Small feet scatter and pound and voices escape in gleeful grunts on a playground in Redwood City. Meanwhile, in Fremont, balls bounce and coattails fly as the children play. These two playgrounds aren't separated merely by distance, they are separated by philosophies; two philosophies which now debate how the deaf children on each of these playgrounds should learn how to communicate, orally or through sign language.
For the 6,000 to 7,000 deaf children in the state of California, the choice is not up to them, it's up to their parents. Parents of deaf children have two basic options: to start their child signing with American Sign Language, recognized as a distinct language separate from English with its own syntax and morphology, or enroll their child in an oral program which delivers speech therapy that appeals to a child's cognitive development from as early as 2 years of age.
The California School for the Deaf in Fremont and the Jean Weingarten Peninsula Oral School for the Deaf in Redwood City, are schools thriving with activity, care and intense scholastic and social experiences that cater to the decisions a parent of a deaf child may make. Other options for parents include public school day programs for hearing-impaired children and any program local educational agencies may have designed for deaf children in the community.
The decision a parent makes for their child will affect the child's growth in the English language. ASL has variations which allow inclusion of English-like vocabulary, phrases and word order, according to the CSD. The campus emphasizes fluency in both ASL and written English, while the oral school's program emphasizes spoken and written English mastery so its students may mainstream into the public school system.
With each school's emphasis on language acquisition and achievement, the debate brewing within the deaf community is over which form of learning is the best. This choice, says Kathleen Daniel Sussman, director of JWPOSD, has led to a disagreement in philosophy. "Parents feel strongly about having the option to [have their child] speak," Sussman says. "We see ourselves as one option."
Yet some parents of deaf children, says Ron Stern, director of instruction at the CSD, "might make uninformed decisions." These decisions relate to mainstreaming deaf children into a non-deaf society. A large part of the the CSD's curriculum rides on respecting and empowering deaf people as culturally and linguistically distinct.
"We have more than just a school here. We have a community, " Stern says. The campus program contains an infant, preschool, kindergarten, grammar school and high school program that adheres to the framework of the state curriculum requirement. What children are learning at the CSD in the 4th grade, says Stern, are what children are learning in the same grade within the Fremont Unified School District.
"In the past, expectations for deaf children were watered down. Expectations are higher now, " says Director Ron Stern. "The ASL and English skills of our kids will get stronger than ever before."
Yet it is the disbelief in this statement that drives Sussman's staff to use intense individualized therapy sessions that sometimes last from 45 to 50 minutes. Reading levels of some deaf school graduates are reported not to exceed the 3rd or 4th-grade level, according to a 1993 University of Virginia report titled "Bilingual and Bicultural Deaf Education."
"That says something terrible," Sussman says.
Art work is a form of therapy both schools employ to exercise a child's cognitive abilities. The hands of 6-year-old Philip precariously clasp a paint brush in a sequestered room in the halls of the JWPOSD. His therapist, Sally, is trying to teach the merry-faced kindergartner the "power of this own thoughts." Philip dictates to Sally what it will mean if he paints his whimsical space scene palette with black paint. "The paint will cover up my picture, " Philip says brokenly as Sally writes his statements down on the back of the sheet. "The white part of the paper will turn black," he adds.
Third-graders at CSD parade through the classroom in gauze-covered portrait hats holding up Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, while the rest of the classroom sit, most with anxious bottoms barely in their seats, trying to imitate what they see before them with pencil and paper. Three teachers walk about the classroom signing encouragement.
The children at each school don the same bright clothing, treaded shoes and nonchalance of strangers trekking through their territory. Yet only students at JWPOSD, behind the careless curls of mussed hair, wear a small, surgically-implanted circular metallic device called a cochlear implant, enabling a child as young as 2 years old to electronically recognize sounds that resemble speech.
A play surgery is arranged for 4-year-old Trenton Crabtree, whose surgery is scheduled for April 14. Oral school students dress-up in hospital scrubs and nurses hats and lie Trenton down on a bed in a mock operating room to acclimate him to his upcoming experience.
The surgical procedure of a cochlear implant is another example of an "informed decision" parents of the deaf have to make, according to Stern.
"It can be an invasive surgery with tragic cases," Stern says. And sometimes, Stern says, the procedure does not deliver the promised results, which is a clear sign that a child's deafness is not being accepted. Stern says in some cases he has "very serious doubts" about the procedure.
"It's like asking a black person to become white," Stern says. Yet Stern also acknowledges that for some deaf people, oral education may be the proper option. "One shoe does not fit all," Stern explains. Though he says it's common for people who sign to learn how to speak, he has not heard of many cases where orally-trained deaf pick up ASL as a form of communication.
Eighteen-year-old Trina Abbott is an example of a seriously hearing-impaired Bay Area high-school graduate who wears both shoes. The Redwood City resident attended the JWPOSD from the age of 2 to 5, and mainstreamed into the public school system at kindergarten. The college-bound senior, accepted at both San Diego State University and California State University, Northridge, uses both oral and sign to communicate. Aspiring to be a teacher for the deaf, Abbott says she feels the rift within the deaf community to choose whether to sign or speak.
"The hearing world population is much greater than the sign population. I want to be part of the bigger population," Abbott says. She feels pressure in her speech decisions when interacting with deaf peers who sign. Abbott contends that ASL is "very tricky but easy to learn."
Abbott says that when she first meets other deaf people who only know ASL, "they immediately start a debate with me because I am an oral person. They try to convince me ASL is better than oral. They want to change me to become one of them. But I am happy with my language."
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