A Letter from a Daughter
Hi Dad, It’s really hard to believe that just two months ago my sister and I turned twenty-one! Celebrating that with so many friends and family was amazing! I’m sorry that I haven’t been home to see you this month – it’s just been so busy getting ready for graduation. Can you believe it? I [...]
A Facebook Profile
Facebook profiles are not usually long. My real profile isn’t very long either. But if I were to write the perfect profile about who I am, it would probably be something like this… Hi, you don’t know me. My name is Jason. I’m a new daddy of baby twin girls. Sometimes I have a hard [...]
In Defense of Teaching
I like teaching. This apparently shocks a lot of people—not because I personally like it but because anybody can possibly like it. This goes quadruple for anything related to Deaf Education. You see, according to them, if I’m doing that, then I’m hiding from the Hearing World, not living up to my potential, not venturing [...]
It Gets Better – In ASL
Teresa wrote a fantastic article discussing Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” project on YouTube. There’s more than 100 videos by people who have experienced or seen others experienced bullying, harassment, or general bad experiences because of their sexual orientation. She also expressed the need for the Deaf and signing community to make similar videos for [...]
It Gets Better. It Really Does.
Unless you’ve been under a rock this week, you’ve probably seen this week’s troubling stories about gay teens committing suicide. The deaths of Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi, Asher Brown from a small town just outside Houston, Texas, and Seth Walsh in Tehachapi, California have haunted my thoughts this week. Watching Seth Walsh’s sister’s Youtube [...]
Bilingualism Is Not Just For Deaf Children
A story, if you will, about bilingualism. It’s too often presented as an educational approach designed to give deaf children access to language. That’s true, but it’s not the whole story. It also gives hearing children access to their signing deaf parents. If there exists the antithesis of parents who are caught by surprise at [...]
I Speak and Talk, Too
I don’t normally like audiologists and speech therapists. But my perspective on talking and speaking was forever changed by an audiologist, and I will always be grateful to her for that. Her name was Venita Gragg, and I was a 4th grade student at Maryland School for the Deaf, Columbia Campus when I met her. [...]
This and That
Given the recent death that occurred shortly after an accident on Gallaudet University, it didn’t surprise me that a number of Deaf Echo writers (as well as writers we’re trying to recruit) contacted me saying “Chris, what’s Deaf Echo’s policy on writing stories about Gallaudet? Someday I might want to, but I’m keenly aware that [...]
From Echolalia to Coprolalia: Civility on Deaf Echo
Hello readers! It has been a long time, hasn’t it? Three cheers to administrators Bobby, Adam, and Chris for rising like the phoenix from the ashes of DeafDC to give us Deaf Echo. I’m humbled to be invited to blog along, and grateful for another chance to engage in deaf community discourse. Another chance? Yes, [...]
Choices
Henry Ford famously said that his customers could have their cars in any color they wanted, as long as it was black. How’s that for wide variety of choices, eh? Well, the same is true when it comes to Deaf education. If I was oral, and wanted my child to be raised orally, I wouldn’t [...]