Growing Up Deaf Update 5

Something else came to mind when I was talking with someone about their school years, related to the Growing Up Deaf Part 19 and Part 20 posts. Back when I attended the School From Hell, there were a number of times some kids angrily asked me why I was a year older than them. I told them maybe due to my birthdate being so early in the school year? Maybe something else. Or I just plain said I didn't know.

The truth was that I attended kindergarten not for the normal one year, but two years. Remember I said I lost my hearing around age 5 in Growing Up Deaf Part 5?

Had I told them, who knows what they would have done?

I Have Selective Hearing?

The post by The Rebuttal, Bullying and the Deaf, reminds me of a lot of this stuff that happened to me long ago, especially around middle school up til mid high school. I posted about teasing and mistreatment here on the blog back in October 2007, Growing Up Deaf, parts 18 to 21.

I'd nearly forgotten about a few quotes until it was mentioned in the article. More specifically, halfway down, "you can hear well when you want to," "you have selective hearing," and "you're not deaf, you can hear" would sometimes be directed my way if I had a hard time understanding someone. Just because I heard someone say something or talk doesn't mean I understood them.

Jeez, accuse a deaf guy of having a hearing loss and attempting to communicate, willya?! Hey, hearie, can I accuse you of having such an insensitive attitude?

Growing up Deaf - Part 21

Teasing and Mistreatment - Part 4 of 4

It's been around the last 10 years that we're seeing the effects of bullying and mistreatment. The spate of school violence has proved what the kids have been telling the adults all these years. It causes a lot of emotional and physical harm. I was probably fortunate it didn't get to the point where I was sent to a doctor and/or hospital. Even then, a few adults listened to us and just about took on the bullies/tormentors to the point of going one on one with them to show them that their actions weren't tolerated. The parents of these bullies/tormentors can have just as much fault. In some of the cases I've heard about, it's taken hidden video and court.

http://www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/showarticle/la/551
http://www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/showarticle/la/215/improve
http://www.bullypolice.org/

In the second greatschools URL, there's the Four Myths of Bullying. The third and the fourth I heard constantly. Ignoring them didn't do a thing. Going elsewhere or ignoring would cause them to step up attacks. Stand up for ourselves? Fight back? Damned if I did, damned if I didn't.

Jamie Berke, Deafness guide at About, had a response to her from someone related to this about her own experiences. They said that when people were uncomfortable around those they see as different, they didn't know what to do and may treat them in a mean way. Meaning that today, what we thought of as teasing and mistreatment, could easily have been bullying.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3934/is_200002/ai_n8895278

There's some good videos on YouTube and many other places with a bit of looking.

Next - Intro to Captioning at Home

Growing up Deaf - Part 20

Teasing and Mistreatment - Part 3 of 4

With late high school, it got less. Some hurled pennies at me. They're pretty much lucky that they didn't nail my eyes in the wrong way. Remember my electronics class? Charged capacitors can be electrifying. However revenge-bent the mindset some of these kids were, I'd most likely be beaten up or something. I should have just told the coach or teacher what was going on and then gone on to the library, regardless of the consequences.

During art class in the School from Hell, I did manage to do something. This class had three groups of long tables put together. I sneaked under the table with a long piece of roping to attach to a chair leg at another table. I pulled when someone sat down. The entire class died including the teacher. Then I sneaked back to get the rope and back to my seat.

The rope and I were right within view of around 4 or 5 people including the teacher, and all they had to do was look down. *ONE* person saw me, and he never told anyone. The kid that hit the floor was one of my tormentors.

In college, there were always the dorm pranks, which most of us knew enough to never be destructive. I heard about a residence advisor who had a large water-filled trashcan tilted against their door. Some things under the beds were destroyed, they had to deal with the mildew. A similar thing happened to an RA across the hall from me.

Next - Final Part of Teasing and Mistreatment

Growing up Deaf - Part 19

Teasing and Mistreatment - Part 2 of 4

At the end of eighth or ninth grade, someone broke into my locker and took everything. I had a few things at home, but the major stuff I needed for studies were gone. That meant I couldn't study for my finals or get homework done after the theft. I told my teachers and they said that what my grade average was before the finals, that would be my final exam grade. When classmates heard this conversation, some were pretty upset. However, those responsible didn't even try to return my stuff. Did they destroy it, toss it in remote trashcans, what?

A couple things stand out in mind. I don't remember if the combination locks were school-provided or they were my own. They used top and a bottom lockers with mine being the top. At one point, I found my lock upside down facing the locker rather than the other way. It wasn't til shortly afterwards one girl admitted to doing that while watching over my shoulder. She and a couple other girls were known to give me trouble at times. If she did the locker theft, she put up quite an act when I talked with the teachers.

Why didn't they bother with my hearing aids, lock me into a locker or locked area in the locker room, duct tape me up, that kind of thing? I tended to gravitate towards the adults at times.

I don't think I had much of a chance to make friends at the School From Hell. The mistreatment started not long after I arrived; just about blowing any chance I had with making friends. Whatever label they stuck on me, most likely stuck til I left. There was this counselor who actually compared me to a deaf girl who they claimed to be popular there or somewhere else. I don't think anyone really understood my hearing loss back then, much less tried. I heard from a former classmate that like her, we weren't quite accepted there.

Next - Part 3 of Teasing and Mistreatment

Growing up Deaf - Part 18

Teasing and Mistreatment - Part 1 of 4

We've known that younger kids with some sort of disability go through this type of thing to a degree in grade school. Some will experience virtually none, while others will just plain be rejected outright and worse. Sometimes it's moving to a new school that can help or make it much worse.

Those who didn't quite understand those who were different mistreated them in some way. There always were some who did and some who didn't care what your disability was. Sometimes it seemed they weren't around when you needed them most, or in some cases, didn't stick up for you. In other cases, they acted as if they were your friend when they were just putting on a front or an act.

In elementary, they didn't mistreat me at all, or so it seemed.

However, come the sixth through ninth grades, those were the worst years. I was always last to be picked for anything, no matter what. One kid was hurling stuff at my back. I came rather close to hurling my desk at him. I lived near several students from the same school. Some others knew where I lived and my phone number, so why didn't they bother me there?

If I tried to tell a teacher about what was going on, they'd attack me even more. What else was I to do? Should I have brought along something to defend myself? Should I fight? Damned if I did, damned if I didn't. I had enough of it with my own brother.

Next - Part 2 of Teasing and Mistreatment

Growing up Deaf - Part 11

Going to School - Grades 6-9

From sixth to mid-seventh grades after a move to another city in Florida, was the beginning of the teasing stage, though it wasn't too bad. It was here that I was beginning to get some more socialization with other deaf outside the classroom. There was this interpreter in church, but my signing skills were still not that great at the time> An adult friend and I managed to learn together sometimes by watching the interpreter.

This was also the time when I started having class schedules and changed classrooms. One of the classes that stuck with me even years later was Home Economics. In this class, we did some sewing, cooking, that sort of thing. I'm still doing some of that stuff today, even hand- and machine-sewing. I think I still have a recipe or two from back then. One English teacher was a fast talker, so it wasn't easy for me to keep up with her at times. Another was a science teacher that had laryngitis for a week. I understood her pretty well.

The School From Hell starts in mid seventh til ninth grades when we move to Louisiana. This was also when my brother was literally dragged, kicking and screaming, from home to school now and then. Maybe I should have denied knowing him when people brought him up at school.

Since I was just a little older than they were due to my going to kindergarten for two years, some of these kids seemed to be a bit resentful due to that. Most likely, it was a good thing I didn't tell them about that little kindergarten fact as I'd probably never hear the end of it. One of the habitually overly rude kids said in one class, "He doesn't have a tan" after summer break. The teacher ordered him away from me.

So I didn't, smartass. I didn't tan, I burned. Shall I apply a hot torch to your backside where the sun doesn't shine?

At these two particular schools, they had announcements over the loudspeakers. The good thing is that they printed them out beforehand, and I was able to read them. The PE coach lived up the road from me, so it was an opportunity at times to talk with him outside school.

It was also around this time that I heard about MSSD. I had some printed information about it, but do not remember why I never went.

Next - Attending high school.