November Action

In November, after October's successful classes, university presentations, radio interview and constructivist teachers' conference paper, I worked closer to home. After a workshop with some enthusiastic participants at Pixar's University, I volunteered as a roaming ASL interpreter for the Green Festival in San Francisco. I was thrilled to see so many interpreters for formal speeches and for Deaf participants who want to survey the hundreds of booths along with the hearing crowd. The greater joy was in seeing Deaf people come, join in and take advantage of the volunteer resources. Like when traffic flows smoothly and everyone is taking advantage of the rules of right away, traffic lights and planned lanes, it's wonderful when the system works, because people are using it.

Toward the end of the month, I was asked to evaluate an almost deaf boy (it is possible that the parents want him to be more hearing than he is - could be the misdiagnosis: Potentially Hearing) to see if he signed. Indeed, he signs more than his parents, and better than his parents. I could tell he was rusty, stuck at a beginning level, and reverted to "hearing" signs, for the sake of his parents. I submitted my report and reccommendation: GET A DEAF AIDE, A DEAF PLAYMATE, A DEAF BABYSITTER, AND SIGN, SIGN, SIGN in order to improve his language and communication, because speech and hearing are limiting this boy, and he is not progressing linguistically, educationally or socially. Of course, a Deaf teacher would be the best, but I knew the district didn't have one. If inclusion were really a goal, wouldn't that mean included Deaf people at every level- students, aides, teaachers and administrators?

I was sad for the boy; I used yet another reminder that I must work harder to prevent deaf children from growing up with little or no shared language.

I have a radical suggestion: let us (teachers, professionals, parents, administrators - all of us) try solutions that are the easiest and work best for the child. Give me your ideas, suggestions and comments - check out www.susanschaller.com

Thank you for all who showed up at CSD's Open House - another great November event.

Lives Without Words, People Without Language, my second book, moves closer to publication as the subject of languageless begins to surface. The Southern California tour was an inspiring success. At universities and on the radio and in many classes I talked to future and current teachers, doctors, academics and parents who were encouraged to respect our deaf babies instead of mistreat them. Next week, I talk to artists in the film industry about learning visual poetry from the superior world of seeing - the Deaf community.

Contact me with any ideas for events or publicity: see www.susanschaller.com

Southern California Tour

Making the crime of languagelessness visible, one book at a time, one speech at a time, one film at a time, one blog at a time, one vital-signs video at a time, one web site at a time - www.susanschaller.com - (link at bottom), ...

October 16 California State University, San Bernardino and October 17 UC Irvine POSTPONED

October 18
University of Redlands contact: Leela_Madhavarau at redlands.edu

Presentation and showing of the documentary, In Search of Lucy Doe, with Oliver Sacks, Susan Schaller, and languageless people from her second book: Lives Without Words, People Without Language.

October 23
California State University, Northridge (flyer below)


Sponsored by the Office of the Provost & Vice President for Academic Affairs
contacti: joseph.antunez at csun.edu

The public and the CSUN Campus Community are cordially invited to a presentation by

Susan Schaller
Date: Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Time: 4:00 – 6 pm Place:
Oviatt Library, Presentation Room California State University, Northridge

Susan Schaller, author of A Man Without Words (UC Press) is ready to publish her second book, Lives Without Words, People Without Language, about the hidden crime of children being raised without language, and the triumph of learning a first language in adulthood. In Search of Lucy Doe (BBC World Service), which includes stories from her upcoming second book and her work with Oliver Sacks, was chosen by the Margaret Mead Film Festival in New York.

Schaller founded and directed a non-profit, producing the educational program and award-winning video, Vital-Signs (now a DVD), and Deaf World Television. Through her writing and public speaking, she promotes equal access to language for Deaf people, and introduces hearing people to an astounding culture based on vision.

Schaller's observations of people living outside of a shared language have inspired her and help answer "What does it mean to be human?" Relevant to many disciplines, from education, psychology and anthropology to medicine, policy and minority language rights, her writing, public speaking, and stories from the rarely visited world of languageless people explores what it means to be human, and how we can improve our vision by accepting Deaf people's superior abilities to see.

Rights as if Humans Mattered

When I tell people that I wrote a second book to prevent children from growing up without language, people always looked shocked that such a thing could happen. I always have to explain that 92% of deaf babies are born to hearing parents who don't usually think of language as the problem. Their doctors, educators and other "experts" also don't see language as the main issue facing a deaf baby in a hearing family. Many times the parents are explicitly told NOT to sign as that interferes with speech and hearing (even if there is none!). Thus, there are a few deaf babies who grow up without a clue what a shared language - a named language like English, Spanish or American Sign Language- is or how it connects us all. They are left out of any human community.

And the reaction to the above? Shock and disbelief. Normal hearing people see the human right of all deaf babies to have language. If a baby is visual, a visual language - a signed language makes sense.

So what's the problem?

Normal people are not the doctors, educators, audiologists and the A. G. Bell people advising new parents. These self proclaimed experts are blind to the very human, very beautiful and more than adequate visual lives of Deaf people and their rich, sophisticated signed languages, like American Sign Language or Japanese Sign Language. They as do all hearing parents of deaf babies need to learn about basic human rights: ALL BABIES NEED LANGUAGE.

The solution is already in place in Scandanavia : bilingualism. First get language to babies. If the baby is visual, use a visual language: Swedish or Finnish or Danish Sign Language. Then the spoken language of the parents and community. And why does it exist in one part of the world and no where else? Those countries ask the right question: What does a human baby need? Language is on the list, and the baby gets language through whatever medium is easiest (eyes instead of ears for deaf babies - how revolutionary!).

In the United States and most of the world, the wrong question gets the wrong answers: What's wrong with this baby?
Doctors and parents answer: "Broken ears." The next ten or twenty years are spent fixing non-working ears and the human baby is forgotten as a person.

Let's take languagelessness out of the closet. Take prelingual deafness out of educators hands, out of medicince, and put this language issue where it belongs: the human rights arena.