Why Deafness?
In high school I was given the opportunity to work within a classroom as a cadet teacher. I came to the class for two hours every day and worked with the children in whatever subject area that they were working on. When I received my classroom placement for the year, I found out the classroom I was in also had multiple teachers within the class already. That is because there was a student who was deaf, in the class. The student, "Ali", not only had a general education teacher, a special education teacher, but also an interpreter. I was able to interact with Ali through her interpreter, "Ms. Davis", and therefore learn a little more about her. While I was never able to fully learn sign language, Ali would encourage Ms. Davis to teach me a few words, and tried to do so by herself as well. However, I realized that without Ms. Davis, I wasn't able to help or understand Ali. I didn't know enough about sign language or what she was experiencing to be able to fully help her. This idea was something I struggled with. For this reason, I have future plans to go into sign language and fully learn the language. Ali taught me the idea of patience and understanding how life was for her. Ms. Davis encouraged me to pursue this goal, and even explained to me that she started learning sign language by teaching herself.
Throughout all of my teaching courses here at MSU, I have always kept Ali in my heart. I have now found that I question my own lessons through her eyes, making sure that she could fully understand what it is that I am trying to teach. For this reason, I looked at this project within the same way. Where would Ali go to learn more about sign language? Would she be able to figure out that she is not the only person with this disability? Are there literature texts out there for her to reference and help her experience what other people feel in the world around her? This was something that I had to find out! I wanted to make sure that children like Ali and other children as well were able to learn about deafness and what it means. I wanted to see what literature was telling students about this physical disability and whether or not they got their information correct.
Throughout all of my teaching courses here at MSU, I have always kept Ali in my heart. I have now found that I question my own lessons through her eyes, making sure that she could fully understand what it is that I am trying to teach. For this reason, I looked at this project within the same way. Where would Ali go to learn more about sign language? Would she be able to figure out that she is not the only person with this disability? Are there literature texts out there for her to reference and help her experience what other people feel in the world around her? This was something that I had to find out! I wanted to make sure that children like Ali and other children as well were able to learn about deafness and what it means. I wanted to see what literature was telling students about this physical disability and whether or not they got their information correct.