This semester I am enrolled in a class at the University of South Florida called Cultural Diversity. In this class there are a lot of American Sign Language Interpreting majors along with speech majors. The reasons for this majority is the content that this class covers has a lot to do with the Deaf community and also addresses several different cultures and how to approach these people differently while working.
Last week on Friday morning my professor, Mr. Surrency announced that class would be different. He gave us instructions for an exercise that he felt would get his lesson across better than a lecture would do. The instructions were as follows:
"When you hear the word DEAF what do you think about? If you think about a disability, hearing loss, hearing aids, cochlear implants, and doctors I want you to go to the left side of the room. If you think about a culture, language, community, and ASL I want you to go to the right side of the room."
The class then got up and moved to whatever side of the room their perspective reflected. I was not surprised to see that all my friends that were also in the ASL interpreting track were all on the right side of the room. Several of the speech/audiology majors were sitting on the left side of the room. To my surprise the Deaf student was sitting on the left side of the room as well.
Many students whispered amongst themselves wondering why this Deaf student would reveal that she has a medical view on deafness. Admittedly I was surprised but this was exactly what I wanted to write about this semester. I wanted to address the issue of shaming certain perspectives on deafness.
After the class was split down the middle the professor then asked that everyone pair up; one person from the left with one person on the right and discuss our views. He then wanted us to argue the opposing perspective, so for example my perspective was more cultural so I had to argue the medical perspective. For me, this was not an issue since I've been conducting research this entire semester on the medical perspective, but for many of my friends' who are leaning on the cultural perspective and are uneducated on the medical point of view had a very difficult time.
As a class, the professor asked us some controversial questions such as, "at what age is it appropriate to implant a child with a cochlear implant?" I was really surprised that a group of students yelled out "18! They should be able to choose for themselves!" The Deaf student in class also agreed that the child should be able to choose. What these students don't realize is that the longer you wait to get a cochlear implant the less effective it will be. If you find out that your child is profoundly Deaf at the age of 3 but you wait until they turn 18 years old, it may not even be worth the surgery at that point.
Another question Mr. Surrency asked was, "If a family knows spoken English as their primary language and their child is Deaf, should they go the medical route or integrate the child in the Deaf community?" This was a more complicated question because many people stated that the family should adjust and learn sign language and introduce other deaf people to their child. However, if you think about it....what is easier? Having the whole family adjust and learn a new language or having the child adjust to English? Many families choose the easier route because they want their child to be able to communicate in their primary language.
By the end of the discussions and going back and forth I do feel that many students got the point. That no matter what your view on deafness is, we should all respect each other and what choices people choose to make. With that being said, we have a long way to go.
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