Okay, so Deaf and Hard of Hearing Teachers Sound Off can include educational interpreters too, right? After all, we are all on the same team.
What I am completely sick and tired of is working with unqualified interpreters and DHH teachers who cannot sign in a way that makes sense to the children. I am also sick and tired of our precious DHH students being treated as "throwaway kids" because they continually fail or perform poorly on yearly state-mandated standardized tests. Their poor performance is due to a variety of factors - inadequate language input at home, inadequate language input at school, and inadequate accommodations. Accommodations go beyond just sticking someone with three sign language classes in front of a student. Accommodations include things in the DHH teacher's realm, such as reduced number of questions on an assignment, captioned videos (even if the child's reading is below grade level), teacher pacing (allowing enough time for students to take in visual information as well as interpreted information). These things NEVER ACTUALLY HAPPEN. I am so frustrated I could scream!
What does it take for people to actually do their jobs in such a way as to TEACH CHILDREN THINGS? We have these kids all day, yet so much of the time we are lamenting the fact that they are "so low" or "behind" and just rushing them through whatever the class lesson plan is, we do not actually differentiate instruction and meet them where they are. This just teaches the children to give up on themselves, give up on making sense of English, give up on trying to succeed in school. There is absolutely no excuse why cognitively typical deaf children who are in secondary school cannot read on a second grade level. No excuse.
What I am completely sick and tired of is working with unqualified interpreters and DHH teachers who cannot sign in a way that makes sense to the children. I am also sick and tired of our precious DHH students being treated as "throwaway kids" because they continually fail or perform poorly on yearly state-mandated standardized tests. Their poor performance is due to a variety of factors - inadequate language input at home, inadequate language input at school, and inadequate accommodations. Accommodations go beyond just sticking someone with three sign language classes in front of a student. Accommodations include things in the DHH teacher's realm, such as reduced number of questions on an assignment, captioned videos (even if the child's reading is below grade level), teacher pacing (allowing enough time for students to take in visual information as well as interpreted information). These things NEVER ACTUALLY HAPPEN. I am so frustrated I could scream!
What does it take for people to actually do their jobs in such a way as to TEACH CHILDREN THINGS? We have these kids all day, yet so much of the time we are lamenting the fact that they are "so low" or "behind" and just rushing them through whatever the class lesson plan is, we do not actually differentiate instruction and meet them where they are. This just teaches the children to give up on themselves, give up on making sense of English, give up on trying to succeed in school. There is absolutely no excuse why cognitively typical deaf children who are in secondary school cannot read on a second grade level. No excuse.
We are failing children, and administration doesn't care. There is no way that illiterate people can hope to function in today's society, yet we happily track our students in "special classes" and put them on "special diplomas," which will be of no use to them once they are out of school.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
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