Michael Rose
Long and heated has been the debate over whether parents should send
their deaf children to residential or mainstream schools. Long lists of
points have been made for and against each side concerning educational
quality, social interaction, where the child will actually live, etc.
For what my two cents are worth, I strongly recommend that parents try
to get their deaf kids into residential schools.
I know--I never went to a residential school myself. I'm not deaf
myself, nor am I a parent of a deaf child (I'm not a parent at all, in
fact). How could I know all the factors involved with sending a child to
a residential school? Well, I'm sure that I don't. There
is, however, one thing of which I'm pretty sure, and it makes probably
the strongest case for residential schools that someone in my position
can make. It is this: at a residential school, unlike a mainstream
school, teachers and administrators will never think of or describe your
deaf children as "disabled" because of their deafness.
As for those mainstream teachers and administrators, maybe it's not
their fault (or not ALL their fault). They're conditioned to think of
any child who can't be taught the traditional/normal/easy way as
disabled, not realizing that this very assumption on their part is what
really disables the child.
On David Bar-Tzur's site ( http://www.theinterpretersfriend.com ) is a
story about Vladimir Putin threatening a reporter with genital
mutilation, and the interpreters being too shocked to include this in
their renditions. Every time I interpret for someone who refers to
deafness as a disability, I get the same feeling.