An Interpreter Isn’t Enough
The New York Times
Schools for All, or Separate but Equal?; An Interpreter Isn’t Enough
By LEAH HAGER COHEN
February 22, 1994
It’s a few minutes before the class will start. Everyone’s fishing
notebooks from knapsacks and sharpening pencils, and it’s all “What did
you put for the last answer on the algebra?” and “Tomorrow’s the last
day for yearbook money, right?” and “If we want to stay for the game,
Toni says she can give us a ride.” All of the eleventh-graders are
speaking or listening, directly or indirectly. Except for one student,
sitting down front. She is neither speaking nor listening; she is not
involved; she is deaf.
I am her sign-language interpreter. I stand at the front of the class,
poised to begin signing whenever she looks at me, but she doesn’t; she
is resting her eyes on the sky outside the window. When at last she
does turn her face, it is not to see what her classmates are saying but
to chat with me about her weekend, about the book I am reading, about
her dog, my sweater, anything. She is hungry for communication and
chooses me — an adult satellite paid to follow her through the school
day — rather than her peers, who do not speak her language.
Class begins. She pays attention for a while. Sometimes when the
teacher asks a question, she signs a response, which I interpret into
spoken English — always a little late, just a few seconds after the
other students. Sometimes the students all talk at once; their voices
overlap and I have to choose one thread to follow, or compress them all
in a quick synopsis, inserting who said which thing to whom and in what
tone of voice.
Sometimes I make a mistake and have to correct myself and then we both
fall behind and I scramble, signing extra-fast to catch up. Sometimes,
when I am speaking for her, I don’t understand something she has
signed. I have to ask her to repeat it, and I can see her flush, both
of us sensing the polite and condescending impatience of the teacher
and the class.
Sometimes the teacher uses a roll-down map or an overhead projector,
and all the students train their eyes on the visual information while
listening to the teacher. I move closer to the map or screen, trying to
make my hands make sense of all the information. The girl looks at me,
then at the visual display. The teacher talks on. By the time the
student looks at me again, she has lost three sentences. She looks at
her notes and loses more sentences. Frustration flickers across her
face, her eyes go blank and she gives up, returning her gaze to the
sky.
I do not eat lunch with her, but I have seen her in the cafeteria at a
long white table with other students. She is able, sort of, to
participate in conversation, if someone makes a point of turning and
speaking directly to her. Because she has trouble lip reading and they
have trouble understanding her speech, she often resorts to pen and
paper. The students are patient. But conversation usually ricochets
across the table too rapidly for her even to pretend comprehension, so
she takes a bite of her sandwich. She chews carefully, almost
surreptitiously; she has been told that deaf people make funny noises
when they eat.
More often, she doesn’t go to the cafeteria at all. She spends her
lunch period at the library, in woodshop, on the basketball court
shooting hoops. She’s a good athlete. She runs with the cross-country
team, but she doesn’t participate in student government or school plays
or the literary magazine or cheerleading. She prefers activities in
which she can excel alone.
Her parents are proud that she attends a regular public school. They do
not use sign language. On Mondays, she comes to school ravenous for
conversation with me. She signs gregariously before class and even
during class, and I smile in a small way and sign back: wait, wait,
we’ll talk about it later, the teacher’s speaking now.
Her teachers ask me how I think she’s doing. I tell them that I cannot
say; as the interpreter, I’m not permitted to give an opinion. I say,
“Maybe you would like to ask her? I’d be glad to interpret if you’d
like to ask her yourself.” They do not take me up on it.
This girl could go to a federally-financed school for the deaf, where
all the students can converse with each other, all the information is
presented visually, teachers sign and deaf adults serve as role models,
deaf kids lead the student government and star in the school play.
These schools prepare students for jobs and college. They also give the
students access to the deaf community, which has its own language,
folklore, traditions, social clubs, periodicals, athletic teams and
political events. The schools have always served as the cultural center
of the deaf community. Yet proponents of inclusion would like to close
them, claiming that it would liberate deaf people from the
“discrimination” of separate schooling and give them equality. All it
would require are some sign-language interpreters to smooth out the
differences, they say.
To many deaf people, this is at best maddeningly naive; at worst, it is
chauvinistic. The history of deaf people is one of mandated
assimilation: we can make you more like hearing people, we can make you
more normal.
Proponents of inclusion should ask themselves why it looks so
appealing. Is it the policy that will best serve deaf people? Or is it
simply a way to further that great American myth, the one we seem to
need like oxygen, that says we’re all created equal?
Leah Hager Cohen is author of “Train Go Sorry: Inside a Deaf World.”
Book:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=RNWE,RNWE:2004-44,RNWE:en&q=%22Train+Go+Sorry%3a+Inside+a+Deaf+World%2e%22+
NY Times article:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9A03E1D6153BF931A15751C0A962958260
Hat tip to Brian for this article
email contact: mishkazena@aol.com
The New York Times
Schools for All, or Separate but Equal?; An Interpreter Isn’t Enough
By LEAH HAGER COHEN
February 22, 1994
It’s a few minutes before the class will start. Everyone’s fishing
notebooks from knapsacks and sharpening pencils, and it’s all “What did
you put for the last answer on the algebra?” and “Tomorrow’s the last
day for yearbook money, right?” and “If we want to stay for the game,
Toni says she can give us a ride.” All of the eleventh-graders are
speaking or listening, directly or indirectly. Except for one student,
sitting down front. She is neither speaking nor listening; she is not
involved; she is deaf.
I am her sign-language interpreter. I stand at the front of the class,
poised to begin signing whenever she looks at me, but she doesn’t; she
is resting her eyes on the sky outside the window. When at last she
does turn her face, it is not to see what her classmates are saying but
to chat with me about her weekend, about the book I am reading, about
her dog, my sweater, anything. She is hungry for communication and
chooses me — an adult satellite paid to follow her through the school
day — rather than her peers, who do not speak her language.
Class begins. She pays attention for a while. Sometimes when the
teacher asks a question, she signs a response, which I interpret into
spoken English — always a little late, just a few seconds after the
other students. Sometimes the students all talk at once; their voices
overlap and I have to choose one thread to follow, or compress them all
in a quick synopsis, inserting who said which thing to whom and in what
tone of voice.
Sometimes I make a mistake and have to correct myself and then we both
fall behind and I scramble, signing extra-fast to catch up. Sometimes,
when I am speaking for her, I don’t understand something she has
signed. I have to ask her to repeat it, and I can see her flush, both
of us sensing the polite and condescending impatience of the teacher
and the class.
Sometimes the teacher uses a roll-down map or an overhead projector,
and all the students train their eyes on the visual information while
listening to the teacher. I move closer to the map or screen, trying to
make my hands make sense of all the information. The girl looks at me,
then at the visual display. The teacher talks on. By the time the
student looks at me again, she has lost three sentences. She looks at
her notes and loses more sentences. Frustration flickers across her
face, her eyes go blank and she gives up, returning her gaze to the
sky.
I do not eat lunch with her, but I have seen her in the cafeteria at a
long white table with other students. She is able, sort of, to
participate in conversation, if someone makes a point of turning and
speaking directly to her. Because she has trouble lip reading and they
have trouble understanding her speech, she often resorts to pen and
paper. The students are patient. But conversation usually ricochets
across the table too rapidly for her even to pretend comprehension, so
she takes a bite of her sandwich. She chews carefully, almost
surreptitiously; she has been told that deaf people make funny noises
when they eat.
More often, she doesn’t go to the cafeteria at all. She spends her
lunch period at the library, in woodshop, on the basketball court
shooting hoops. She’s a good athlete. She runs with the cross-country
team, but she doesn’t participate in student government or school plays
or the literary magazine or cheerleading. She prefers activities in
which she can excel alone.
Her parents are proud that she attends a regular public school. They do
not use sign language. On Mondays, she comes to school ravenous for
conversation with me. She signs gregariously before class and even
during class, and I smile in a small way and sign back: wait, wait,
we’ll talk about it later, the teacher’s speaking now.
Her teachers ask me how I think she’s doing. I tell them that I cannot
say; as the interpreter, I’m not permitted to give an opinion. I say,
“Maybe you would like to ask her? I’d be glad to interpret if you’d
like to ask her yourself.” They do not take me up on it.
This girl could go to a federally-financed school for the deaf, where
all the students can converse with each other, all the information is
presented visually, teachers sign and deaf adults serve as role models,
deaf kids lead the student government and star in the school play.
These schools prepare students for jobs and college. They also give the
students access to the deaf community, which has its own language,
folklore, traditions, social clubs, periodicals, athletic teams and
political events. The schools have always served as the cultural center
of the deaf community. Yet proponents of inclusion would like to close
them, claiming that it would liberate deaf people from the
“discrimination” of separate schooling and give them equality. All it
would require are some sign-language interpreters to smooth out the
differences, they say.
To many deaf people, this is at best maddeningly naive; at worst, it is
chauvinistic. The history of deaf people is one of mandated
assimilation: we can make you more like hearing people, we can make you
more normal.
Proponents of inclusion should ask themselves why it looks so
appealing. Is it the policy that will best serve deaf people? Or is it
simply a way to further that great American myth, the one we seem to
need like oxygen, that says we’re all created equal?
Leah Hager Cohen is author of “Train Go Sorry: Inside a Deaf World.”
Book:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=RNWE,RNWE:2004-44,RNWE:en&q=%22Train+Go+Sorry%3a+Inside+a+Deaf+World%2e%22+
NY Times article:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9A03E1D6153BF931A15751C0A962958260
Hat tip to Brian for this article
email contact: mishkazena@aol.com
November 26th, 2006 at 2:01 pm
I have posted my cousin’s, Leah, above article on one or two of the blogs along with an article written by her father on how inclusion should not include deaf students:
http://www.zak.co.il/deaf-info/old/inclusion.html
These articles are outdated yet they strike to be true and needs to be heard.
November 26th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
I have posted this same article by my cousin, Leah, on one or two of the blogs. I have read about it ten years ago or so and it is indeed a great article. If you go to this link, it also includes her father (former Superintendent of Lexington), Oscar’s article on “Inclusion Should Not Include Deaf Students.” Also, well written.
http://www.zak.co.il/deaf-info/old/inclusion.html
While these articles, including a few authors, are outdated, they are worthy to read and need to be heard by everyone who read them.
November 26th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
No, interpreters are not enough.
According to Jim Cummins’language proficiency theory (this is just a superficial summary), all kind of discourse are either context-embedded or not and cognitively undemanding or cognitively demanding.
In a typical public school setting for hearing students, what is being taught could be either cognitively undemanding or demanding (difficulty of the subject matter and its medium of instruction) but it is mostly context-embedded. Students benefit from hearing the teacher’s voice, pitch, tones, and so on.
With a deaf all of the content is filtered out via interpreting. It’s not interpreter’s fault - it’s just the nature of the beast.
To be able to work at the level where information is deprived by its context and is cognitively demanding, a student requires academic skills that has been developed over years via scaffolding. Hearing students have this opportunity - their skills has been developed over years throughout their schooling career. Deaf students function at cognitively demanding - context unembedded environment from day one via interpreters and do not have an opportunity to develop their skills. It’s a swim and sink situation - very few manage to swim.
In other words, an interpreter, while a wonderful asset to the community, is not enough. It takes particular academic skills to be able to learn via interpreters and those skills need time to be developed and honed in order for deaf students to success in high school and college with interpreters.
November 26th, 2006 at 9:42 pm
Pour Elizabeth and Brian:
Thanks a zillion to you, Elizabeth and Brian for posting a copy of an article, “An Interpreter Isn’t Enough”. I hope many hearing parents of
deaf children will read your blog. I do not know what to do without both of you, Elizabeth and Brian. Keep up the good work.
Jean
November 26th, 2006 at 9:50 pm
Another generation later, and the same story is being told again… mainstreaming is an option, yes, but I think for the majority of deaf and hard-of-hearing students, it’s not necessarily the best option. This piece is reminiscent of an earlier article by Chris Wixtrom, titled “Alone in the Crowd,” published about 1988 in The Deaf American. I’ll have to look for the exact citation.
November 27th, 2006 at 12:31 am
This article descrbed my expeirence at a hearing school so accurately, I’m starting to wonder if that wasn’t one of MY terps!
Yes, mainstreaming, alone, is very isolating and should never be done. Period.
November 27th, 2006 at 12:32 am
p.s. my parents and family signed, though, so I had that at least.
November 27th, 2006 at 6:17 am
I am not surprised it’s still going on. I spoke to several young deaf students last year and it’s either the same or worse to this day.
I graduated in 1990 and that young girl is a reflection of myself in mainstream school.
If you had a good interpreter, you were lucky to have a companion.
It’s worse if it’s a lousy interpreter, especially one who is really stepping out of her terp role, i.e. disciplining the student(s) – taking the teacher’s job, or reporting to the Special Education teacher.
I have so many stories I could share, but they can be found in this book mentioned. I think it speaks for many, if not most.
This is why we need to have positive attitude towards all walks of life, while promoting ASL, pressuring our congresspeople, local legislators, etc on instilling ASL in replacement of SEE/PSE, and continue to bring this topic up for discussion at Deaf Clubs, etc., and to get in touch with teachers in an attempt to improve their signing skills until we can get the system improved. We also need more credentials on bilingual research, namely ASL and English for pre-schoolers through grade 12.
It’s time - and long overdue - to improve the system and start worrying about our deaf children’s future – their education and social life.
November 27th, 2006 at 2:09 pm
It is sad to see twelve years after the publication of this article, the shortcomings of the mainstreamed programs haven’t been fixed yet.
November 27th, 2006 at 9:40 pm
The article by my cousin only makes me grateful to be a product of a deaf school since pre-K. It is once in a lifetime experience I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world. My first “interpreting” experience was when Leah’s father interpreted at my grandfather’s funeral in 1980.
It was at RIT that I couldn’t believe how many issues arise by the presence of interpreters. I see them as a barrier. I had to fight for my independence and rights with them and their department. They don’t like it and it seems they are accustomed to years of passivity among many deaf students by letting them practice what they did that I frequently objected to.
These students grew up seeing them as a “friend” they only had, thus making my life miserable in the classroom with many of the interpreters.
November 28th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
This-my deaf friends-is the
“great” future Jane Fernandes had planned for our deaf children. See the Ohio Deaf Times for May 2006. This is the inclusiveness Jane was talking about. Just thank God we didnt find out what her inclusiveness would have done to Gallaudet. The Gallaudet I know has always been a place where there are many cliques and factions etc. Yet the students know where their common interests lie and stand up for their rights. I know this because I was involved in many a protest when I was a student. The deaf community owes a debt of gratitude to these kids. And thanks for the wonderful interpreter here who tells it like it is re the evil of mainstreaming.
Always Victory!!!