Speech Therapists – …And the Truth Shall Set You Free.

How Oralism Ruined My Christmas Spirit

December 23, 2016March 5, 2017 The Last HiccupLeave a comment

I really liked that artwork. Unknown Deaf artist.

It was 1983. It was also the year when President Ronald Reagan signs a bill creating Martin Luther King Day to remember the legacy of MLK and end the power dynamics of Racism. I was nine years old that time—a third grader. However, that time, it was one of the most humiliating experience I ever faced in my life.

The school district forced me to learn how to speak well—the truth, I was the worst oralist you can imagine. The painting by Nancy Rourke, the original Mask of Benevolence, hanging on my wall had really made me think of my growing pains. No one should ever steal, ruin, or destroy anyone’s Christmas spirit. Especially Deaf children’s welfare. When I was part of Deafhood Monologues, it really hit me hard with one of the stories that apply my life—Christmas story.

The speech therapist by the name of Sandy, forced me to learn how to ace top-notch speech—it does not work that way. It was illegal child labor that took my human dignity away. Speech therapists were the lowest form of my own humanity. I remember all the hours—taking away my own education instead of focusing on speech so I can be part of choir that I never knew that I would be part of. No one would tell me. No one! Looking back, I did not stand up and fight against Oralism. I was just a kid that they exploited me.

The day before the night, my father took me to do some shopping to find some nice clothes and I became confused why my father would do this. So, the time came—that really ruined my Christmas spirit. Not only me, but my father, too.

I was “blended” into the crowd with my hearing classmates that I never knew that it would be choir. Not even a hint. I was really that naive. Then I was standing the very front row before large audience—all the hearing parents including my father. Fuck that shit. It was no more than 30 minutes of choir—maybe longer, but I remember when Sandy, the cruel speech therapist was looking at me along with the interpreter right there telling me to use my mouth properly—and I remember looking at some of the faces in the audience looking at me like awful….and it was fucking disaster. My father was humiliated, too.

Shaking my head! I really did my best to make my father happy as much as I could. It was also the hardest time, too. When the event was finished for the evening, you know, everyone would greet and cheer each other, but my father just cannot stand this anymore and took me home right away. He did not bother to tell speech therapist or teacher THANK YOU. Nothing like that. That’s where Oralism became a failure. My father was only 29 years old. Poor father. He was lied by Alexander Graham Bell’s ideology.

That’s where my Christmas spirit ruined that year. My father told my now deceased grandparents what happened and they all tried to cover it up and told me to forget what happened that night. While I am writing this post, it made me cry. Literally. Then I realized, Oralism is the reason why the power dynamics of Audism ignored that time. FUCK YOU, Alexander Graham Bell for ruining my Christmas spirit—you owe my father a big apology.

I want you to know that you, Alexander Graham Bell are along my personal heroes…to me, the greatest fraud in Deaf community, a blend of hatred, and true bully, of phobic analysis, and emotional damage, capable of great achievement in the highest spheres of human ignorance. I have placed your life directly my experience, and I now use your image for inspiration and encouragement as I purse my own goals as a writer. This post is already looking into Alexander Graham Bell’s eyes that helped me provide me with great source of knowledge. Thank you for the most stupid work you do—certainly, you are another hate-monger with real passion to destroy Deaf community in pieces.

-JT

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Tucker-Maxon Oral School Teachers Are Blameless

February 3, 2014March 20, 2016 The Last Hiccup3 Comments

That’s me. 1978. Tucker-Maxon School Playground.

My mother was only 18 years old and my father was 20 years old when I was born in the same year President Nixon had resigned. The majority of my relatives are hearing. Almost all except one person who could communicate with me in sign language with me was my younger brother. At age two, I was placed into my very first school, Tucker-Maxon Oral School in Portland, Oregon. The school was not cheap! I was a product of an oral school where their school philosophy that does not promote sign language on the ground which makes my education accessibility harder.

They were trying to make me to act like a prize horse with having my own audiologists, teachers, and speech therapists policing me around and learn how to use my voice and not to use sign language and lose my dignity. That is where I became myself as “another” and loses my sense as an individual. I was only two years old that time!

I can remember my first teacher, Chris (Wolf) Soland who told my parents that everything will be all right. What a big lie! Chris Soland and Alice Davis lied through their yellow teeth and tried very hard to make me successful. Their plan did not work at all. I was glad that I was a rebel kid. A friend of mine told me a story last year that a student also went to Tucker-Maxon, for the take-home final, he wrote “I do have good hearing friends but somehow, I try to make myself act normal and that I wasn’t deaf”–it broke my heart! He was taught about “hearing” people but they were not taught how to be “hearing”. Can you see the difference? It is so unfair!

I was thankful that I was asked to read a book called Cratylus where Plato had Socrates question whether signs by the Deaf are equated with spoken and written names or words. The answer is aye. About 2,500 years ago, in and around the area we now call Greece, a philosopher who may have called himself Plato began an experiment in writing that would shape the world of human intelligence. Embarrassed and heartbroken by the death of his mentor Socrates, Plato left Athens and went to live in Alexandria in Egypt for 20 years. Upon his return to Greece, Plato founded The Academy–the prototype of today’s colleges and universities.

Plato had inherited writing from the Egyptians who were always mindful of the fate of Thoth, the name given by the Greeks to the Egyptian god of writing and knowledge–of intelligence, reason, and logical–associated with learning, language, and literature. After Thoth presented his invention in the court of Pharaoh, he was removed from the chamber so his masterpiece could be examined and deliberated. It was decided that Thoth should be punished to die because written words cannot be questioned for the answers to Pharaoh’s quest for truth. Although the written words are keys to doors leading to truth, the doors are not opened and the truth beyond the doors are not perceptible to Pharaoh’s eye, which means no prior knowledge.

The whole point is that Tucker-Maxon Oral School knows that Oralism is not even part of intelligence, reason, and logical–again, associated with learning, language, and literature. Tucker-Maxon teachers are too stupid to know that sign language is very much part of intellectual discourse, while Oralism has NO knowledge and is not perceptible in our eyes! Also, cochlear implant companies as well as late Mr. William House, the father of Cochlear Implant, heavily appropriated Tucker-Maxon. In fact, Tucker-Maxon was the first oral school in America to offer cochlear implant program. Oregon is the home of the cochlear implanted. I will not name William House as Dr. William House, I will call him Mr. William House instead because he does not deserve the title of Doctor. He said, “Deafness is a such a horrible thing”, he told an audience at Brigham Young University (BYU) in 1997. “If a person can hear in their last years of life, I think it is worth it. I recently put an implant in a 95 years old man. He got married after that” What a gelding! His wife was exploiting his life insurance. That was the bottom line. By the way, Karl White was his huge supporter.

Even my Individual Education Plan (IEP) reports said that I couldn’t be successful student if I did not learn Oralism right. Ha ha ha! Tucker-Maxon needs to be shut down for good because there are thousands of violations with no sanctions for the teachers with weapons in their hands. The fact is for the oligarchy and their servants, there is no law against teachers who cannot be blameless as well as their money donors and media trolls to suggest that the society should lynch Deaf children’s hands and be judged by a jury of Audists. Póg Mo Éireannach Thóin! (Kiss My Irish Ass!)

-JT

This text may be freely copied in its entirely only, including this copyright message.

References:

Plato, by Reeve, C.D.C. 1998. Cratylus. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.

http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/scimedemail/la-me-william-house-20121212,0,271457.story

http://www.hei.org/stories/articles/william_house.html

Tucker Maxon Oral School Pitfall: A Cult of Ignorance

January 11, 2014March 11, 2017 The Last Hiccup3 Comments

My beloved mentor Carl Schroeder has helped and taught me to promote awareness as a Deaf person to tell my stories about myself. Not only that, but he taught me to recognize the phenomenon of Audism. Stories must be ignited with a fireproofer with education inside us Deaf people. Now I would like to question “Tucker-Maxon Oral School Mission Statement” why Audism is not in the policy books. It is bully-alike against the Deaf students in oral schools that have long been part of the repertoire by which school administrators had reinforced their position of social and political superiority. Audism had been a way to assert hearingness as a sign of privilege. Tucker-Maxon’s policy is to ban sign language there. They are the worst language bigots in Portland, Oregon.

Click the picture to enlarge and see “Our students who are deaf do not use sign language.”

Isaac Asimov, a professor at Boston University wrote a powerful book called A Cult of Ignorance in 1980, “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge”—is exactly going on in schools that teach Oralism for Deaf students.

Dr. Wallace Bruce lied to my parents very much that my parents thought I would be successful. I was featured in a newspaper called Oregonian dated December 9, 1976 where they wrote a story about me with my parents how Tucker-Maxon would change people’s life. It was the biggest lie in 1976 even today 2014, too. Dr. Wallace Bruce made a hoax statement in newspaper, “Research has found that amplification before the age of one means the child will function as the hard of hearing instead of the deaf.” Today my status is Deaf. Nothing will ever change me. Click the picture below to enlarge and read the article yourself.

What does it mean to be “hearing”? There is no beginning, the side of the book, to a history of “hearing” term; its roots take hold too firmly on the stories of the Deaf. Tucker Maxon makes sure that Deaf students must be “hearing” and profit them off for their moneymaking machine. They make Deaf students “hear” through high “hearing” technologies. The “hearing” practice scarification, putting cochlear implants in Deaf babies.

There was a teacher by the name of Alice Davis whom punished me by using a six-pack rings around my hands. During my lunchtime, my mother decided to surprise me, Alice did not realize that my mother saw the six-pack rings around my hands and that is when my mother freaked out and took me out of Tucker-Maxon school right away and enrolled me into mainstreaming schools. She was very mean-spirited teacher even though I can remember her very well when I was only four years old. Now both of ruthless Audists, Dr. Wallace Bruce and Alice Davis are deceased. They died within two months apart in October and December 2013. They were lovebirds at sight. RIP. (Riddance in Peace)

There will be always “sound-oriented” teachers, school administration, principals, speech therapists, and audiologists governing Oral schools for Deaf students. Allowing the elements of Audism in Oral schools like Tucker-Maxon is a social responsibility, not a private one. It is very important to know who have the key to destroy Audism and must be removed from those places. There will always be hearing people who hate our condition, that is, being Deaf, just there will always be Republicans who hate Democrats.

It is well known today that there is an invisible Audism in schools and it is our responsibility to remove the “assault” weapon. Anyone who looks up to the Audists must sign a private agreement, and it is subject to be disclosed for their own selfish and their hearing privileges. This is about stripping a class of Deaf students of their own human rights. After all, victory is only as great as one’s enemy, and we are not winning the war of Audism for the protection of our most valuable resource, DEAF RIGHTS. How much damages were done to me in the past. I thought that higher learning is what rescued me from insanity.

The first two years of my toddler years, I was forced how to learn Oralism and realized that it was a bruised ego. Even though I was taught several stereotypical notions about Deaf people. Will Deaf people get fair treatment by getting a pursuit of happiness that is guaranteed by Constitution? I refuse to get into “plantation politics” there and I know that the students can make all the difference if they are so democratic in thinking! They do not have teachers who are democratic. They are struck. I am a human being, not a farm animal that can go in and out of the gate. I am tired of being damaged over and over. I grew up by ignorant people and brainwashed by ignorant physicians, audiologists, educators, psychologists, and interpreters. I left the world of Oralism at age of four where my parents saw the list of abuses and immerse myself in the community of my own—Deaf community where the need is.

Stories will give plenty of hopeful pictures to give people to tell their experiences. It is part of healing. Again, there are plenty of stories about plantation politics also about mainstreaming schools that prevents Audism expansion, which is socialized insurance, went out without a hitch. Let’s search your souls and ask yourself if you would have the courage to defend yourself from dealing with bruised ego. What we really need from Oral schools and mainstreamed students are stories as sidewise arguments in literature that Oralism is a huge hoax.

Tucker-Maxon thinks politics and government do not affect Oralism where they promote ‘hearing hero’ month where a student would talk, listen, hear, and act like hearing person. Deaf students are colonized at best! Politics is the process of making collective decisions in a community, society, or group through the application of influence and power. United States Government can be a threat to our liberty by using American Sign Language (ASL), but we need to remove their private language bigotry first.

My blog is not academic discourse. It is for a general readership. I would not want anyone to kick me around.

-JT

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