The Old Business Of Seeing the Glass as Half Empty: Deficit Thinking

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Deficit Thinking NO MORE PLEASE!! By Ella Lentz
DEFICIT THINKING: WHAT IS THIS? By David Eberwein
Join Us at the 2008 DeafRead Conference!! By Joey Baer
Origin of Debate vs Just Debating By Oscar Serna
We All Are Thinkers By Carl Schroeder
Live Webcasting at DeafRead 2008 conference By Jared Evans

JRNAD FORCED TO SHUT DOWN: ORALISM

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A special Guest Vlogger, Liza Offreda shares an experience she had in her sophomore year when she was elected JRNAD president. There are two programs at the school; one is an oral program, and another a signing program. They segregate the Deaf students in the oral program are they are not allowed to be exposed to signing. Oral students met with Liza and wanted to join JRNAD. Liza was thrilled and invited them to JRNAD, however her principal decided to shut down the school's JRNAD program completely in order to avoid allowing oral students to participate in it. Liza couldn't speak out or she be would kicked out of school. She contacted NAD and asked for help, however NAD never responded to Liza.  

Update: In NAD's defense, the NAD said that they never received an e mail from Liza Offreda. Both the NAD and NJAD said that they would have followed up on the situation involving Liza Offrenda, but they needed Liza to come down during the middle of week where Liza live in NJ, however, she is a full time student at Monticlar State University. NAD decided to put this issue on hold due to its (NAD's) upcoming conference, and Sean (the NAJD president) kept on insisting that Liza provide evidence, while he could have gone to Midland Park to see the situation for himself. He could have interviewed former students who were permitted to sign during the time when Kathleen Treni was not there. Just before Treni was assigned as a principal, the oral program was being taken over signing program and the students who were in the signing program were being place at another school in a run-down part of the city.

Is Jane Fernandes that Important?

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I feel there are more important to focus on instead on Jane Fernandes. Please let her go and move on. There are crisis going on right now, for example, DEAF EMBRYO will be destroyed and will not allow Deaf people and CODA to select Deaf embryo in ENGLAND .

Another thing is segregation at Deaf school where Deaf students with cochlear implant are not allowed to interact with Deaf students with ASL. The teachers with ASL are not allowed to use sign language in front of Deaf students with cochlear implants at Deaf school. The principal screamed at me for signing to Deaf children with cochlear implants and expected to keep my hands down when they walked past me.

My friend's friend begged her to go with her friend to a retirement party to honor a speech therapist. The school has two programs, one is for oral, and one is for total communication. They are segregation. The boss who works for total communication program was willing to interpret since the oral program refused to provide an interpreter for my friend at the retirement party and forced her to use CART. My friend was not happy how CART was set up and she tried to move the CART. A person who owned the CART yelled at her for moving it and moved it back as this person wanted to be. My friend's boss decided to interpret for my friend. When a parent of Deaf child with cochlear implant announced to the audience that "American Sign Language is bad for you", the boss couldn't interpret what the parent had said. My friend begged her to tell her what was going on. The Boss refused. The very next morning, my friend demanded her boss to tell her what was going on. Finally her boss told my friend what the parent had said. The boss was afraid that she and other Deaf workers would be upset if she had gone ahead and interpreted at the party.

I can understand that PEOPLE OF THE EYE was concerned about Jane Fernandes teaching in the Deaf Department at Gallaudet University due to her negative attitude toward the Deaf community and American Sign Language.

I ask you please focus on a bigger picture. It is important for us to deal with these issues that hurt our Deaf community especially with Deaf children and babies. We need to focus on how we can make an impact to the world about the Deaf community like my documentary film (work in process), Deaf Bilingual Coalition and Deafhood workshop.