About Me
John F. Egbert
born in 1947 to hearing parents and raised in Jackson, Mississippi
Went to Gallaudet in 1966 and learned ASL for the first time.
Married Shirley D. Frelich in 1971 and raised two Deaf children in Minnesota
Shirley is a teacher at University of Minnesota
Oldest son, Clyde, Mac OS X tech at Texas School for the Deaf
Younger daughter, Stella, principal in elementary level at Texas School for the Deaf
Another e-mail trying to contact you. Reply if you get this.
I just attended David Eberwein and Barbara D.’s informative meeting telling all about your escapades with AG Bell and co at the Marriott - unbelievable.
Last year I decided to give up on getting a “real job” and to dedicate my resources (while I can) to advocating for Deaf language rights. I was the only hearing participant at the World Federation/Deaf’s Conference on Human Rights in 2005 - that helped me make the decision. I am a bridge to the hearing world. I will never see as well as Deaf people, and thus, will never sign as well or be an ASL poet,…., but I can use my hearing voice to tell hearing people that they are blind to an amazing world.
I, my books (attempting to publish the second one) and my passion are at your service. Tell me what I can do.
Yours for rights, as if humans mattered,
susan schaller, author of A Man Without Words (what can happen when a Deaf baby is not exposed to a visual language)
John,
I am an Egbert and deaf. My family is working on the Egbert family tree and we would love to know if you have some information on your family so we can compare and see where the deafness came from. There are some family members on my Egbert side that have a hearing loss, so this is why we are exploring…
Hi John,
I was hoping you could direct me to some research. Moi has a dead link to research that ends on your page, it’s about the benefits of ASL in learning spoken language. I’d very much like to see that as I’m a hearing mother of a deaf child who has an implant and signs. We want to continue ASL with him and give him the opportunity to be Deaf if that is what he wants someday, yet we are being hit with so much dogma about the importance of emphasizing the auditory pathways, blah blah blah.
Any research you could point me to would be so appreciated!
Thanks.
Hello John
It was great seeing you for the first time at Deaf Nation Expo. I had to search the internet to find you and your web blog.
As you know, you stopped by our booth at the Expo to find out about the NBAD 33rd Team Tournament, so that is your hobby as well as mine.
I am hoping that you can come to California and try out the lake next summer. It is known as “bass capital of the west,” so just google for it and it will point to Clear Lake of Calif.
FYI, my parents placed in in JTC, if you know what I meant.
Scott
Hi..
I have a great, great, great, great aunt , Susannah Williams who married Uriah Egbert. That is not my direct line, but those family descended from the Egberts in the 1700’s. I would be interested in where your family line descends from. I kind of know the Egbert family history because of my great, great, great great aunt. She and her husband Uriah resided in Ohio which is where my direct line came from.
I love your blog. Thumbs up.
Holly
Hello John,
I just received an email with a link to your blog. I don’t know how you found me or if you did but I am glad that I got your email. I have poked around the blog and made a couple of other posts.
You and I are nearly the same age. I was born in Jan. 1945. I am hearing and from a hearing family. In 1980 I met a few deaf people in Portland and became interested in sign language. I had never heard of ASL. But I did enroll in an interpreter training program in Portland. One of my first ASL teachers was Mark Azure who combined his love of art with his love of teaching. You may know Mark. Or maybe not.
In 1981 my wife and I adopted a deaf daughter. She was 18 months old when she came to live with us. With a little more than a year under my belt in the interpreter program both my wife and I knew a fair amount about ASL and were committed to providing our daughter Anna a bi-lingual ASL and English language learning opportunity.
To make a long story short we arranged to move from Portland to Washington D.C. and enrolled Anna at Kendall and I enrolled in a graduate program at Gallaudet. I graduated with an MA in ASL Linguistics in 1984. Our daughter grew up in a bi-lingual ( although it is very difficult for hearing parents to learn ASL as a second language above the 4th grade level.)
Our ability to sign was a good start for Anna. Being in pre-school at KDES and then later attending CSD and OSSD as Anna grew up gave her a great bi-lingual education. I cannot stress enough that ASL is a natural language. William Stokoe and other pioneer linguists have proved that beyond any doubt. A deaf child can learn ASL naturally if the people around the child can sign.
I applaud Heather for encouraging her boy to continue to learn and use ASL. He will be able to learn English more quickly because he is learning the language of ASL. But the real magic is the he can express himself and be clearly understood now. So many children whom I have met in oral programs have a great deal of difficulty speaking after years and years of effort. It is amazing to see a 10 month old deaf baby sign. “Mommie I am thirsty.” and can express
” I want water not milk”.
Because language is natural we might not think of it as a miracle but it truly is. In the right environment a child does not have to do anything to learn a language. In the wrong environment a child will suffer from an inability to express herself. Lip reading is a whole ‘nother story. Every language has two major components: one is receptive language ability, which for the hearing person is accomplished with no effort through the ears and for the deaf person with no effort through the eyes. The other is expressive language, which is speaking or signing. If either of those two components is delayed or out of reach for the normal person they will struggle for years and suffer the consequences.
Why not make it as easy as possible for all children to learn a language and then a second language and maybe a third?
Well I am getting off my soap box but I applaud you John Egbert for going public with your own experiences.