I make a motion: START A FORMAL ORGANIZATION TO SERVE THE DEAF CHILDREN IN THEIR BILINGUAL EDUCATION.
Purpose: To promote bilingualism in deaf children; to remove the misconception that oral-only approach enhances English mastery. To act as advocates for pro-option for the parents of deaf children; to present them with other alternatives/options to oral-only approach.
Resources: Research data showing early intervention to bilingualism approach strengthens and cements language development and ultimately, English mastery.
Targets: Medical professionals, Hospital social workers, pediatricians, ENTs, audiologists, pathologists, and ultimately, the parents of deaf children.
Long range goal: Legislative action to give rights to deaf children their bilingual education; adopt Swedish model. Newly diagnosed deaf child is referred to one resource agency for deaf children. This agency serves as mentor and tracks the child along with parents through their childhood. Agency and parents work together to choose from several educational approaches and options most appropriate for individual child.
Trained staff would work with parents to determine which educational approach fits the child; whether s/he benefits from aural learning, from visual-only learning, which program/educational setting fits the child the best, what accommodations this child may need, and assigns the child a mentor.
Ultimate goal: Take away the decision making in regards to the deaf child's education away from people who have pathological view on deafness. Their jobs should be limited to medical treatment, speech training, audio training, hearing aid device/CI repair/modifications rather than getting involved in their educational process, giving parents biased views and opinions on deafness.
Why new organization? DBC has failed. DBC was born out of anger. John Egbert and Barb DiGovanni went to the Marriott Hotel in Virginia to pass out flyers promoting ASL and bilingualism only to have AGB's hotel manager harrass them and grab flyers out of their hands, physically injuring Barb's daughter. Thus, anger was born. John and Barb swore to exact a retaliation - going after AGB again in Wisconsin. They planned the whole year to satisfy their thirst for revenge. Their little group grew to include Deafhood. Deafhood also has anger issues.
All that energy into DBC for all the wrong reasons. DBC tried to rub in AGB's face but it did not work. All DBC was good for was feel-good get-togetherness for the attendees. They saw what they wanted to see and believed something was accomplished when in reality, nothing was accomplished. The attendees were gypped into thinking their attending contributed to the success of DBC when in reality, all they contributed to DBC was financial profit. They cannot see beyond the exterior of what was seen at the convention. DBC accomplished nothing except draw some 800 people and some rallying with homemade signs.
However, the leaders accomplished in the task of satisfying THEIR desire to "rub it into AGB's face" or "be thorns on their sides."
This is not good movement. This is not professional.
This is not what we need. This is not what our deaf children need. This is not what the parents need. This is not what deaf educators of America need.
What we need is a real, bonafide, organization to represent the deaf children, their parents, the deaf educators and the deaf community. Put aside emotions, biases, hidden agendas, bad politics. Be a professional organization.
Who should lead this organization? Oralists, CI/ASL, CI/AVT, Deaf, deaf, Cueds, blacks, whites, Native Americans, Asians, Hispanics, urban dwellers, rural dwellers, various ethical cultures, and deaf education people from schools for the deaf, mainstreamed programs, public school districts. Diversity is key to the success of this organization which is not what DBC has now.
DBC was born out of anger.
Let's rebuild anew like Harry Potter's phoenix bird. John's anger has burst into flames and extinguished. Gone. Now is our opportunity to rebuild and start a better one.
DO IT!!!
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37 comments:
You have my full support! DBC shot itself in the foot. The DBC namesake is damaged. It belongs in the trash, as piece of history of WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN BUT WAS NOT.
Count me in. I know how to set up a non-profit entity and formalize everything. Once it is set up right with due process, by-laws and minutes then I will ride into the sunset afterwards.
Barry
you have my support as well.
You have my support from me, too.
We learned from Deafhood/DBC's mistakes. Organization is not the place to spill your emotions, biases, revenge, etc.
Organization's purpose is to serve and provide resources. We learned that and can start anew from this.
I believe if you are able to recruit right talents, you will be able to lead this new organization. You seem to know about how organization is supposed to operate. You seem to have the right stuff. Now you look to recruit people with more right stuff!
I piss off at you, preciousasl.
Barry,
Go for it! DO IT!
You got Amy Cohen Efron, Mishka Zena and other bright people that also wants to do this.
Amy and Mishka Zena loves you, Barry!
No... no.... no.... we will not go there again. We will not recruit our favorite people the way DBC did it. Favoritisms has no place in this type of organization. This is why DBC flip and flopped and found it difficult to maintain stability. I really don't want to know who loves me and who don't. This is not what it's about. This thing requires professional ethics at every levels and should be based on due process, strictly that. It is about signs for deaf babies. People should leave their glories back at home and stay focused on the task. DBC celebrated prematurely and now they're paying the price for it.
Stick to ethics, integrity, and honor and we will do very well.
Oh,
Barry,
So it is your way or the highway?
Amy Cohen Efron or Mishka Zena is not good enough?
How you pick your supporters?
Will I good enough? How you judge?
Now, I am confused about this?
Shirley, allow me to explain what I think Barry means.
What he means is to get people from all types of communication modes, deaf parents of deaf children, hearing parents of deaf children, people in the field of linguistics, teachers of the daf, NAD members, and yes, even AG Bell members, so that no one is left out.
Then a consortium is developed to cover the goals and missions of this organization and develop strategies on how to approach these hearing parents of deaf children, develop by-laws, host elections to decide who is on the board and its officers, etc this is just a small sample of a huge overall task.
Of course people such as Amy and Mishka would be welcomed, even you would be welcomed, this is what he is referring as "due process"
Hope that clairifies it for you.
Shirley,
Barry is not saying he rejects Mishka Zena, Amy, or any others. It is the idea of inviting only likable leaders to run an organization which leads to its failure. This organization needs to be a diverisified group, as the anonymous commenter below you said. This person said it well. I agree with him/her.
Favoritism has no place in a professional organization. It is the commitment to the misson statement that is important. Favoritism tends to lead to a host of problems and ultimately the collapse of an organization, such was the case with DBC. We certainly don't a repeat of this.
Anonymous,
That means that Barry will have applications?
Where I get one?
Will I be interviewed? Where? When?
Please let me know where to start. Do I need professional degree?
Tell me more.
I heartily recommend a diverse group using a wide range of communication styles.
That's what I had hoped for DBC before it got derailed.
shirley, I don't even think that step has been reached yet, applications, interviews, etc etc etc. What probably needs to be done before anything else is to establish some type of consortium where everyone is welcomed, hence no applications needed yet. It could be a forum that is opened up for everyone online, it could be a public meeting or several, ahh i dont think anyone really knows yet.
I am fairly sure that whatever happens, it will be announced in deafread as well but the one thing we definitely don't want to do here is to put the cart before the horse.
Mishkazena,
You heartily recommending or hoping, is all talk.
You need to do something, not talk or recommending or hoping.
If you think that you or PreciousASL can do better than DBC, then show me. Stop telling people that you know what should be done when you have nothing to show for.
Shut up and Just Do It
Disappointed,
I like your "Just shut up and do it."
To give Mishka Zena credit, she WAS in the DBC core group before she was pushed out by the Deafhood Trio.
She was active in DBC.
As for the rest of us, just shut up and DO IT!
Barry seems to be the best person to take the first step.
CY,
Someone said that Mishkazena quit, not pushed out. Now you say different.
Who is telling the truth?
Prove that you are right that Mishkazena was pushed out. Got email copy?
Deaf community need prove so that people believe you and others.
We need integrity facts to have trust in you, CY.
Shirley,
I apologize for the confusion. I did not say it was my way or the highway. I am saying we will not make the same mistakes as DBC did. We wil not recruit people the way DBC recruited people.
We have to learn to set aside our preferences. We have to set aside our favorite people and set our goals on the very qualified people who knows how to take the organization where it needs to go, without politicize the process. Why? Because when you appoint your favorite friend to the leadership post and this friend makes a mistake you will find it very difficult to discipline this peson. That is what happened to DBC. They could not come clean with the public about some of their favorite friends who made mistakes so they hung in there cladded together therefore they all sunk together and refused to address the public. It is self-destructive.
Amy Cohen Efron, Mishka Zena and many others are wonderful people. But This new organization should not be about friends, politics and talk about who loves whom and who dislikes whom.
It is not a matter of picking our leaders and supporters. True leaders and supporters will come on their own terms if they like what they see. People will be nominated into the process and be elected, based on consensus not majority rule. Due process will be in place with by-laws and recorded minutes, which protects everybody.
How do we judge a leader. I'll tell you something important here. Every true and noble leaders are never fond of the idea of being a leader. Once they are appointed they are always the best leaders because they don't work for themselves. Instead they work for the people. They have certain characters. I will explain more about it down the road.
Thank you anonymous for clarifying my earlier statement. You are right. We need people from all types of communication modes, deaf parents of deaf children, hearing parents of deaf children, people in the field of linguistics, teachers of the daf, NAD members, and yes, even AG Bell members, so that no one is left out. Wholeness. I'm a big fan of wholeness because with knowledge from every aspects we will be unbreakable. This is why I preached circular approaches and bored everybody to death on the subject. Wholeness is the answer to our solutions. They call it holistic approaches.
People such as you, anonymous, Amy and Mishka would be welcomed. It belongs to everybody, unlike DBC who seem to belong to deafhood and pro-ASL movement.
Preciousasl is right. The idea is to prevent anybody from inviting only likable leaders to run an organization which will lead the organization no where.
Thank you for clarifying these thinngs.
Everybody.... the comment "show me or shutup" does not belong here. We are not here to prove anything to the deaf community. We are here to help hearing parents and AG Bell understand things better. It does not take 700 people to make that point. It only takes a power of pen stroke to write something that is powerfully clear and sensible to the hearing parents. It only take a small group of sensible people from different fields who truly understand every imaginable issues and utilize them into a message that represents wholeness. With a wholeness message we will accomplish much more than what DBC wanted to accomplish in the first place.
But first, before we get ahead of ourselves, we will recognize everybody's rights and their equal access to this organization. There will be due processes from day one and it will stay there for as long as the organization lives.
Barry
Disappointed,
I seem to think Mishka Zena was pushed out of DBC from what I seemed to understand from her own blog when she declared herself a ex DBC member of the core group. Maybe you could scroll to older posts and find it.
I think Amy resigned but AnneMarie, Barry, and MishkaZena was pushed out, I believe.
dr hocokan,
I asked CY for clarification if Mishkazena was pushed out or if she quit on her own. And I would like CY to reply or have Mishkazena tell us if she quit or not.
I understand everything about your message but I need to know if Mishkazena was really pushed out or quit. If Mishkazena was pushed out then we should ask DBC why.
It is important to have integrity to move on, if no integrity, then something is fishy.
Who is not telling the truth?
disapointed,
go to www.dbcfacts.com and youll see mishka's story in there, as well as others
I wrote a post with similar title to yours recently and and am now reading your post. This is a wonderful idea and you have my support as a parent of an ASL-CI child. There is still hope, a phoenix could rise out of the ashes of DBC.
PreciousASL
You said;
"I think Amy resigned but AnneMarie, Barry, and MishkaZena was pushed out, I believe."
That is not integrity statement. You think or you believe is not the fact.
Now, who should I believe, DBC or this group, PreciousASL, dr hocokan, CY?
You or any non-profit entity must have integrity for us to believe in you!
Was Mishkazena really pushed out?
Disappointed and Leery,
Why don't you go to Mishka Zena's blog and email her? She left her email address on her blog. Ask her straight if she was pushed out or she voluntarily resigned.
She DID a post sharing her experience as ex DBC member of the core group last week.
Barry has a link to Mishka Zena's post on her experience as DBC member on his blog. Go to dbcfacts.com/. (include the / and . so you will go to the vlog site. He has another blog with only texts.) He has a good list of links to the v/blogs in relation to DBC and ex members of DBC.
I suggest you visit Barry's blog and do some investigating yourself. Come to your own conclusion.
Don't question my integrity. I said I believe she was pushed out; it means I am not 100% certain. You want 100%, I suggest you ask Mishka Zena herself or go to Barry's site and find Mishka Zena's link.
PreciousASL
Why pursue when you are not 100% certain about facts for your reason to start up something?
Do you think integrity is not important?
Now I think that you are all talk and not DO IT.
And I realize that I wasted my time believing that you really want to help Deaf babies....but no, it is only for yourself.
You need show your integrity character to people for them to believe in you and your friends that you and your "friends" are really genuine human being.
I am really disappointed.
This is the dumbest thing I have read yet. Writen by Barry Sewell and produced by Barry Sewell. Oh and comments by Barry Sewell. Do you really think we are falling into your trap? Get a life Barry..
I resigned only because the deafhood leaders kept cramming deafhood down our throats. If DBC has stuck with its original mission, we all would have stayed.
So I was pushed to the point that I decided to resign because my Deaf values weren't respected.
By the way, we did set up another organization devoted on Deaf Bilingualism. It is an informational site called ASL Think Tank, mostly on research. So we did something.
However what the people here have in mind is a proactive organization which is still needed.
Whether what to believe or not: follow the evidence. That's all I can say. I do understand it's been difficult for the Deaf Community.
Again, I am not here to sell anything. For that reason I am not concerned if some of you are not buying. I have nothng to prove to you or anybody. I am here to contribute and help the cause. Don't want it? Then don't look at me. Look else where. I have no problem with that. I have absolutely nothing to gain from what I am doing. I do not want or need anything from you or anybody or the organization. I am here to give and there is nothing in the world that can stop the process of giving. Remember, "To give mean exactly that. To give and expect something in return is not exactly giving".
Disappointed,
Am I missing something? I don't seem to follow you? You say I don't have any intregrity if I don't know whether Mishka Zena resigned or was pushed out? What does this have to do with integrity? I suggested you to communicate with MishkaZena or go to find her post on which she wrote about her experience with DBC. What does this have to do with integrity which means transparent honesty. I was honest in not knowing which is which - resign or push out. I did not pretend to know the answer. Or did you want me to go and find out myself and find the answer for you?
Mishka Zena,
Thanks for coming and sharing with us about your tenure with DBC. So, Amy and you resigned due to conflicting views on what DBC should be.
So it was the 2 who were pushed out - Barry and AnneMarie. The funny here is: Amy and Mishka Zena both come from hearing families and both had dissenting views on how DBC should be with the core leaders; Barry and AnneMarie both are from generational deaf families and both were pushed out. Interesting. Wonder if it has anything to do with the core leaders and their views on these 4 people's backgrounds?
Al,
I spotted your blog. Wow. Very similiar mindset we had! Funny that we used the phoenix bird as an example as to how to rise and begin anew.
Great minds think alike!
There were four core members who were pushed out. Thre quit.
What all of them have in common are: moderate and strong-willed.
There were two other moderates who weren't strong-willed. They stayed and started speaking the deafhood talk (the radical version)
GO FOR IT!!!!!
Do not forget the ASL/CI population!!! Seek participation on the leadership level by someone from the ASL/CI community and CICDA (ASL Deaf Parents of CI Children).
I am hopeful.
Please post this in DeafVillage also. Over there is where the majority of the parents of deaf children are.
Anonymous,
True that Deafvillage has more parents there but to post my blog, I have to register with them and be approved by them. This is not the process I subscribe to. I have to be approved by them to be part of Deaf Village community? (shaking head in dismay).
DBC Mess + NAD Confusion = Death Of ASL?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8WuaeR–vQ
Yes, ASL is language and no, CI isn't language. I don't like term ASL and CI.
Ali, you are stupid.
"Two people were trying to discourage me from coming forward, saying that Barry is deceiving me. I left DBC because of deafhood themes."
"Mishka Zena left DBC because of deafhood themes"
Clarification:
I left due to the radical version of Deafhood. I realized afterwards the Deafhood the DH leaders explain in the Deafhood workshops is very different from the radical version of Deafhood within the DBC core team.
We respect their Deafhoods. They don't respect our Deafhoods. That's the crux of the issue.
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