Newsgroups: bit.listserv.deaf-l
Date:         Fri, 25 Sep 1992 22:33:41 -0400
From:         "(Seth Gordon)" <sethg@SILVER.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject:      John Tracy Clinic
              21 Sep 1992 20:06:51 IST <9209211812.AA18779@silver.lcs.mit.edu>

    Me:
    > Why do you describe the quality of Mr. Levinson's speech, *but* you
    > don't bother to tell us what kind of education he got, what he does
    > for a living, exactly what services he has performed for his fellow
    > humans, etc., etc.?

    Lew Golan:
	 It really kills you that a deaf person can speak well, doesn't it?

I am perfectly aware that some bright and well-motivated deaf people
do learn to speak well.  I enjoyed Kisor's book; I don't assume that
he's lying about his success.

Sorry to shatter your illusion that I am Politically Correct.  :-)

I'm also aware that some bright and well-motivated deaf people *don't*
learn to speak well, but we've gone over this ground before.

    Sorry to shatter your cherished illusions. Your belittling reaction to
    Bill's report about the quality of Levinson's speech is unbecoming.

Bill, and the JTC, seemed to be presenting Levinson as an example of a
successful oral deaf adult.  I found it odd that Bill reported
Levinson's success at learning speech, but didn't mention any *other*
kind of success.  Thanks to Tilak for the list.

If the topic at hand were simply, "Can a deaf person learn to speak
well?", and Bill had held up Levinson as proof that these things
happen, I wouldn't have complained.

	 When people on the list sing the glories of ASL, I don't see you
    asking what kind of education signers get, what they do for a living,
    exactly what services they have performed for their fellow humans, etc.

I think you and I and Keith Watt (where are you, Keith?) and various
other list members have had at least one long debate about "the glories
of ASL" and whether or not it helps deaf students get good education
and good jobs and so on.  These days, I can only log in on weekends,
so I don't think I have the time to argue it again, but it looks like
a few other people do.

Regarding Levinson's story about not knowing he was deaf until age 32:

I just recalled that decades ago (1940's? 1950's?), "deaf" was
considered a Bad Word, and so the term "hard of hearing" was sometimes
used to include audiologically deaf people.  So if Levinson grew up
during this period, and his parents told him he was HOH, they wouldn't
have been lying.  Whoops.

Some people said this was a joke.  I assumed he was telling the truth,
because in the book _Deaf Like Me,_ the father of a girl who had gone
through the JTC program wrote: "`Deaf' was another word that oralism
had concealed from Lynn.  `Don't tell her she is deaf.  Don't treat
her like a deaf person, or she will begin to act deaf.'"

I think this is a ridiculous piece of advice, because, in my humble
opinion: (1) Children who are having trouble with oral communication
are entitled to know, within the limits of their ability to understand
such things, *why* they are having trouble.  (2) If you're giving a
deaf girl oral/auditory training, you *are* "treat[ing] her like a
deaf person", and if she is participating in speech therapy and the
like, she *is* "act[ing] deaf", in her own fashion.  (3) When children
who have been fed this line find out the truth, they have good reason
to be angry at the parents who lied to them.  (Along the same lines,
if a deaf child is told, throughout his school years, that he has
good speech, and discovers upon graduation that only his family and
teachers can understand his speech, he has a right to be angry.  I've
heard that *this* kind of deception happens, though I don't know how
often.)

I'm sure many deaf parents tell damaging lies to their children, too.
And of course hearing parents do it to hearing children.

     Bill Peter says:
     We hearies aren't so bad, are we?  I mean, aren't we just like you
     except that our ears work?

Point of info: I'm hearing, too.  No, I don't think we're so bad.

An interesting side note: a few weeks ago, as part of our counseling
training at the Learning Center, we (about 30 counselors, most of us
deaf) did a "values clarification" exercise, where we had to rate how
strongly we agreed or disagreed with a list of statements.  One of
them was "Deaf people should not trust hearing people."  The *only*
person who agreed with that statement was a *hearing* woman, who said
that because hearing people were an Oppressor Group, Deaf people
should be suspicious of them.

See, Lew, *I'm* a very moderate guy.  :-)
--
seth gordon ... <sethg@silver.lcs.mit.edu>   ... .sig under construction;
mit bs '91  ... learning ctr 4 deaf children ... pardon the inconvenience
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