaf individuals. This has resulted in a great history of rich American Sign Language (literature and storytelling. The oral tradition of storytelling has allowed members of the Deaf community to pass down the histories of great Deaf men and women, providing for Deaf children access to role models that enable them to feel rooted in history, while also giving them mentors with common experiences.

Deaf culture is culture like any other. Deaf people share a language, rules for behavior, values, and traditions. The way the Deaf culture is living today is a direct result of the Deaf history that preceded it. Deaf history greatly affects how deaf people live their lives today. And not only do deaf people have a history, they have a culture.

The deaf culture can be seen from the perspective of one's own viewing, it makes you think about what is actually defining as “normal” and the decision of what is right and what is wrong. Deaf culture is a community in which the people share the same attitudes, and they share similar values and beliefs. As people of the hearing world, it's harder for us to see, and understand the deaf culture. As a hearing community, we take for granted being able to hear, and hearing and speaking is a big part in how we communicate with each other. For the deaf culture its the same but not as how others view it, the deaf culture uses symbols of the hand in order to communicate with others.

Cultural stereotypes used to consider deafness to be a great misfortune, but being deaf does not limit the abilities of a person. Members of the Deaf community consider deafness to be normal rather than a disability. A deaf people can do anything a hearing person can do, such as, drive, participate in group activities, communicate, and have normal lives. Deaf In the film “Through Deaf Eyes”, an HDTV documentary including interviews, personal stories, and historic accounts, the prejudice and affirmation of Deaf culture is revealed to show hearing people the reality of deaf life. Through this film, I have learned about education for deaf people, the Deaf President Now Movement, and about cochlear implants.

Some of the unique customs I have observed among Deaf people that would differentiate them from most hearing people would be the communication between one another and the use of expressions. The difference in communicating between both cultures play a big role in terms of comprehending someone either in the Deaf or hearing community. For instance, Deaf culture can communicate by signing, gesturing, lip reading, writing or typing to one another, video phones, emails, and by a third person who is capable of signing. As for the hearing culture, the communication is verbal. Therefore, voice calling such as the speaker is allowed when using telephones. In order to get someone’s attention in the Deaf culture the person must tap on their shoulder

I decided to attend this lecture by social geographer Gill Harold titled “Considering the Models of d/Deafness – the importance of making space for culture”, as I knew very little about the Deaf Community. To begin with Gill asked us if being deaf was a disability and what did we think of when we heard the word ‘Deaf’. Personally, I had perceived deafness to be a disability. In addition to this, when I thought about Deaf people, the silence was the first thing that came to mind, along with sign language and lip reading. It would also appear that the field of deaf education is dominated by hearing professionals, hearing researchers, and hearing policymakers. Regularly these professionals have not taken a sensitive approach to the Deaf Community or their wishes for the future of deaf education.

In the Deaf world, the people who are Deaf, deaf, hard-of-hearing, and orals have many defined of each term to identify what they are. They once thought that they are part of the Deaf Culture in which they would think that where they belong. In this research, this will discuss about the difference and how it impact the Deaf community within their culture, value, experiences. Also people who are deaf have experiences stereotyping from those people who don’t understand their culture. There are also many myths in our society and interfere with understanding people who are deaf.

It is quite a task to identify oneself within a “culture” due to the unique social, behavioral, and physical traits each culture represents themselves with. As I began learning about the hallmarks of Deaf culture such as “language, heritage art and history”, I began wondering about how the historical significance of each one impacted the modern choices of Deaf individuals (Holcomb 17). Our textbook Introduction to American Deaf Culture makes references to how important American Sign Language is to define the Deaf community which leaves me wondering how strong the foundation of Deaf culture would be if based on heritage rather than on language. Being Jewish I never learned Hebrew but knew all the prayers, values, and traditions to feel

You many know a few famous individuals of the deaf and hard of hearing community such as Helen Keller, who lost her sight and hearing at 19 months who grew up to be a famous author and advocate, the famous German composer Ludwig van Beethoven, and even our very own former Seahawks fullback, Derrick Coleman. Have you ever thought how an individual that is deaf and hard of hearing is impacted in the school environment? We will take a look at the terms of deaf and hard of hearing, how it is acquired, the effects on learning with this disability, educational services that fall under IDEA and WA state guidelines. We will discover how teachers can create accommodations and modifications for success for these students and ending it with resources that can help educators, families and children that are affected with deafness.