Amanda was the most beautiful child I have ever seen, a
real-life Goldilocks with beautiful ringlets framing her angelic face. Also
incredibly bright, by eighteen months, Amanda spoke full sentences and soon
amassed an impressive vocabulary. Unfortunately, on a frigid Super Bowl Sunday,
Amanda developed a high fever.
Gut-wrenching hours later, after a battery of tests,
Amanda’s doctor delivered the life-changing diagnosis: Amanda had meningitis.
Luckily, Amanda would survive, but she would also slowly lose her hearing,
eventually becoming totally deaf.
Amanda’s parents’ perfect world came crashing down around
them. Her mother, a former university cheerleader, and her father, a premed
student, had to drastically change their lives. Instead of idyllically playing
in the park with their beautiful toddler, they spent every opportunity seeking
out audiologists, speech therapists, and schools for hearing-impaired children.
Amanda’s advanced verbal skills began slipping slowly
away, day by day, sinking her deeper into a world of total silence. When Amanda
would frantically increase the volume on the television up to full blast and
then shout, “TV broken,” her heartbroken parents had no idea how to help. When
her grandparents saw Amanda shake her baby doll and fling it on the floor when
she could no longer hear it cry, they shuddered helplessly. Amanda grew so
frustrated her tantrums were becoming part of everyday life. Their beautiful,
bright, and happy child was rapidly becoming withdrawn and increasingly
depressed.
Specialists recommended teaching Amanda speech to allow
her the best opportunities for independent functioning and for learning how to
read. These experts considered sign language a poor substitute for oral
language development and discouraged Amanda’s parents from taking that route.
Her parents suddenly felt caught in an ongoing “Signing versus Oral” feud, when
they desperately needed a way to communicate with their precious child.
When I became Amanda’s teacher, the initial goal was to
teach her to read lips and develop speech. But when three-year old Amanda sat
in the class circle, her bright eyes trained on me, I realized she was
desperately searching for any clue to decipher what I was saying.
At one point, Amanda jumped up, grabbed my
face in her little hands, and shook it. In her frustration, she seemed to be
saying, “Talk louder, doesn’t your mouth work?”
Since I had never seen a three –year –old want to
communicate as badly as Amanda clearly wanted to, I decided to do what was best
for this child – to teach her sign language immediately. Soon thereafter,
sitting cross-legged on the floor, I held a baby doll and signed “doll” while
saying the word. Amanda quickly signed back, “doll” with a verbal “da.”
Within minutes, we were patrolling the room together,
signing “desk,” “chair,” “blackboard,” “picture,” “chalk,” – literally
everything we could identify and communicate. Amanda became a sponge, learning
sign language faster than I could teach her. By the end of the day, Amanda
could actually sign a few complete sentences.
In Amanda’s case, Total Communication, a teaching method
that included signing, lip reading, and speech, proved the ideal teaching
style. The proof was in the pudding – Amanda adjusted quickly, becoming once
again the happy child her mother and father missed so much. Amanda quickly
picked up new vocabulary as well as speech reading.
Amanda became so excited about words and communication
that she practiced sign language with everyone; she just didn’t realize that
not everyone else in the world signs. Her parents were particularly tickled
when they found her down the on her knees signing to their pet spaniel, “You
want to go outside?”
Soon, we all got swept up in the process, and I began
teaching sign language classes at night for Amanda’s family and friends,
meeting at the local pizza parlor, her parents’ apartment clubhouse, or
sometimes in the park. Amanda’s parents learned to sign her bedtime stories,
her cousins learned how to ask her to play, and her grandparents learned how to
tell her,“ I love you.”
Amanda became a three-year-old rebel with a cause. When a
stranger couldn’t sign, she would place her tiny hands on theirs and literally
shape their hands into letters and words, and, in doing so, this little girl
launched her own private revolution. Each time I taught a class, a new friend
of Amanda’s would show up, recounting a story of how “that special little girl”
had touched his or her life. Each was inspired by her beauty, giftedness, and
tenacity.
“That Amanda is so beautiful,” one of her friends said
one day. I bet she’s going to grow up to be Miss Deaf America.” “That or the
first deaf president,” I answered, winking.
When Amanda’s father was accepted to the Mayo Clinic to
finish his studies the following year, I felt a sharp pang knowing I would
never see Amanda again. But it was not her leaving that would stay with me; it
was her arriving in my life that changed me, and how I would view each of my
students forever.
Amanda taught me to stop asking, “Why am I teaching?” and switch to asking, “How am I teaching?” I began to question whether “tried-and-true”
teaching methods, or even radical new theories, should be blindly accepted as
the most effective way of teaching.
One rainy April afternoon, after a hectic day of teaching
a bunch of bouncing kindergartners, I opened my mailbox and discovered a high
school announcement. Out fell a wallet-sized picture of a beautiful girl –
Amanda! Her hair had turned from golden locks to beautiful brunette waves, but
I could still see the beautiful three-year-old I taught so many years ago. She
added a handwritten letter about her busy life as an honor student and head
cheerleader, and noted that she had been accepted to the University of
Minnesota. Amanda shared that her hearing boyfriend was learning signs as fast
as she had in my classroom, and added that she was running for Miss Deaf
Minnesota. Wiping away my tears, I read her final paragraph:
With graduation coming up, I got out
all my class pictures from all my school years. My favorite was the memory book
you made for me showing my classmates doing all the fun activities you worked
so hard to plan for us, I laugh when I look at the curly haired girl wearing
the huge hearing aids. Can that really be me? I have to admit, my mom and dad
filled me in with most of the memories, but a mood comes over me that takes me
back to when my ears closed and my world became a silent one. I can see you
reaching out your hand; I can hear your hand. Watching your hands make pictures
in the air opened the world back up to me. I just want you to know my world is
a beautiful one and thank you for starting it.
Amanda
had a hand in helping me become the best person and teacher I could be, and, if
all goes well, maybe I will have the opportunity to cast my vote for Amanda as
the first deaf president of the United States.
END
Ps: wohaa! YOU HAVE WASTED 10 MINS OF YOUR
LIFE READING THIS POST.. muahaha (evil laugh) Make sure u got something to repay 10 mins of your life.
Source:
Deb Hurst. (2009). Changing One’s Views
In Joseph W.
Underwood (Ed.).Today I Made a Difference
(pp.97-101). Avon, MA: Adams Media
