Transcriber: Maurício Kakuei Tanaka Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
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Good morning.
Thank you once again.
Thank you for that kind introduction.
I'm a doctoral student here at Gallaudet University
pursuing an education degree.
And I'd like to talk about a concept that I call learning autonomy.
And I am using a particular sign to represent autonomy,
because this concept -
is actually mentioned by Henri Holec,
and it looks at the potential for a student
to take control and ownership of their own education,
following their interests.
And so I have used this particular sign to represent autonomy
because in my experience as a teacher, working in high schools,
I've seen that some high schools are more successful
at providing student autonomy.
So we see some instances
where students will struggle with their work
to the point at which they will be offered help by others
and will often state to those others coming to do for them
that they would like to do it alone.
And so that's why I'm using this particular sign
to represent autonomy.
Now I'd like to talk now about a perspective on autonomy.
When we look at schooling and education,
I think this notion of autonomy might help us to transform
both our schools for the deaf and mainstream programs.
So I'm going to use a few examples from my own experience,
and I'm going to use one in particular from my teaching experience
and from a study
I've been engaged in for some time.
I'll share a few anecdotes with you to that end.
So I remember going into my own mainstreamed sixth grade classroom
for a mathematics class.
And the teacher saw me enter in with the interpreter
and just told us to go outside, go out of the room,
you know, and so,
I guess deaf people aren't supposed to take advanced mathematics course.
This [was] back in 1994.
And I was told that I couldn't participate in a number of things,
such as theater, sports.
I was some 12 years old at that time
and I decided to leave the mainstream environment,
and my parents fortunately supported me
in entering into the Model Secondary School for the Deaf
here on Gallaudet's campus.
You know, and if the school isn't going to be able to help me,
then I shall take care of that autonomously.
And so I've done so for many years now.
And if we fast forward to the present day, you know,
I recently graduated college
and went into a teaching program,
where I was teaching in a mainstream high school.
And I looked at what had changed for deaf and hard-of-hearing mainstream students,
and I sadly found not much.
Very often, those students are pulled out from class for reasons they don't know.
They're all primed and ready for the topic of the day
and yet they're pulled out.
So it's certainly not fair to them
and the expectations that are placed on them for that coursework.
So I'd like to talk about
some concrete examples of student autonomy
and take it from abstraction
to concrete examples from my own experience.
I first taught at a mainstream high school
teaching English.
And we had 26 hearing students and one deaf student there.
So, the very first day of class, the deaf student came to me
and said that, you know -
we arranged to be able to sit together -
set up what the arrangement would be for the classroom that would be ideal.
Coming from a mainstream environment,
I know that it can be quite complex to accommodate
both hearing and deaf norms.
So,
the typical row and column setup was already in place in the classroom
that we've almost always seen.
This was a student who didn't sign at the time,
used a cochlear implant, but still wanted visual access.
And he asked if he could sit [at] the far end of the class
so that he could see both the instructor and the other students.
He wanted to be able to observe all of that interchange,
which was a great idea, great thinking.
He autonomously came up with this vision of an ideal arrangement.
But ...
one of the problems we experienced almost right off the bat
was the audiologist coming into the room and seeing the student sit way over there
and saying that we had to halt the class,
that student wasn't allowed to sit there in their place of preference.
This audiologist was assuming
that the best environment for the deaf student
would be at the very front.
So, engaging in a dialogue with the audiologist,
we wanted to look at the student's view and their preference,
where the audiologist was not attuned to that at all.
We were looking at least restrictive environment.
So what then truly is that least restrictive environment?
It's one that accommodates their needs the best.
And so I see this as a prime example of learning autonomy, of student autonomy.
I'd like to share another anecdote with you that speaks to this.
And this is the story of another student I had
that was brilliant - brilliant deaf student,
but also one who struggled with reading and had struggled for many years.
So,
this student actually thought that, you know -
a correction in the interpretation -
this student was continuing school past 18 up to the age of 21.
And so the student asked if we could meet one on one,
and I was delighted to do so as I always am with students.
And so we were working for some time over this,
and the student was struggling to explain their own view,
something they inherently knew, but struggled to express.
Finally, they said, you know,
"If you walk to the library and look in the library,
where are the books that relate to black deaf students like me?"
This was a deaf black student teenager who's living in the inner city
and had never seen any text that reflected them
and other deaf people like them.
This is striking.
It really started me thinking about our own classroom libraries,
what kind of influence that can have on student autonomy.
And so, beyond the abstraction,
there are many lessons to be learned
about how student autonomy can improve the education of our students.
That student really improved
because I started bringing books and texts
that talked about their heritage, the heritage of black deaf students.
And, you know,
"Audism Unveiled" was another film that I brought to the class,
which increased student motivation for those students.
Now, sadly though, I never found a book
that particularly related to that student's identity.
So, strides have been made,
but we have more to do to connect these students with reading.
Another student said, you know, about one of their own readings -
they bring questions to me, right?
This is a literate process; it develops our literacy.
To motivate them, we need literature that speaks to them.
So, the selection of our books, the curriculum that we design
can influence the potential for student autonomy.
It's not just about the student being a deaf child.
It's really multifaceted.
They have intersecting identities that have to be recognized.
We have to look at gender, we have to look at race,
we have to look at socioeconomic status.
All of these things come together to form their identities.
So there are a number of examples that we can cite
where students do not have the freedom
to make personal choices about their school environment.
Academic staff and faculty are often unaware
of the effect they have on student autonomy.
So we can see autonomy reflected in so many areas,
that of what texts are available for student reading,
what kind of information we cover,
teacher evaluation of student behaviors.
And we know
this standardized testing has been one that has frequently cited deaf people
as having lower literacy levels.
If we look at the median deaf reading level,
that's often cited as being at the fourth grade level,
but I think that those test scores actually indicate
that there is a problem, in fact,
but the problem is also environmental.
It's not measuring what it should be measuring.
And so if we look at standardized test measurement,
they're doing these measurements from a specific perspective.
In fact, last week, there was an article showing
that high school seniors graduating in the average public school
are graduating with a fifth grade reading level.
So that's the typical hearing student upon graduation from high school.
So the autonomy of these deaf students are also limited by a double standard
that is ingrained in standardized testing.
And so, in some ways,
these attitudes make it nearly impossible to understand
what deaf students already know and what they really need to be taught
as compared with hearing students.
So,
this learning autonomy, this student autonomy,
shows us that, as students take control of their own learning,
Holec, in his writing and research, has really been expansive on the topic,
as has been Paulo Freire.
He is another one
who's spoken about the importance of listening from the students
their own experiences to aid in their education.
And so, these are new and emerging ideas.
Freire suggests that we have to work
with the knowledge base that students have.
And Gee, another author, has spoken to the need for society
to establish opportunities for dialogue in our educational environments.
In the classrooms,
this can have a great effect on student learning.
And we've talked about the notion
that deaf students have a fourth grade reading level.
That notion has had a profound impact on how we teach deaf students
and how we organize our schools.
Another famous researcher, Vygotsky,
who is often cited in discussions of student autonomy,
speaks to how student autonomy
has to move from reliance on external environmental factors
to internal reliance,
where students are guiding their own learning.
So research has clearly shown things that need to be changed in our schools
to increase student autonomy
because as students are able to establish their own goals,
reflect upon their own learning
and then turn that into real world application,
we see unlimited potential for success and development of the students.
And this topic is vital.
Without going on
about what has been done
in terms of research on the academic environment,
we haven't yet really examined these notions of autonomy.
Kahn, in 2013, in his own research,
says that we need to look at
how these students are entering into college -
and I'm speaking specifically of deaf students -
without the knowledge of how to ask questions,
how to make this a dialogic process,
because their experience has been one
where the education has simply gone in one way,
and this is due to the lack of student autonomy prior to that.
So there's a recognized need to increase these abilities
before entering into college.
Throughout the United States,
we see the experience of student autonomy being greatly constrained
because we haven't had research that's been directly speaking to that.
We have some that has been indirectly speaking to this,
like [Joe Valente] has looked at the distinction
between capital "D" Deaf experience and lower case "d,"
and how that's represented.
Students are often told that they can't take a specific class.
And Claire Ramsey, in her own writing,
has spoken about deaf students in public schools
facing an environment that very rarely allows for student autonomy.
And when student autonomy is allowed for that learning increases greatly.
So if we look at the potential for young deaf people to meet adult -
correction -
There was one deaf student I remember
who asked an adult in their school whether, at 18 years old, they would die
because they'd never seen a deaf adult.
And this story was one I heard from Texas,
but that student never met a deaf adult throughout their whole life.
And so, you know, I also had a similar experience
in first meeting another deaf adult at age 12.
We need to enable deaf students to visualize the future,
to see a vision of what their future can be,
so they can establish goals
and know that it is possible to reach those,
establish processes for doing that.
So,
faculty and educational communities have to include deaf adults
in their communities.
Very often, we establish goals and curriculum
without thinking about what these deaf students really could do.
This deaf student that I spoke of a moment ago
wondered whether, when 18,
they would die or live alone the only deaf person in their world.
Or become hearing?
This is because we haven't allowed for that autonomy.
We have to embed this in the curriculum to suit the needs of these deaf students,
but we're under all kinds of economic pressures
and curriculum design.
You may remember, School 4201, in New York, actually had protests
because of the ways
that the economic situation and the government
[were] affecting the school for the deaf.
So these students have fought for their autonomy in their education
in the schools that they're attending.
And so we have lessons to learn from this about student autonomy.
So we have not yet gotten to the point
where we do more than just recognize that the problem exists.
We have to really assess these schools with an emphasis on student autonomy,
because there's great potential to radically change our systems
to fill in those gaps.
And we have to take those next steps.
You may remember the story I said, I mentioned a bit ago,
about the student being unable to find any texts
that reflected their identity and experience.
We need to do so.
We can do so by recognizing deaf artists, by recognizing deaf literature.
Schools need to expand their own ways
of thinking about and considering student autonomy.
And maybe this means we have to rethink our school choices as well.
Instead of us saying that one school is better than the other
in the way that we always have,
maybe we need to be sure
that parents and students can visit all of the schools
and autonomously determine which they'll go to.
I have to wonder
what kind of profound effect that would have on their education.
Student autonomy is one thing that we must emphasize
in our graduate education programs.
We become licensed in a number of different fields,
and it's important for the people that do become licensed
to be visible to those deaf students so that they can see their futures,
both in mainstream schools and residential schools for the deaf.
Learning autonomy, student autonomy,
requires that we recognize and incorporate diverse deaf peoples
in their lives and curriculum.
The school's diversity should reflect the diversity present in the students,
but they rarely do.
This has an effect on student autonomy,
their own perception of their day-to-day lives.
And we cannot do so on a one-shot basis.
They have to truly see this
to have a cumulative building effect on their own notions of their autonomy.
Yes, oppression affects these deaf students,
but they have to see ways of dealing with this.
If we look at, you know, a female student,
she's not merely female,
but she also has race and socioeconomic status.
All of this has to be reflected in their own curriculum.
We have to be open and willing to explore
these different kinds of connections to students
and how we can increase student autonomy,
what the impact and implications of this is,
when we see students
take control of and power over their own educations.
Thank you.