"From Where I Sit" Video Series
Kellie's Story — Video Transcript
I was born deaf and then hearing aids seemed to work for me. So I wore hearing aids and went through total communication up until I was in 6th grade... and I was playing in the backyard and my brother's friend threw a baseball and hit me dead on in the mouth and it popped my ears so that fluid got in and damaged my eardrums and after that impact I couldn't hear anything. We tried to do surgeries and nothing worked... and then I decided I wanted to go and get the cochlear implant which was the '93. I was 13 years old. I find now that I hear with just one implant more than I heard ever with two hearing aids at my highest point.I can speak. I can sign... and so I feel like I have the best of both worlds... and I have a great support system at home which really helps a lot having my family being able to support me and a speech therapist works with me since I was in elementary school all through high school.My, my disability is invisible and is one of those where it can be a good thing and it can be a bad thing. Sometimes I really like it so people can... people, it allows people to get to know who I am first before I have to disclose that I have a hearing, a hearing loss.When my mom and dad first brought up the idea of going to college, I was a sophomore and I was very, very involved with sports and I lived for playing basketball and soccer and that was just everything to me. I hated school. I did not like going to school because I always kind of stood out and I didn't like it. School wasn't something that really came easy for me. I struggled in it. I went to college not knowing what I wanted to major in what I wanted to I just wanted to have some fun and meet some friends. I started talking with my counselor and had a very good relationship with her, picking out classes and talking about goals everything, and I decided that I wanted to be just like her.When I have gone up to a teacher in the beginning of class and with an interpreter all of a sudden I get this, you know, reputation of "oh she can't do it or how am I going to talk to her" and so then they start looking at the interpreter. Tell her that "blah, blah, blah." And it's just... and I am like "Hello I am a person you know."... and then I feel like, you know, I am not being treated as a person.Some classes I used a captioner and other classes I have an interpreter. If the class was more of a discussion/seminar class, I use the interpreter because the captioner wasn't able to kind of keep up with who was talking and everything and then if it was just a lecture class, I used the captioner.One of my biggest problems in graduate school has been teachers that show videos. I have a teacher that shows a video every week for an hour and these are old black and white videos with no captions... and I have fought with this teacher a number of times about finding an updated video or paying for the videotape to be captioned and it's never happened.Teachers often forget about leaving a light on shining to the interpreter so you could still see. I've had a teacher give me a flashlight and I was just like, that is not just acceptable. You know, I've had teachers that say, "Oh, well, you can take the video home and watch it and turn it up... not acceptable... and teachers put these videos on tests and I've fought this over and over and over again. I brought it to the Dean's attention and nothing really ever came out of it and it is really unfortunate because they start doing it and future deaf students are going to have to be dealing with it as well.When teachers write on the board, I pay attention to the interpreter. A lot of my teachers have been very good about when I asked them to write on the board and then turn around and say what you want to say about it or write on the white board ahead of time and now schools have you know multiple boards so they can kinda move around and have the whole thing written down so they can be able to point to it or if you are gonna write on the board have a handout ahead of time. That always helps... and I think it helps the general class as well.If I have the ideal classroom and the ideal teacher with it, the class would be small, you know 15 people at the max. Everybody will be sitting in a circle and there would be no writing on the boards. Everything would be all handouts already given to you. It would be important, you know, that everybody that I can see who is talking so having a circle would be the way I would like it. The teacher would be someone who had a loud, strong voice... the louder, the stronger, the better... and just someone that is willing to be open to new ideas and new suggestions and isn't going to freak out if something needs to be changed. Videos would be captioned. I have had a bunch of teachers that have actually worked very well with bringing the classroom into a circle and others students liked it a lot more too. It involves the students more and everybody is able to see each other and so you're not having to worry about what someone is doing behind you.It is important for teachers to let the student with a disability to pick their seat first and if it is not right, to allow them to move, you know, in a nice way without having to disrupt the class.Same thing with requesting a note taker. Teachers need to understand why the student needs a note taker because it is not such a great thing when the teacher just gets the notes and just reads it off, "So, yeah, if any of you want to be a note taker, I am not sure what that is involved with, but you know, if you wanna be a note taker, you know, just raise your hand, you know, and such and such will see you after class", you know... and that's just not just not really winning student over. You need to be enthusiastic about it and understand why the student needs a note taker before reading it to the class, because often times when teachers read it with a dull voice nobody volunteers.As I'm finishing up my Masters, I plan to work in a community college and I've an opportunity to volunteer there and I just found it very rewarding and I feel that I connected on so many levels with students and I feel that can help guide them to success. I think I can be a role model and a leader for future students and teachers.
Laurie Isenberg:
She seems to be coming from a place — kind of social and economic privilege, and made it very clear about exactly what she needs.
Dr. Hank Reichman:
She was so expressive, I guess, this would be the ideal. I was finding myself feeling defensive and thinking like, "Do you know what my department's S&S budget is? Do you know what it would take to give handouts every class?" Even though I agree with her, that is what I would love to do.
Dr. Jennifer Eagan:
She was definitely advocating for herself, but I think that that's something that as professors we need to help students to be aware of, that they can advocate as they become more aware of what will be helpful to them. I also thought about this whole notion of the invisible disability because, oftentimes with other students who have a physical -- a very visible disability, of course, it's much easier, but for her I think she raised some very important points about, again, addressing her and seeing her as an individual.
Dr. Carolina Serna:
She was definitely advocating for herself, but I think that that's something that as professors we need to help students to be aware of, that they can advocate as they become more aware of what will be helpful to them. I also thought about this whole notion of the invisible disability because, often times with other students who have a physical — a very visible disability, of course, it's much easier, but for her I think she raised some very important points about, again, addressing her and seeing her as an individual.
Dr. Hank Reichman:
But, I thought this was so effective, this one, because it started with the very specifics of her as a deaf student — actually, not totally, I guess, but hearing-impaired, certainly, student and then, gradually almost surreptitiously, unfolded it out to things that were relevant to all students. You know, I mean, you get to... it's true, all students would benefit if we all had seminars all the time sitting in a circle, you know, not just deaf students. And I thought that that was very good quite the opposite of the other one where it started with the general and you never found the particular. You got from this young woman's story outward — something that was a broader application not only to all hearing-impaired or even all disabled students but all students.