For example, a deaf person going to University might meet one of the University disability support staff to try and work out the most appropriate type of support that they can get. Perhaps it is captioning or perhaps an interpreter is required. Some may just simply require a hearing loop so that they can utilise their hearing they have more effectively. The deaf person will rock up for the initial interview. They will show their hearing aids, they might even have an interpreter for the initial interview. It will be obvious that they are deaf. They may have a deaf voice, they may sign to communicate or simply they will have a cochlear implant for all to see.

So they will have their initial interview and they will work out the support that they require to study. It may be technology or it might be a sign language interpreter.  The assessment interview might take an hour. The disability support person will know clearly that the person is deaf simply because deaf person spent the last hour signing their answers to them. Yet despite this they will insist that before any support is given that the deaf person must provide an audiogram or a letter from their Doctor verifying that they are deaf. I mean hearing people just decide for the fun of it that they will pretend they are deaf, book interpreters and have their lectures interpreted  for them … you know simply because its fun. Lots of people are weird like that – go figure. Sometimes a little common sense is required.

So it was with great dismay that I found out today that to participate in national or state deaf sporting events in the future that I will have to provide an audiogram. I mean I have only been involved in the Deaf community for 28 years. I entered it when I was 18 and have partaken in three Australian Deaf Games, numerous national and state deaf golf championships, a few Southern Cross Soccer Championships and even a Deaf Mixed Netball Championships. I thought that everyone knew that I was deaf.  Apparently not.  You see – all these years they have actually suspected that I might be hearing and because of this I now must submit an audiogram before I partake in any official Deaf sporting events ever again. I must do this to prove to them what I and they already know – that I am deaf.

Of course I do not have an audiogram. I have not seen an audiologist since I left school. So I must pay some money to a doctor or an audiologist to show that I am deaf.  Bugger the fact that I must pay registration fees, travel and accommodation costs to participate in deaf sporting events, I now must pay an additional sixty bucks or so to verify I am deaf. I thought they already knew. How could I have been so stupid. I am a hearing person in disguise and I did not even KNOW!

You know  deaf sport is really corrupt. We find the best hearing people we can, just to win, and make them pretend that they are deaf. Yeah, and then these people go on to represent Australia pretending that they are deaf. Real deaf people miss out because hearing people are just wanting to replace deaf people in everything! Winning is so important that deaf sports teams are gonna stack their teams with elite hearing athletes. There is no financial gain involved. These hearing people actually have to pay for the privilege of pretending to be deaf and partaking in deaf sport. They are queuing up to abuse the system – they are everywhere! Yep, they will pay thousands for the honour. ” Hey I am hearing, I am so good I represented the Deaf Tiddley Winks Team in Nepal, and paid $10 000 for the privilege — HE HE HE HE —- Ain’t I sneaky???”

Ok I am getting a little cynical but the Deaf community was the last bastion in the world where I could just be deaf and not have to prove it. I didn’t have to see a doctor for a report that said my mid range frequencies were at the mega hertz levels while my lower range ones were in the mini hertz levels. The Deaf community was somewhere where my deafness was just accepted as a normal state of being. Medical models, doctors and audiologist did not exist. Sadly, not anymore!

Now I have heard all the arguments about why we must now prove that we are deaf. The international deaf sporting bodies demand it. It ensures deaf sport remains deaf sport and it allows data to be gathered that can be used to apply for additional funding,  I am sorry but I don’t buy any of these arguments. If you get picked at international level then why not get an audiogram then. Surely deaf sport at national and state level has more value than simply winning!  Data is available everywhere. If you want to know how many deaf people were fitted with hearing aids  just ask Australian Hearing to provide you with longitudinal data . Hell, if you look hard enough you might even find the information on the Web. Contact the Eye and Ear hospital for information about how many kids have been implanted in the last 20 years and at what age. Its not difficult to develop a statistical argument for deaf participation in sport using this sort of data.

The people that are insisting on this new strict audiogram policy for participation at Deaf national and state sporting events are actually very good friends of mine. I know they have made the decision to demand audiograms with the best of intentions. Unfortunately this time I think they have got it very wrong.  Deaf sport at a national or state level, to me anyway, is about fun, socialising and memories. Winning is way down the pecking order. I find this new policy lacking in common sense. I find it autocratic and overly officious. Hell, they are threatening disciplinary action if audiograms are not provided. The Deaf community, particularly its sporting events, was the last bastion where I could be a person without the medical crap following me – sadly this is now no longer the case.

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Deaf education continues to be a shambles.   Each school can decide what sign language should be used (as if there was anything other than Auslan).   The Department of Education  has no policy about this. A client of mine recently wanting to move to Victoria from another state rang a number of schools with deaf units.   She was told by most of them that her daughter would not get a full-time interpreter, because there was not enough money.  Many “interpreters” in schools  are not qualified. Teachers of the Deaf do not have to be fluent in Auslan.
The million-dollar question – what is the deaf community doing about these things???
Julie Phillips
Anti-Discrimination Advocate

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But is this a bad thing? Bob Katter is one of these independents. He used to be a member of the Coalition between the Liberals and the National Party. He was a minister in the Queensland State Government in 1989. He joined Federal Parliament in 1993. He is seen as a bit of a red-kneck and a lose cannon so to speak. But he is also a strong believer in representing the people that elected him. Being from a regional area he felt the old Howard Government were pushing policies that were destroying the bush, so he quit and became his own man. He has virtually won every election since in a landslide. Whatever the rest of Australia believe, his electorate believe in him and he has been prepared to stand by his principles rather than sell out the people that voted him in. He now finds himself as one of the select the King/Queen makers. How ironic is that?

In an age where people are expected to toe the line and to spout the party line, whether they believe it or not, perhaps what we need now is for the major parties to be held accountable. Do you want Tony Abbott as your leader? A man whon stabbed Malcolm Turnbull in the back to become leader? Malcolm Turnbull is no saint either, having stabbed Brendan Nelson in the back. Julia Gillard did likewise to become leader. She led us all to believe she was the loyal deputy while people like Bill Shorten did the dirty work behind the scenes to get her into the hot-seat.  Squeaky clean she was not. There are whispers that Shorten was even prepared to elect Gillard as leader knowing that she would face an up hill battle to be re-elected and thus paving the way for himself to become leader.  Did Tony and Julia become the leaders simply because they wanted to serve Australia? Don’t be daft, they were power hungry and sold their souls for the top job. Australian’s saw through both Tony and Julia but unfortunately could not decide which was worse.  So now the likes of Bob Katter and Tony Windsor will decide for them. (Just for the record, although Bob Katter is an ex National/Liberall he supports Labor’s National Broadband roll out for the benefits it will provide the bush. In fact all the independents who were ex Coalition members do, so previous party alliance will come to nothing. –  http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/coalition-refuses-to-budge-on-broadband-20100823-13ejm.html)

Recently I was criticised in a meeting because I was prepared to speak out about decisions that were being made by a committee I am part of. Readers may recall that I was very against accepting the original deal that was struck between the Big Four Cinemas and our advocacy organisations in regard to cinema captioning. It was a deal that most Deaf and hearing impaired people, throughout Australia, seemed to be very much against. Over 450 people put in public submissions on the Australian Human Rights Commission’s website asking that the deal be rejected. But still our advocacy organisations refused to change their approach.  To me this is wrong. I was told by one group that speaking out as I did was wrong.  “Only two of us in our organisation can publicly comment on issues”  said one person, “What you do as a member of your organisation is your business” It was a none to subtle way of telling me I should SHUT UP.  Another said that if I must speak out to use a pseudonym. That way what I say cannot come back to the organisation. My view was quite simply that I am on the organisation to represent the views of deaf  people and when those people I represent overwhelmingly make a statement it is that view I must represent. Soladarity is one thing but autocratic control by a minority such as a committee is another.

And this is what independents can bring to the table in Government. Because they are not part of the party machine they can dissent and publicly too. In short they can hold whoever gets into power accountable. The problem is that they can also abuse that position. They can hold Australia to ransom for something that they believe is essential and stop important decisions going through. Imagine, for example, if Pauline Hanson won a seat as an independent and controlled the balance of power. Technically she could demand a halt to all Asian immigration in return for allowing the Broadband Bill through Parliament. I have enough faith in people to think that they would tell Pauline to go jump BUT it can mean important decisions that need to be passed will be unnecessarily held up.

So, it is down to the independents. Is this a good thing? Who knows. But for now lets hope that the major parties get the message that the electorate have sent – Not that they believe that Liberal and Labor are equally good, but rather that they could not decide who was the worse deal. Hopefully this will, on its own, make the major parties clean up their act. And pigs might fly but there is no harm in dreaming.

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How much is good enough? Is it good enough for a deaf kid to “do well” in a classroom? If they are above average, is this enough? If a deaf kid is at or above the average achievement in their class is the job done?

In my years working as a case manager or support worker for young deaf people I have constantly been confronted by the word “coping”. It seems to me that too often “coping” is the highest common denominator in deaf education.

This might be a harsh statement because there are variations in every system. There are some teachers that push deaf kids to achieve the very highest they possibly can but there are far too many that see “coping” or “doing well” as the benchmarks.

Around Australia something like 85% of deaf kids are mainstreamed. They often are the sole deaf person in their class. They largely receive support from a visiting teacher that may visit them once a month. Some of these visiting teachers are not even teachers of the deaf.

Even then the visiting teacher does not really support the deaf student. They support the teacher. They advise on how to structure classrooms, how to  improve communication, how to use technology like FM systems or how to reduce background noise so that the deaf student can utilise their hearing to the maximum.

All this is important stuff. But largely deaf kids are in classrooms with classroom teachers who do not have much knowledge of deafness. The focus of the classroom teacher will largely be on making sure the deaf student knows  what to do and completes task. Very few of these classroom teachers will understand the issues of classroom interaction. Fewer still will understand just how much of this interaction that the deaf kids actually miss out on.

What happens to help these kids understand classroom discussions that occur? How much focus is placed on the value of the input from peers? Who focuses on providing deaf kids with access to social interaction in the playground? Just how much better would the deaf student perform if they had better access to all the banter and discussions that happen in the classroom and the playground?

And then we have situations like those of the “little deaf girl” who is the  subject of this article. The Deaf kids who have so called “interpreters” but who  only interpret the “important information.”

Apparently when confronted with the issues that are raised in this article the ‘interpreter’ said, “Well how do you expect me to interpret everything, she doesn’t watch me any way?”

If she had bothered to ask me I would have told her that at a young age it is important to move into the sight of the young deaf person rather than try to force them to focus on the interpreter all the time. Why? Simply because at a young age the attention span is not yet sufficiently developed to focus in such a way. Therefore the interpreter adapts. Over time the young deaf person will learn naturally to focus more on the interpreter. This is just basic human development theory that every teacher of the deaf should know.

What is worse is that the school were dismissive of the report that was provided. The mother commented that she felt bullied. That the school made her feel ungrateful for the effort that they were putting in to support her daughter. The school did not even want to consider strategies to improve classroom interaction. They were completely defensive and in their view they were doing enough because the little deaf girl was ‘coping’.

Simply put it’s NOT GOOD ENOUGH! Education is about the whole child and their environment and not just what comes out of the teachers’ mouth.  Access to peer interaction is a vital part of deaf education!

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Recently I was asked to observe a young deaf girl in her classroom. The deaf girl uses Auslan as her first language, has deaf parents and is well adapted with excellent language skills. The mother wanted someone to observe her daughter in the classroom who had some knowledge of deafness, particularly in regard to interaction and learning. I was more than happy to help out, took a day off work and drove out to assist. What I saw actually scared me.

The school principal actually contacted me to invite me to the classroom. The mother had requested that she do so. The school principal asked me to sit in the classroom and “reassure” the mother that her daughter was doing fine and that there were no problems. She didn’t ask me to give an honest assessment, she asked me to “REASSURE” the mother. This in itself raised alarm bells in me.

What I did witness was an obviously very intelligent young girl making the best of a less than ideal situation. During the opening activity, where the kids were writing about their weekend, I actually asked the “interpreter” to check with the young girl as to whether she had understood anything her class peers had been talking about. Not surprisingly the little girl said she had not understood anything. What was puzzling is that having made it clear she did not understand what her peers had been discussing the “interpreter” still did not interpret anything that the little girl’s peers said.

The little girl demonstrated some classic deaf behaviour. Deaf people will know that when they are in a large group of hearing peers and doing an activity, whether it is learning or physical, they will be constantly looking around them to make sure they have not missed anything and are doing the right thing. As the little girl worked she would take quick glances around the room to make sure she had not missed anything.

 As she wrote you could see her looking out of the corner of her eye just in case she would miss the action. She could “hear” her teacher when the teacher spoke but not understand. If the teacher spoke she would look up to see if the activity had finished and if she needed to be somewhere else. Even at this early age she is aware and has developed coping strategies. It was like looking back to my own years being deaf in a hearing classroom.

It was fascinating to see the strategies that she had developed. For example if she was working with a group of peers she would focus on the one student that appeared to talk the most and take her cues from that student. During one such activity I signed to the little girl that I was deaf and needed her to interpret what her friends were saying. She admitted to me that she could not because she did not know.

During another activity the class were reciting number patterns in the form of multiplication tables. The teacher had the multiplication tables on the board and would point to the first number and the children would recite the pattern 2 – 4 – 6 … and so on. To the casual observer it might have looked like the girl was fully involved but if you have a trained eye you will see that the little girl joins in at about the third number. She watches the teacher point to the board, catches the rhythm of the class reciting the numbers and then joins in.  You will see her counting and listening, just moving her lips slightly, until she feels she has the rhythm and she will join in – 6 -8 – 10 … It was fascinating to watch.

It was also frustrating to watch. Story time is something most kids love. The kids gathered round to listen to the teacher read the story. The “interpreter” interpreted what the teacher was reading. The teacher asked the class a question using prediction strategy. Prediction is a teaching tool where you read a story and then to test whether the kids are following the story ask a question like, “… and when the lizard scurries up the tree how do you think the cat will feel? ..” At this all the kids will put their hands up to give their views. The problem is that in the little deaf girl’s classroom when the kids answered the “interpreter” did not relay their answers to the little deaf girl. Of course this means that the little deaf girl misses out on language and ideas that are provided by her peers through this natural interaction.

The little deaf girl, despite the less than ideal learning environment, was doing really well at school. A lot of this is down to the fact that she has come to school with a solid language foundation from being able to interact easily with her family. She is doing really well and in the school’s eyes that is all that matters. But how much better could she be doing if she could access the banter of the classroom and not just what her teacher is saying?

I really could not understand why the “interpreter” did not interpret everything. After all is that not what interpreters do? I wrote a report for the school. In it I outlined that the “interpreter” was more correctly a communication aide and did not interpret. I highlighted the good stuff. For example the classroom teacher went out of her way to ensure the little deaf girl was a respected part of the class by allowing her to lead things like “sign singing”. She also spoke very clearly and structured the class so that the little deaf girl could see and be involved. BUT, I pointed out to the school, peer interaction and access to what peers are saying is an integral part of learning. I emphasised that the “interpreter” was an efficient signer but needed to INTERPRET.

Apparently this wasn’t what the school wanted. They wanted me to provide REASSURANCE so that the mother would relax. The “interpreter” upon reading the report threatened to resign. The mother felt the school was dismissive of her daughter’s needs. Apparently it was not my place to write such a report and that my assessment was “tinged” by my friendship with the mother. It really was sad because the school would not acknowledge any of the issues that were raised.

Is this what our deaf kids are facing every day? Well if it is it’s a tragedy that needs to be addressed quickly. Doing well is not enough, deaf kids have the right to achieve their full potential. If this is to happen access to peer interaction is a must.

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