We finally took a break after a long afternoon. Everyone was glad to have a few minutes to stretch, get a drink, use the restroom, chat, and help the catering reduce the amount of food on the table to zero. I spent the time perusing the books available at the Gallaudet University Press table. Since they were offering a discount for conference-goers, I was seriously considering buying a book or two to add to my ever-growing collection!

This was the last break for us all– we soon were called back into the auditorium, to hear the last panel of the conference. Things were starting to wind down; a few people already had to leave for home.

The final panel would focus exclusively on the Deaf poet, Laura Redden Searing (1839-1923). The panel, appropriately, is titled “Deaf Poet Laura Redden.” Teresa Burke was the moderator for this panel, and introduced the three speakers, who are Debora Ripley, Lucille Blackwell, and Harry Lang. Ripley and Blackwell both teach at the Missouri School for the Deaf, while Lang is a professor at NTID. We’ll hear first from Ripley, an art teacher, who will present “Connecting Laura Redden with Today’s High School Deaf Students.”

Ripley: I work with Blackwell; we try to get students interested in history, so by the time they come to college they have a love of history. Today, I want to share a few examples of what were doing on the high school level. I will also speak about Redden as well.

In my own family, it’s sometimes difficult to get them interested in history and the past. They’re spoiled by Disney World-type vacations. I planned a trip to D.C. for five days, but the kids complained after the second day, and the Air and Space museum isn’t the same as Space Mountain.

So how do we engage students in learning to enjoy something? Sometimes it helps to make them think it’s their idea in getting involved in a topic or subject, and then enjoying the process. Sometimes it’s as simple as drawing contrasts between what they’re doing or what they’re seeing on TV. For example, getting kids interested in the Renaissance– it was difficult, but we planned a Renaissance festival at school, and in preparation we were to go to a larger festival. Unfortunately, there was no way to make any connections. Luckily the day before our class was to do our Renaissance unit was the opening ceremony of the 20th Winter Olympic Games in Torino, Italy. So I used this as a way to forge connections, from the winter sports equipment requirements, to the differences in snowflakes, to using science equipment to compare snowflakes, and so on. Then our next “connection” was trying to figure out when the microscope was first invented. So making connections is important in education. Now today, we’re focusing on Laura Redden. We take special interest in her as an alumnae.

So how do we get the kids engaged in Laura Redden? We start by describing her and referencing her as if though she were living today. If you point to her as a career woman, a divorced single mom, then it seems more like something that is happening in 2007, and students can relate to that. From there we go into her attributes, and then tell them that she graduated from the same school they’re attending. Now you have their attention, and now we can connect her to what’s going on in history, reading, writing, art, poetry, etc. Now she becomes an interesting point for further study. We could do a performance about her in drama class, for example. I’m going to show you a little bit of how we approach her in our program. You can use other deaf role models and people for your own schools and classes. Redden is just an example based on our own experiences.

One example of what we do– we started with a birthday party that then led to exploring who Redden was. [Ripley shows a picture of an enameled pin with Redden’s face on it] We used this pin at one of our programs and we handed it out. We have postcards that we passed out with a picture and brief biographical information [Ripley shows a slide of the postcard].

Now I want to talk about cross-curriculum activities. [Ripley tries to get her equipment working]. I’m sorry, the film clip isn’t working. But essentially you can use these techniques for any historical figure, not just Laura Redden Searing. We have enjoyed our time here, and we will take back what we have learned with us and get our students engaged with history.

My Commentary: This was the weakest presentation of the entire conference, unfortunately. While Ripley’s enthusiasm for the work she and Blackwell are conducting is admirable, she spends the first half of her presentation not really talking about Redden Searing or Gallaudet or Kendall Green at all. The second half is about educational techniques in getting students involved in a topic. The tie-in here is that the topic is Laura Redden Searing. This is definitely an interesting subject, and the techniques she outlines are useful, I’m sure, but would be far more appropriate at a teacher’s workshop or a CEASD convention, or a high school education conference. This forum is focusing on the history of Kendall Green, and by extension, Gallaudet, and has attracted both as presenters and audience members scholars, academics, and amateur historians. Hopefully Ripley will preserve her talk and use it in a more appropriate setting or at a different conference.