From: Steve.Richards@f101.n277.z1.fidonet.org (Steve Richards)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Acb/Nfb Feud
Date: 10 Sep 92 16:40:37 GMT
Reply-To: Steve.Richards@f101.n277.z1.fidonet.org
Organization: FidoNet node 1:277/101 - House Of Pancakes, Morgantown WV
X-Fidonet: Blink Talk Conference

Index Number: 24500

[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

In a message 08-17-92 (20:11) From: MIKE FREEMAN To: CHRIS BAZZIE
MF>In our last exchange, I stated that I thought -- but had no proof
MF>-- that combined schools for the blind and deaf had worse
MF>problems of students being abused than separate schools.  You ask
MF>why.  It's simple; the blind and deaf, public perceptions to the
MF>contrary notwithstanding, have rather little in common.  They
MF>communicate entirely differently; the blind are, by and large,
MF>word-oriented; the deaf (at least those who sign using ASL) are,
MF>IMHO, symbol oriented.  We live in different cultural worlds.  In
MF>most cases of which I am aware, in combined schools for the blind
MF>and deaf, the blind and deaf often fought continually.

Hi Mike,
The school I attended was one of those for both blind and deaf, although
it would be more accurate to say that it was two schools sharing the
same campus.  There were indeed numerous fights between the blind and
deaf kids, a few of them pretty nasty.  Pretty early on I decided to
learn sign language, and being able to communicate kept me out of
trouble most of the time.  I did have one unpleasant incident where a
deaf kid on a bicycle kept trying to run over my toes.  I asked him to
stop but he persisted.  Whereupon I kicked his wheels out from under
him, which seemed to convince him I was serious about wanting him to
desist.  The only real fight I ever had with a deaf kid was because I
lost my temper when I witnessed a teenaged deaf boy picking on one of
his schoolmates who was only eight.  I'm a peaceable sort as a rule, but
that made me mad.

What you said about the deaf fearing blindness rings true to me, though
I have no sort of statistics to back up my feeling.  I know one thing
for sure: for me it works the other way around.  The thought of going
deaf terrifies me.  One afternoon during my senior year some of us were
taken on a tour of parts of the deaf school.  We visited the classroom
for the two deaf-blind students they had there.  One was a seven- or
eight-year-old boy, just beginning to learn how to communicate.  I don't
know why he hadn't come to the school earlier, I just know that at that
time there was no way for me to communicate with him except for very
simple concepts.  He seemed lost in a world of his own.  Finally I just
knelt down and hugged him.  I'm not trying to tell a "sob" story, to
say, "Isn't that pitiful?" for I didn't see the boy that way then and I
don't now.  But I am a writer; words are my life.  And I felt so
impotent in that moment when all the words in my vocabulary were
rendered useless.  The ability to communicate is invaluable.  Are our
perceptions of the world shaped, at least to some degree, by the way we
must communicate?  I suspect so.  Probably that's why the blind and deaf
kids fought.  And how about that little boy who could use neither
hearing nor sight but touch alone?  I wonder if he was happy growing up
among deaf children.  A lot of their communicating would have gone right
over his head--literally.
Steve R.

 * SLMR 2.1a * Take my advice, I don't use it anyway.
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