I spoke with my friend, an ESL teacher by Ms. Harrison, about her experience working with deaf and hard of hearing students. Here's what she had to say.
The classroom is supposed to be the place where kids are all given the opportunities they need to succeed in their adult lives. Standardized testing and shared curriculums are designed so that everyone is held to the same standard and taught the same material. In theory, it's a good idea; everyone is equal. But in practice, we all know some kids fall through the cracks, no matter the catchy government program name.
One group, in particular, is those students who are deaf and hard of hearing. Unless they go to a school particularly for the Deaf, they are integrated into regular classes, given "support", and left alone. The problem is that many teachers are unfamiliar with the challenges of having a deaf student in the classroom. If they have an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter, the teacher may not know how best to work with or utilize them. They may forget to find supplementary videos that have closed captioning, or be unsure of how to facilitate interaction between the deaf student and their classmates.
In addition to a lack of knowledge on the teacher's end, unless the child comes from a Deaf family, their own parents may not understand how best to support their child's needs. They might think giving the child ASL instruction will "interfere" with their English development, or that a cochlear implant will magically give the child perfect hearing and thus prevent the child from needing support.
It's important to remember that disabilities, while they do not make the people with them any less human, do have a tangible impact on their lives. It doesn't take a lot of effort to accommodate in most cases, just empathy and a shade of forethought. Adding a wave to your morning greeting. Learning to touch someone on the arm or shoulder to get their attention if they don't hear you, or to flicker the lights to alert them you need to make an announcement. These are little things that will, in the end, help more than just deaf and hard of hearing students. Sure, different disabilities require different accommodation—don't touch an autistic student to get their attention, for instance—but empathy will carry you a good long way toward being a better teacher, and a better human being.
