If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.
Ignacio “Nacho” Estrada
Finally, the big day arrived. I was nervous. I didn’t know what to expect. I felt like a racehorse waiting to blast out of the starting gate. Adrenaline was pumping through my system. Since Lincoln Junior High was close to my home, I walked to school. I carried the battered briefcase that Jonathan used when he went to Arkansas School for the Deaf. With every step I felt his love, wisdom, and support, even if we did not agree that it was the right course for me.
The hallways at Lincoln seemed to overflow with students. What a contrast to the first visit I had made with my father. This time I couldn’t even see the walls. I saw nothing but students—all vocal, hearing boys and girls. They were talking, joking, laughing, flirting, shouting. And I was to be a part of all this! How would it all work out?
I found my homeroom with Mrs. Greenwood and sat at my chosen desk. On that day, the homeroom period was longer than usual, as we had to iron out the bugs in our schedules and get our locker assignments. There were many announcements over the loudspeaker from the principal’s office. I didn’t know what to do about these announcements except to smile sheepishly and look around for clues. Mrs. Greenwood kept saying that there was nothing important for me to know. How in hell, I asked myself, would she know what’s important and what’s not important for me?
In the homeroom, I saw a friendly face sitting in the first row on the left side of the teacher’s desk. He kept looking at me. I knew he was a “foreigner” also. He asked me what my name was and soon we were in conversation. We tried to talk but found it difficult with all the background noise so we resorted to writing notes to each other. His name was Carlos Molores. We found out that we lived only three blocks from each other and agreed to walk home together after school.
I liked Carlos immediately. He was friendly and very much his own person. He showed no reservations about talking to a deaf person in our conversations, which flowed freely from the start. It helped that his communication style included many gestures and varying facial expressions. To show emphasis, Carlos didn’t just raise his voice. He punctuated words by throwing up his hands or pointing his finger. We became fast friends.
Soon we broke up to go to our classes. For me it was Latin with Miss Jones. There was the paper with my name on it taped to the desk. I raced in, peeled it off, crumpled it up, and threw it into the trash. I didn’t want anyone to see the desk with my name on it. No one else had an assigned seat and I didn’t want anyone to think I was getting different treatment. To most adolescents, being set apart or having grownups call attention to you is a curse. But to me, the “deaf boy” in the class, it was even more of a trauma.
I was surprised at how easy it was to lipread Miss Jones. She seemed to exaggerate her lips—not because of me but because that was her natural way of speaking to the class. I got the impression that she was almost euphoric on that first day of school. She seemed genuinely glad to see everyone. She introduced me to the class, explaining that I was profoundly deaf but that I read lips and that I spoke fairly well. I didn’t feel comfortable being held up before the class as someone different, but everyone in the class seemed friendly and receptive to the situation. Some of the students even came up to say hello and welcome me aboard.
In Miss Waggy’s algebra class, I took the chair near her desk with the armrest I wanted. Then Miss Waggy had the rest of the class sit in alphabetical order, leaving me sitting at my chosen place. Because she didn’t explain my deafness, some of the students were puzzled when Miss Waggy chose me from the rest of the class to sit at that chair. This time I was interjected into the classroom without any explanation, and the feeling was equally strange.
Miss Waggy started right off talking about what to expect in her class. My heart sank. I couldn’t read her lips. She didn’t move them much and didn’t enunciate at all. I knew I would just have to wait and see how things turned out. Miss Waggy was also rather cool and straightforward, with little or no animation or personality. Two out of three.
I was eager to see what Mrs. Burdette, the unknown civics teacher, was going to be like. The next period, I introduced myself to her and asked permission to sit at the front of the class. She agreed to it, but by her attitude I could see she had no confidence in my ability to survive. She was just resigned to the fact that I was going to be there. She began speaking about what we were to learn in civics. I soon realized I could have given the same information in five minutes that took her a full half hour.
After lunch I went to Mrs. Carp’s English class. The moment I walked into the room, I knew everyone was terrified of her. The other students had been at the school in seventh and eighth grade, so they knew who she was and what she demanded from her class. They were all frozen in their seats. When Mrs. Carp saw me, she told the person sitting at my chosen spot to move elsewhere so I could take my seat.
Mrs. Carp outlined the English class activities clearly and I was pleased with how easy it was to understand most of her speech. Her strict nature dictated that she speak forcefully, which made it easier for me to read her lips. Everyone in the class was attentive in her presence. It turned out we had a lot of homework, reading, and papers to write. Even so, from the first day to year’s end, I held a great deal of respect for Mrs. Carp. I didn’t really mind all the work or her no-nonsense nature, though some students resented every minute of their time with her.
Mrs. Carp always wrote the next assignment on the blackboard at the end of class period. It was a perfect way to ensure that I didn’t miss anything expected of me, which was easy to do if the teacher wasn’t altogether clear. I asked other teachers to do the same, and they all agreed to do so for the rest of the school year. However, some teachers were not as organized as others, and it was hard for them to remember. This was especially true of Mrs. Burdette, who was never clear in her expectations of us.
After Mrs. Carp’s class, I had a study hall period with Mrs. Hunt, a friendly teacher in her late twenties. On the first day, we didn’t talk much, but later in the school year a real friendship blossomed.
The last class for the day was health with Mr. Stern, a popular physical education teacher. I didn’t understand a word he said and never bothered trying to talk to him much. I sat halfway from the front with Carlos Molores beside me. From time to time, Carlos explained what was happening. He showed me different things in our textbook to let me know exactly what Mr. Stern was covering at that moment. It turned out that Mr. Stern lectured straight from the book all the way through the school year, deviating only to discuss his favorite subject, our school sports teams.
At the end of each school day, we returned to our homerooms. That was my schedule every day.
I have already said that deaf children must be treated as normal human beings yet with special care; they must be both challenged and protected. It is a contradiction and may sound like preferential treatment, yet these same attitudes should be applied to hearing children as well. Each child is fragile or vulnerable in different ways. To be raised and educated properly, a child should be challenged and protected in proportion to his needs. This is much to ask of parents, let alone teachers, who have fifteen to thirty pupils in their class. If you add a deaf child to that class, of course the effort required of the teacher is multiplied. Some teachers are equal to the task, but others who are already challenged just to keep up with the hearing children will fall short. Each of my teachers at Lincoln had his or her own personality, abilities, and limitations.
Homeroom teacher Mrs. Greenwood meant well, but the worst thing you can do to a deaf child is isolate him from information. Miss Jones showed too much preferential treatment, while Miss Waggy didn’t explain to the class why I was different. Mrs. Burdette showed no faith in me and Mrs. Carp gave no quarter to anyone. Mr. Stern should have been on the gridiron and in study hall, while Mrs. Hunt became a friend. I did learn from this array of teachers, although with some it was from omission.
At the end of that first day, Carlos and I left school together for home. We talked about school. As we talked he understood more and more of my speech. I appreciated how easy it was to lipread him. We struggled a little for the next few days, but within a few weeks all barriers to our communication were gone. I was thrilled. I had my first hearing friend at school, and it had taken such a short time.
Carlos had lived an interesting life. He came to the United States from Cuba during a group escape attempt, but his parents were caught and kept in Cuba. An older couple in Charleston knew his parents from their travels in Cuba and agreed to take care of Carlos as long as it was necessary. No one knew when or if his parents would ever join him. When Carlos started the seventh grade at Lincoln, his English was practically nonexistent. After two years, his English was nearly flawless. He was extremely bright and absorbed everything he read and heard.
When Carlos and I met, he understood my situation. His experiences as a foreigner had taught him what it was like to be a stranger and made him more empathetic to me than many others would have been. His struggle to understand a foreign language and to be understood made it easier for him to be patient with my struggle.
I thought Carlos and I might stop being friends when we discovered differences between us. Instead, our friendship grew stronger throughout our high school years.