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5. Parents’ perspective on bilingual education Deaf education means special education – “different yet the same” Sign bilingualism is part of special education - a world where experts have been trained to do remedial work, where teaching methods are adapted to fit this aim, and where expectations generally remain low. This remains essentially the same in a bilingual school. Parents may feel that within this “special needs” environment the deaf child does not have full access to the curriculum, that teachers undervalue the child’s potential and abilities, and that he/she is not getting the education that he/she deserves. Another issue of concern is the peer group. Remember that most deaf children attend mainstream schools so the number of pupils in special schools is low, and remember that many deaf children reach school with minimal language. This means that a deaf child who has grown up with sign language from an early age has access to a limited peer group of children of similar linguistic and cognitive abilities. This is not a normal situation for children. Deaf education remains part of the wider education system. This means that the deaf school has to teach the same subjects and has the same financial restrictions as a hearing school. It is an important part of deaf children’s development that they learn about Deaf history and culture. They also need to learn specific skills that are required by Deaf people i.e. typing, using computers and the Internet, etc… Yet there is often little time and resources to teach these topics within the school. All schools in the UK must also follow general policies that are imposed by Government. Teaching children to read for instance has recently come under close scrutiny with the introduction of the compulsory Literacy Hour. Schools must use specific reading schemes. Reading is one of the most important skills that a Deaf child must acquire in order to get a good education and access to information. I am concerned that the language and contents of these books do not foster the interest that is necessary to learn to read adequately. Deaf children can find these books difficult. Many use rhymes and sound based strategies, the language is usually unfamiliar to deaf children (the level of English language is very advanced). All the characters in these books are hearing and do hearing activities. There should be more specific reading and writing materials to suit the linguistic needs of Deaf children and adults. Finally, decisions that affect the running of all schools – hearing or deaf – are made by large by hearing people who do not know anything about the needs of deaf children. A nagging issue for parents is transport. Deaf children are usually bussed to and from school. This means that they sometimes spend a long time on the bus (Shauna is picked up at 7.50 in the morning making it a grand one hour and 10 minutes travelling time twice a day – this is too long). Transport arrangements also mean that the school is unable to provide after school clubs like mainstream schools offer e.g. sports or drama. School would be the ideal place for such activities as they are vastly inaccessible outside. Furthermore if the child wants to go home with a friend after school this must be planned in advance by the parents who for insurance reasons need to telephone the transport department 24 hours in advance. Mistakes occur sometimes. Drivers and escorts do not know sign language and this can be worrying particularly to parents of younger children. The child going to school by bus also means that parents have no contact with the school other than parents’ evenings or by making an appointment to see the teacher. Contact is through a Home-School Link book in which teacher and parents write comments but this is not very satisfactory. Teachers and teaching assistants The fact that the great majority of teachers are hearing (there are very few qualified Deaf teachers) raises many issues. Many do not sign fluently and the children they teach are often better signers. This is because sign language is only a teaching tool for teachers and they do not usually have any knowledge of Deaf culture. They may attend special courses as part of their duties. However altering the teaching ways that they have acquired over the years and adapting the methods that they learnt during their teacher training years (sometimes a long time ago!) to fit the new bilingual policy of the school can be difficult. Yet what can be done? Dismiss these teachers? Force them to attend courses and sit exams, force them to attend the Deaf club? Some teachers are better than others. Shauna has been lucky to have excellent teacher until now but we take each year as it comes and we expect that time will come when she Shauna will be in a class where the teacher is simply not good enough to teach her. In effect a school cannot become bilingual overnight. Old methods and attitudes will remain until the school is fully staffed with adequately trained teachers. Would you accept this for your children? I do not know any parent who would be happy with a foreign person who does not speak English very well teach their children? Another problem is that the provision for secondary bilingual education is almost non-existent. Families face the prospect of having to move so that the child can be educated bilingually or may have to choose to send the child to Shauna Hare the only grammar school for deaf children, although it is an oral school. So there are many problems and parents must accept this deplorable situation. It is becoming increasingly common for bilingual schools to employ Deaf people to work alongside teachers in the classroom. There are several issues at stake here. One is that Deaf people may not be qualified to work with children and parents may not be comfortable with this. Another is that both the hearing teacher and the Deaf assistant should be highly proficient in BSL and English but Deaf people are often hired solely for their linguistic abilities in BSL. The problem here is that being able to use BSL is not enough in an educational environment. Deaf people do not always know about BSL linguistic and may not be able to explain how the language works; this becomes more important the higher the grade of the class in which they teach. Also Deaf people’s knowledge of English is not always good. All this means that the hearing teacher does most of the formal teaching despite being unable to sign properly and being unable to give deaf children a deaf centred perspective. So the status of the Deaf person remains low and as a parent I am concerned about the message it sends to my deaf child. All these less than satisfactory conditions in school can leave parents dissatisfied with their deaf child’s education. They have to accept that their child is forgotten in educational debates that do not apply to deaf education, that staff are not always adequately trained, that old methods and attitudes may remain, but there is no alternative and parents have to settle for less on all these issues. |
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