UNM has departments that specialize in linguistic investigation of sign languages and bilingual education. With my partner in life, we re-nogotiated life circumstances, had a garage sale, packed up a dog and cat, and moved to New Mexico. I presently work with Deaf and Hard of Hearing students in Albuquerque Public Schools. I am a school counselor and meet with 50 students from two elementary schools and one middle school. There are 10 district goals for the school year 1998-1999.
Literacy is number two on the list.
There are many different cultures in New Mexico with the highest variability and concentration of diversity found within the city of Albuquerque. There is no formal acknowledgment within the district that Deaf and Hard of Hearing students would also benefit from linguistically motivated educational accommodation. The district program coordinator responsible for the teaching, sign language interpreting, and audiological services for Deaf and Hard of Hearing students was very supportive of my proposed participation in the SignWriting Literacy Project. As lead instructor of SignWriting, I will attempt to neutralize power relationships that exist in the everyday school literacy learning environment and hope to promote shared power, one that will encourage students and teachers to alternate between teacher and learner roles. Third, about the Ph.D. dissertation action research I am in the final stages of formalizing my research proposal at the University of New Mexico.