Sean Forbes "I'm Deaf" - This is really interesting

Because we shouldn't have to...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIkjPwxOcdk

This is one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies, X-Men 2. In it, two characters look extremely bizarre (on top of being mutants, or people with superpowers) but the woman can change her shape to look and sound like anyone in the world.

So her son (who doesn't know that she is his mother) brings up an interesting point; if you can "fix" yourself to look like everyone else, why don't you?

And since the video is kinda dark and difficult to really see just how bizarre looking they are, I added a better picture of Nightcrawler (the man). I know it's weird to be discussing comic book characters in a blog about deafness, but there's a reason that I love the character Nightcrawler so much, enough to get him tattooed on me: despite his appearance, he does not believe there is ANYTHING wrong with himself! He believes that mankind is inherently good, he is always optimistic, and remains deeply faithful regardless of what happens. I think characters like him are good role models for anyone who feels inadequate at times :-)

ZVRS

One of my friends on facebook shared a video about zvrs.com. It is coming up on in March and looks like something major for the Deaf. I am excited because it looks like videos that have deaf people in the videos with caption. This is great.I can't wait until March to learn and see more.Some of you may already be familiar with ZVRS.

Dance of 1,000 hands

There is a group in China that dances with their hands. It looks REALLY cool to watch all of these hands to work together and create these patterns that match the music.

Now here's the cool part...they are all deaf.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74Uc0Qd8H-s&feature=related

Deaf Panel

I really enjoyed listening to the different viewpoints given. I feel like they each represented a different portion of the Deaf culture but were still similar at the same time. Jenna had the cochlear implant and could use her voice, Josh had no form of assistive listening device and could not use his voice to speak of, and Ryan wore hearing aids but mainly used sign language to communicate. I also thought it was interesting to hear of their different educational backgrounds. Some were mainstreamed, some were put in residential schools, and others had small resource classrooms that were a part of a public school. I find it worthy to point out that despite the different educational placements, each person turned out to be an extremely talented and smart individual. They had the attitude that they could do whatever they wanted and no amount of hearing loss or difference in communication was going to stop them. I think this was the key to their life being so successful. Well, that and good interpreters. :) Overall, this panel and presentation was very inspiring!

Emily Bruner

Coming Out as Deaf

A few months back, Steff shared this video with me. Props Steff for finding this video. I think it's fabulous. There are a few parts that some could find at frist to be boderline inappropriate. Please proceed with caution if you feel you may be offended. That is not my intention whatsoever and the two aprts I am talking baout are not actually what they seem to be (so give it a second and don't just click off the site). I hope this all makes sense. This video was presented at the London Deaf Film Festival a few years ago and has been viewed worldwide. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.
Anyways, here is the video.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3ai5IVfFdE

I think this video is great to point out the paralells between marganilzed groups who are forced to explain themselves and their identity because it is not the norm in society. Clearly this is exxagerated, but I think it makes some good points. What do you think about it?

Through Your Child's Eyes (Video)

I found this video that one of my professors posted on facebook. I thought it was interesting to take a child's perspective as well as interviews from parents about teaching their deaf and hard of hearing children. To summarize, it focuses on teaching ASL to babies...and then as they get older introducing speech therapy, hearing aids, English and so on...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV69iJuXwP4&feature=player_embedded

What are your thoughts?

Yes You Can

I am going to answer ONE of the questions I posed last night.  I AM FULLY CONFIDENT that the students who are in SED337 have the potential to work alongside others in the field of Deaf Education and the Deaf Community to make an INCREDIBLE impact on the education of our NEXT GENERATION LEARNERS.  You may be preparing to be an Interpreter, a Speech & Language Pathologist, an Educator or many of the other professions that will touch young lives.  I believe you will make a difference.  Do you?

Panelists Bios

Here is the link to the panelists' bios if you need them to assist you with the exam.

McDonalds - Universal Language commercia,l I thought this was really cool

More Access on Campus

Hello All!
As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I am a Peer Educator at EKU-SAFE. Recently ouor website had been updated to include information for survivors of violence in the Deaf community. I would love for you to check out this site. My hope is that you will pass this along to others and help spread the word.

Last semester I went to a workshop that discussed the major issue of violence within the Deaf community and how this violence is really silenced withint the community. Until recently there hasn't been much dialogue about this issue but there have been major grassroot efforts to provide advocacy and protection for Deaf and hard of hearing survivors. Our goal at EKU- SAFE is to allow a space to for all people to have equal and open access to our services and to confront the issue of violence proactively. I think it is so important that all members of this campus feel like they have a safe place to go if they have experienced violence . Please check out our site. If you have any feedback or suggestions/info/ideas for how we could improve th site, we would love to know!

www.safe.eku.edu/survivors/DeafServices/

Deaf World vs. Hearing World.. I think it is the same World, personally...

I just want to start out to say that I was so mad when they didn't cancel night classes tonight, but now I am so happy we had class! I loved it! I feel like Jena, Josh and Ryan were some of the most down to earth, real people I have met in a long time, possibly ever really.
I think what I loved the most was when they talked about how important it is to be involved with both worlds-Hearing and Deaf. I also liked that they talked about it in a sense that it really isn't two worlds, but just learning how to interact with different groups of people. From my experience with the Deaf, it is fairly brief, I must admit, has been a completely different experience from tonight. Most of the Deaf people I have met went to high school with me, and I have met a few others through Deaf socials and things like that, but that's about it really. But for most of the Deaf kids who went to my school they D-E-A-F, DEAF DEAF DEAF! They were so into Deaf World this, and Deaf culture that, which I think is great, don't get me wrong, but at time I used to get so sick of it. With one of my friends, him and I would fight constantly over things like cochlear implants, and ASL verses SEE, and all those "hot" topics. I really do consider him a friend of mine, but I could slap him sometimes because he would talk down to me on some issues because I was Hearing, and "didn't understand." Whenever we would fight I would be so tempted to get up in his face and be like YOU ARE BEING SO HYPOCRITCAL WITH HOW YOU ARE TREATING ME AND THE POINTS THAT YOU ARE MAKING, but I refrained. Maybe it is because I'm ignorant of how the real world works, or a die-hard idealist, but to me, I don't see the world I live in broken up into sub-worlds. Yes, it has a million different cultures and sub cultures that people identify with, great, but we all live in the same world. I think separating ourselves into different "worlds" only keeps people ignorant. (This is going to turn into a rant probably really soon, so sorry, but I get passionate about these type things) For instance, I went to a premier of "Through Deaf Eyes" back in Louisville when I was a sophomore in high school, my first semester of learning sign language, and I remember getting SO MAD at some of the people there! After the movie people were invited to come up to the front and share their thoughts on....anything really. Well, needless to say the movie inspired a lot of Deaf pride, which I think is great, I really do, until you start talking about Hearing people like we're the bad guys. I sat through about four or five deaf people standing up and ranting and raving about how ignorant Hearing people are, and how clueless they are about Deaf culture, and they should really learn about it, etc. etc. etc. And to that I say yes, more Hearing people should be more aware and more knowledgeable about Deaf culture, but how about you SHOW ME HOW!! Never once did any of the Deaf people mention anything about Deaf people going out to educate Hearing people, or inviting them in to experience Deaf culture. It just made me so so so mad that it was so one-sided. Yes, it is great to say that changes need to be made, and yes, they do, but you have to be willing to put in the EFFORT to MAKE THE CHANGES!.
So, I really appreciated that the members of the panel gave it a general mixing of the worlds, and learning how to behave properly for both. I just found it refreshing.

Also, I loved Jena's comment about how we know nothing, degree or not, until we actually experience it. I just love that statement. It is one of those things, you know it is true, and there is no fighting it. Just like anything else, you are going to look to the person who has gotten their hands dirty in something rather than they guy who has read a lot of books on it. That's just life.

I hope I didn't ramble too much, and I didn't turn anyone off by what I said; I am just unloading my point that I have been carrying around for so long.

Thanks,
Natalie

Tonight's Panel

I really enjoyed tonight's class. Getting to talk to Josh, Jena, and Ryan was very interesting! Part of their stories is what has inspired me to become an interpreter. As you heard, my mom was one of the few interpreters that Josh and Ryan had when they mainstreamed into Boyle County schools. I did not realize the impact that her and Karen Lewis as well as Rita had on them. They have told me time and time again that they love my mom and all that she has done for them, but to hear their story tonight made it more real life for me. I am ready to begin my interpreting career so that I can make impacts like that on other students who choose to be mainstreamed. It is also inspiring to me to go back to a Boyle County sporting event where Josh or John or even Ryan may be attending and see all their former classmates stop and attempt to communicate to them. They may not know much sign, but to see them attempt to spell out words or try to learn is always a cool thing to watch. :)

ASLPro.com- Great Website!

Caitlin Hill and I found this website. If anyone is looking to improve their ASL, this is a great tool. There is an ASL dictionary which I use everyday. I go through the alphabet and learn 3 new signs everyday. There are also finger spelling quizzes. I am not very confident with comprehending fast finger spelling, so this has helped me a lot. I suggest this site to anyone learning ASL!

http://www.aslpro.com/

Tonight

Are we going to have class tonight? Madison County is already letting out kids early so I assume the weather is going to be bad.

Steff

What would you Do?

I was just curious if anyone had seen last week's episode of "What Would You Do?" (Friday, Feb 4th). For anyone who hasn't heard of the show, they use actors to create situations in public settings to see how people will react to the actors' behavior. For this episode, two actors, Deaf students from NTID went into a coffee shop and one tried to apply for a kitchen position. The manager of the shop, another actor, told her that he couldn't accept her application because she was Deaf. Then, the hidden cameras filmed how customers reacted. If you get the chance, you can watch this episode on HULU and you might be surprised by how some of the people reacted. Anyone else see it?

Sharing Presentations

Please send me your presentations or post the links here on the blog!  This group has sent me their link to their presentation on Marlee Matlin.  THANK YOU!

Panelist's Bios

Here's the link to read the bios for the panelists coming on Weds

Read the bios of the panelists!

Question!

I was just wondering where the blogs are posted that we should read for class on Wednesday! I looked everywhere and can't remember where they are!

:)

Thanks,

Janaye!

CSI

hey all!! not sure how many of you watched the new CSI episode, but I just wanted to post the website on here for those who haven't yet.

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/csi/video/?pid=3T4V0DjytB1Exwa6tUl_BduL9IGDKOrh

Marlee Matlin plays the lead role, along with many other Deaf actors - it's practically a whole Deaf cast!

It's a really great episode and it'll blow your mind :) there are captions available under the "other" button toward the bottom right of the video.

-Kristi Hamm