Numero uno

While it's hard and I consider it to be a slap in the faces of the Deaf people,
I have to say that, with interpretation, which didn't begin until I was half
finished with my Senior year in high school, it is possible...even if only by
a remote chance....that Deaf people can learn a thing or two in public schools.

I am not saying I would appreciate the ending of Residential Schools for the
Deaf, nor am I offering to end anyone's job.
My thinking is simple: Before the idiots-that-be (in the States Boards of
Education) began saying the Deaf didn't need special education and began seeking
to close the residential schools, many, many more Deaf people were going on to
colleges, going into good salaried jobs, etc.

Now, it's like the Vocational Rehabilitation is starpped as they seek to send "only
the best" to Gallaudet or NTID and, when I finished five years of almost total
Mainstreaming (that is, to say putting a Deaf kid in a hearing class and - during
my time - expeciting him/her to do the best they could, with notihng more than
a book and no understanding of what was going on), my VR counselor had failed
me.
He had failed to tell me that I had one, single solitary chance to go to college. He'd
also failed to tell me I had to take the Gallaudet Entrance Exam, which meant he
decided I should begin in a community college.
Personally, I considered that another mainstream school, so I quit and, finally, found
a job. Because I was able to find work, the VR decided I didn't need their help, which
is ludicrous, when you consider this: Every job, I've had, since 1978, was found forme,
by someone else.

Of course, I have to realize that, had I gone to Gallaudet, I'd probably have become a
schoolteacher. As I consider this, I realize that, with the pressures, placed on faculty
members now, as they are allowed absolutely no discipline and the kids are running
wild (can anyone, who graduated, during the ice age of the '60's and '70's imagine what
would have happened, had we done that?), teaching in a public school would have ended
with my being fire -- or imprisoned!!

However, I, also, have to wonder what would have happened, had another Deaf kid - one, who cannot speak English - had been caught between the cracks, as I had.