interactivechalkboard:
My university colleague for my teaching placement told me on Friday that my asseessment from my mentor teacher was crucial.
He’s happy about my work academically but is clearly worried about my hearing impairment and if it will impact on my ability to teach in the classroom.
It felt like a slap in the face.
I don’t know. I work so hard and want so much to be a good teacher that’s attuned to student needs, but what if my hearing prevents that?
I have been afraid about this ever since… well before I even started this degree, but what if my hearing means I’m not going to pick up important things in the classroom. But I just went ahead and did it, convinced that I could overcome the odds.
And ever since I started people have been saying “No no no you’ll be fine you’ll be fine.” And the general opinion has been that some adjustments will have to be made (and the children made aware), but as long as I could communicate effectively, it would all be OK>
But my UC doesn’t seem to think so. Maybe I’m reading too much into it but he was pretty emphatic that the mentor teacher’s opinion on my hearing is something we have to learn (like, by the end of the first week), and listen to.
And that’s not even getting started on my speech articulation. It’s a lot better than most deaf people’s but it is still noticeably different.
Maybe this was the wrong thing to do.
This is a learning experience, and a teaching experience, and one that may be harder on you than it is on other people emotionally, one that is unfortunate in many ways, but also one that is entirely fortunate.
The part that hurts: Not everyone thinks you can do this. And no matter what your ability or disability, no matter what your difference, there will always be someone who doesn’t think you can do what you set out to do. There will always be someone who doubts.
It sounds like thus far you’ve been fairly lucky in having people who think that you can, who offer support. Hearing that you can’t is incredibly hard, and to hear it from someone who one expects knows what they’re talking about is even harder. It’s crushing.
But here’s the other part:
You CAN do this. I had a colleague in Little Rock who is legally blind. When it was time for Spring Break Camp, there was a lot of doubt as to whether or not she would be able to handle a class full of students, even in paired teaching that we were all a part of. Not only did she handle it, but her students adored and respected her.
One of the most challenging, harrowing, uplifting, empowering things about being different is that you are the example. You have a unique ability — you can stand in front of your students and SHOW them what we all try to teach them. You can say, “I have an impairment, but it does not stop me from doing what I want to do.” Maybe you will have a couple of kids who want to challenge you, like they would any other teacher, but by taking advantage of what they perceive to be a weakness. But they will find that it is not a weakness, and that it is something that builds strength — and overall, what I have seen is that students react with intrigue, awe, and respect. Students will recognize that you may have had to overcome something — whether it be an impairment or difference itself, or others’ reactions to it. And because of this, they will think on this, on what it means to be different and on how they treat people who are different, and you will have enacted change for the better because it will affect how they treat people with similar differences in the future.
As for your university colleague, maybe he’s just ignorant, which I do NOT mean in a condescending or negative way. What I mean is, maybe he hasn’t had any experience with someone with hearing impairment. Maybe he has never seen someone with an impairment pursue this career before. I did an anticipatory activity with sixth graders in my first student-teaching placement, before a short nonfiction article about a boy who was blind, asking what they thought you would or wouldn’t be able to do if you couldn’t see. They had a whole slew of things — play baseball, swim, read, use the computer — all of which, as we read the story, we were able to systematically cross out because the boy could.
Maybe your UC’s list for someone with hearing impairment includes teaching.
You’re going to cross that out for him. You’re educating him, too.
It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that you have to do extra to prove yourself to someone that doesn’t know better. It isn’t fair that you doubt yourself because someone else has preconceptions about your ability. But you can do this, and you can make it better for someone who comes after you by changing those preconceptions in everyone you work with. You’re going to be stronger for hanging in there.
The change feels sometimes like it comes at the cost of your sanity, but you are very much doing the right thing. Please, don’t doubt that.
