Last week, I attended ACE-DHH for the first time. Conferencing during Covid has been virtual and I looked forward to congregating in person. This is odd as I don’t want class in person - that’s become the new normal. The accoutrements of home during class. That’s another discussion.
Excited to gather in person, with the people I’ve read, and have connected with via Twitter. When you read enough of someone’s research you can begin to feel you know them as a person. And perhaps to some degree you do. Then you meet them in person and you’re like, “Ooooooohhh!”
It was my first time at ACEDHH and I’m told it was smaller than usual. No complaints from me. It was nice to ease back in. I could attend a session or two and then sneak away to my room to recharge. My social tank shrank over the past two years and I need to build it up again.
Also came up that there were fewer non-signing hearing people there, which greatly improved the vibe, at least for the people I was chatting with. It’s far from my lane to tell any deaf person how to communicate, but hearing people… I can’t think of a good reason why you’d want to present at a Deaf Ed conference in spoken English.
So many caveats to get out of the way… hearing people, that are fluent signers, and work with or research with deaf signers… what is the reason you’d present at a Deaf Ed conference, with signing deaf people, in spoken English? Don’t do that. Just… nah. We all make language choices. Being multilingual is powerful. But if you’re in this space, making the choice to use spoken English is highly suspect, in my humble opinion. If you are researching with signing deaf people, you should be able to present your findings in ASL. If you can’t, you need to question why you are researching signing deaf people. How do you turn to your deaf colleagues and say, “No, this isn’t for you” because that’s what you’re doing by choosing spoken language.
There isn’t one way to be deaf. And if there was, I wouldn’t be the one to define it. But, if you, hearing researcher, are researching ASL or signing deaf people, and presenting that information to signing deaf people I can’t think of a culturally competent reason to do so in spoken language.
Omaha wasn’t nearly what I expected though! Of course, I basically stayed in a five block radius of the conference hotel, but got some great street meat and wonderful coffee and chocolate from a shop in the neighborhood. Were another conference to be held in Omaha, I’d go back!
Excited to gather in person, with the people I’ve read, and have connected with via Twitter. When you read enough of someone’s research you can begin to feel you know them as a person. And perhaps to some degree you do. Then you meet them in person and you’re like, “Ooooooohhh!”
It was my first time at ACEDHH and I’m told it was smaller than usual. No complaints from me. It was nice to ease back in. I could attend a session or two and then sneak away to my room to recharge. My social tank shrank over the past two years and I need to build it up again.
Also came up that there were fewer non-signing hearing people there, which greatly improved the vibe, at least for the people I was chatting with. It’s far from my lane to tell any deaf person how to communicate, but hearing people… I can’t think of a good reason why you’d want to present at a Deaf Ed conference in spoken English.
So many caveats to get out of the way… hearing people, that are fluent signers, and work with or research with deaf signers… what is the reason you’d present at a Deaf Ed conference, with signing deaf people, in spoken English? Don’t do that. Just… nah. We all make language choices. Being multilingual is powerful. But if you’re in this space, making the choice to use spoken English is highly suspect, in my humble opinion. If you are researching with signing deaf people, you should be able to present your findings in ASL. If you can’t, you need to question why you are researching signing deaf people. How do you turn to your deaf colleagues and say, “No, this isn’t for you” because that’s what you’re doing by choosing spoken language.
There isn’t one way to be deaf. And if there was, I wouldn’t be the one to define it. But, if you, hearing researcher, are researching ASL or signing deaf people, and presenting that information to signing deaf people I can’t think of a culturally competent reason to do so in spoken language.
Omaha wasn’t nearly what I expected though! Of course, I basically stayed in a five block radius of the conference hotel, but got some great street meat and wonderful coffee and chocolate from a shop in the neighborhood. Were another conference to be held in Omaha, I’d go back!
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