Grading Mainstreamed Students

Each year, I answer a number of questions related to the grading of our mainstream DHH kids.

Each year, I lament our inability to make this process EASIER for you all.

Two questions commonly asked:

Do I need to use differential standards in grading the deaf / hard of hearing kids in my classroom?

How do I record / track grades for the said children?

The answer to the first question is, generally, no. I don't like differential grading for my kids, because I think that it dilutes the basic message of standards competency for our kids. Our students will take the HSEE, just like each of your other students. Our kids are not exempt. They will receive either a diploma or a "Certificate of Completion", just like your other students. And just like you, we hope that most of our kids will manage to bring home a diploma, as anything less adds uncertainty to their post-graduation college and career future.

Our students may, however, have other modifications per their IEPs - additional time for test-taking, reduced homework load, etc. The SDC teacher following each mainstream student will typically review with you any modifications that are in place. It's also pretty common to add modifications later in the school year, after we've had a chance to see how things are going.

I am hoping that Mrs. Mackenzie will chime in here if her philosophy differs from my own! :)

Recording and reporting of grades (the second question) has been an ongoing concern and the source of many questions each school year. Presently, our deaf and hard of hearing students are not in the school Pathways system. This means that all mainstream grades have to be tracked and recorded separately, which is (in my opinion) a REALLY TERRIBLE THING ™. My perspective is that we ask enough of you guys without turning grading into a major chore as well.

I've had a couple of different answers re: adding our students to Pathways. The first response is that the addition of our students would exceed the cap / limit for our school license in terms of numbers, pushing the costs to Hart-Ransom up a notch. A second, more recent explanation is that adding our kids to Pathways generates serious headaches when it comes to state reporting requirements.

Our SCOE information systems lady has recently promised to speak with the Hart-Ransom office in the hopes of coming up with something. I continue to hold out hope that a solution will be discovered soon.

In the meantime - what's a buried-alive instructor to do? (Other than cry out feebly from under the avalanche of paperwork?)

Option A: Give everything to me.

That's right - just send all their work to me. I can even correct it if you'd like. The downside to this is that I don't know your weighting systems or grading policies, etc., so my kid might wind up being graded rather differently than the hearing student sitting across the aisle from him/her.

Option B: Record all scores for the DHH kids in a separate Excel spreadsheet.

This method seems to be the current method of choice. Mrs. Montgomery was using a nice little spreadsheet for mainstream math last year; I have the file if you are interested, or you MIGHT be able to convince her to share if you ask nicely. I've tried bribes in the past, but she is a woman of integrity and only niceness works. Just sayin'.

Option C: Run all student assignments through a shredder, or use as birdcage lining.

NOT RECOMMENDED. ;)

A final FYI: I attempt to send out progress reports / report cards at (or very close to) the same time that you send yours home. It's super helpful to me if I can have all the information in-hand by the time you are sending your own reports home.

Thank you so much for everything you do to support our kids!

Extra Prep Period for All!

The human ear. Gross.

I wanted to inform / remind mainstream teachers that I am available to provide 45-minute (approximate) lessons on hearing, hearing loss, the ear, etc. The lesson covers anatomy, a little tiny bit of sound science (physics), hearing loss, hearing damage due to noise, hearing aids/cochlear implants/etc. Time permitting, I can throw some sign language into the mix or give an "unfair spelling test" to simulate the experience of a hard of hearing kid.

Generally, this helps to defuse some of your students' natural curiosity, and seems to make my kids a little more approachable in the long run.

I can make most times work for me, given a little advance notice, so let me know if you'd like to have a guest teacher for a period sometime. :)

Eye Music

This girl does a fantastic job of translating music into American Sign Language. She isn't following a word order; she's making complete images that even hearing people can appreciate. Enjoy!

Defining Deafness

With your new mainstream student comes a label: Deaf. Hearing Impaired. DHH. Hard of hearing. I thought it might be helpful to spend a little time looking at -- and beyond -- the labels we use to describe our kids, and talk about what it might mean for you as a teacher.

Perhaps it would be best to talk about some of the labels that are presently frowned upon. Historically, the word "dumb" was used to refer to individuals who were unable to speak. The phrase "deaf and dumb" was commonly used in the past to refer to deaf individuals who, for whatever reason, had not developed comprehensible speech. As you might imagine, given the modern associations for the word "dumb", this tag has become pretty offensive.

You might be surprised to learn that the terms "hearing impaired" or anything containing the words "disabled" or "handicapped" (or any variant thereof) are also generally frowned upon. Deaf and hard of hearing people generally do not consider themselves impaired, or disabled, or handicapped, although many feel somewhat inconvenienced. :)

I would encourage you to refer to your students as either deaf or hard of hearing. Referring to them as DHH kids (identifying them with our program) is fine, but either deaf or hard of hearing is generally preferable.

Deaf persons are those individuals who must rely on some form of visual communication for full access to the world. They often may receive some limited benefit from hearing aids. Some deaf persons are able to speak, while others are not. Almost all deaf individuals who do speak have a noticeable "deaf accent" that takes a little getting used to. Not all deaf people use sign language, but the vast majority do.

Hard of hearing persons are those who prefer to communicate by listening and speaking (rather than sign language). They usually are able to hear speech to one degree or another when wearing their equipment. They too generally speak with a "deaf accent", although that accent is often milder than that of a deaf person. Some sign fluently, others not at all. In the classroom, educational interpreters are often used to ensure that a hard of hearing student has full access to the curriculum; without this accommodation, studies show that a lot of information in the mainstream environment may be missed or misunderstood.

The distinction between the two labels has grown somewhat blurry as cochlear implants have become more common: a number of deaf children have become functionally hard of hearing through the procedure. A cochlear implant can be a very powerful tool, but it is neither a cure for deafness, or the one-size-fits all panacea that it is often made out to be.

As kids get older, we tend to ask them how they view themselves (deaf or hard of hearing) and allow them to identify themselves.

There is a third, important distinction - the use of a capital 'D' in describing a Deaf person. Capital-D "Deafness" it a cultural rather than a medical label; it is used to identify oneself as a member of the Deaf community. As a cultural label, it refers to a group of people with a distinct language (American Sign Language, or ASL), a distinct history and a set of shared experiences that hearing people like myself cannot truly understand. Deafness with a capital 'D' is an affirmation - a powerful and positive statement of personal identity.

Interestingly, a person who is hard of hearing can be a part of the Deaf community, but wouldn't describe him or herself as being deaf. Follow?

The Care and Feeding of Interpreters, Part 1

So, you've just learned that another mountain of responsibility young, promising mind has been added to your register. Not only does this future world leader come with all the standard kid accoutrements, he also brings to your room an array of complicated and expensive electronic equipment. There is a laundry list of special accommodations that nobody has really explained clearly and reams of difficult-to-correct work that cannot be entered into the school's computerized grading system.

Best of all, this student comes with his own personal grown-up. Or two.

Having educational interpreters in your classroom can be quite an adjustment for even the most flexible teachers. For the first couple of weeks (at least), the students may be more interested in watching the funny lady waving her hands around than in anything educational that you may be doing. You may bump into, or trip over, your new educational interpreter. Often. You may find your classroom disrupted by staffing changes from day to day, or even as interpreters swap during class time. The educational interpreter may interrupt your lecture to seek clarification, ask you to slow down, or ask you to repeat. As interpreters work to support our students, you might at times feel that they are doing too much...or not enough. 

We love our educational interpreters. Many of our mainstream teachers come to love them, as well. There are many advantages to having an extra adult on hand, not the least of which is the ability to occasionally use the restroom during class time. This perk alone is one of the reasons I entered Special Education in the first place.

All joking aside, I could probably write a novel on the intricacies of working with an educational interpreter in the classroom setting. This blog entry will focus on a few of the basics and hopefully set us up for future topics.

Here's a few basic things you should know about educational interpreters.

• Educational interpreters are state-certified professionals, and have to pass difficult expressive and receptive examinations to demonstrate their fluency in sign language. While they may take on some classroom support responsibilities during their down time, they are not 'aides' or 'paras', and they are treated differently by the state and by CSEA.

• Most of our interpreters are fully certified. A few of our staff members are "mostly certified" and are allowed to interpret on a waiver from the state while they work to pass the examination. 

• A few of the people who will interpret in your room are neither certified, nor on state waivers. They are simply skilled signers who we substitute in for our fully-certified interpreters when they are out.

• Supply-demand for fully certified interpreters is way out of balance right now. Some local school districts have been floating vacancies for years without a single nibble. SCOE presently has three full-time vacancies for fully-certified educational interpreters that are unfilled, with no applicants in the queue. The person sitting at the front of your classroom has an exceptionally rare and awesome specialty. Very few can do it at all, and even fewer can do it well. 

• SCOE's job title for educational interpreters includes the word "aide"; this designation is deliberate, and is to clarify that our interpreters are expected to take on some classroom support duties as well. 

If you feel like exploring this topic further, this document does a great job of explaining the roles and responsibilities of educational interpreters vs. the role of, say, that guy standing on the stage during the presidential inauguration.

• At this time, I am the primary "point-of-contact" for all matters related to our educational interpreters. If you have any questions or concerns, please ask! For educational / IEP issues, please speak with the student's SDC teacher (either me or Cheryl).

In the next article, I'll try to shed a little insight on our scheduling process and offer some tips on making the most of your educational interpreter. :)

Getting Started...Finally!

Teachers,

I spent a long time trying to think up cool names for this blog. "Brainstreaming" was already taken, and most of my other ideas were either comically melodramatic ("Mainstream Heroes") or hopelessly maudlin ("The Very Best and Last Hope of Deaf Children").

Although I've been tinkering with using this format to communicate with my kids' families, this is the first time I've attempted to use something like a blog as a resource for our mainstream teachers. The potential seems enormous, but I know from experience that much depends on my own consistency and your own participation. Even if you can't make time to be a regular part of the blog, I figure that it's one more resource at your disposal, and any psychological and emotional scarring from reading my rambling essays will most likely fade in time.

There's one little bullet-point on SCOE's list of 12 Civility Principles that really smacked me upside the head when I read it for the first time. It reads:

• Respect Other People's Time

My track record in this is rather abysmal. I'm the guy who leaves messages that get cut off after two minutes every single time. My boss gave up trying to read my emails years ago. Her comment: "I found that if I take the time to read the whole thing, I'm usually glad that I did."

I know how busy you are. I want you to know how grateful I am for your support, and for your cheerful willingness to take extra, special-needs kids (and adult support staff!) into your classrooms. I know your rooms are already bursting at the seams.

I'll do my level best to keep things light and interesting here, without wasting too much of your time. :)

"Following" the blog is the easiest way to participate, as you can elect to have any updates sent to you via email. If you've any questions, please feel free to ask here or contact me via the traditional channels - I'm happy to help in any way I can. I may also use your questions to develop the resources here for everyone to share.

Thank you all, for everything.

-Jason