It’s a little different in teacher Candy Butler’s classes at Hinsdale South High School in Darien: For the most part, Butler talks with her hands and her students listen with their eyes.
When the students respond, it’s often just the opposite: They do the hand ballet of American Sign Language and Butler gives a watchful listen.
At Hinsdale South there is a unique collaboration between the worlds of those with regular hearing and those with hearing impairments. For 35 years it has been the place where deaf and hard-of-hearing students from all over DuPage County and western Cook County have been receiving their secondary education.
“In the deaf community, when people talk about education programs for the deaf, the Hinsdale South program comes up a lot because of all the students who have been through it over the years and gone on to lead successful lives,” said Don Raci, the guidance counselor for the deaf and hard-of-hearing students. “I think everyone is really very pleased with the way the program has settled in–but of course, I’m biased.”
Raci, whose parents are deaf, is fluent in sign language and closely familiar with the hurdles faced by the hearing impaired. Teaching and counseling the deaf was not a surprising field for him to go into, he said.
For Butler, dealing with the deaf was a career choice.
When she was growing up in Bridgeview she used to babysit the deaf daughter of a neighbor. While a student at Argo High School, she was in a work program as a teacher’s assistant in a deaf classroom.
“I think I knew pretty early on that I wanted to work with the deaf,” she said.
Butler received a bachelor’s degree in deaf education from Illinois State University and later earned two master’s degrees, one in vocational programming from Northeastern Illinois University and another in teacher leadership from Roosevelt University.
Now Butler is in her 20th year with the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Department at Hinsdale South. Besides teaching she also serves as the transitional coordinator, placing students in jobs and linking them to service organizations that help the hearing impaired.
“I love it,” Butler said. “The nice thing about my position is I’m in the classroom in the morning but then I see students in our real-life training programs or jobs. It is a whole different perspective than being in a classroom when you see how much they can learn on a job site in the community and how hard they try to interact positively with hearing people. It is not unusual for them to be very, very nervous or scared at their first job or first training program, but it gives them experience they really need.”
Deafness is formidable handicap to deal with, Butler said.
“People take language skills for granted,’ Butler said. “A hearing student picks up language as a baby and then as a toddler. So a deaf student who doesn’t get that starting as an infant gets further and further behind in language acquisition, which, in turn, makes learning reading and writing more difficult as well.”
Hearing impaired students arrive at the school in all stages of ability. For some, a hearing deficit is their only disability. For others it is compounded by other disabilities such as cerebral palsy.
“We have some students with multiple disabilities who are not in the building as often,” Butler said. “They are out in the community doing things like shopping and banking and learning all the life skills they are going to need to be out on their own and as independent as possible.”
There also are self-contained classes for students who read at a level of 2nd grade or lower and for students who read at a 4th to 6th grade level. Students who read at a 6th grade level or higher are mainstreamed in the school with an sign language interpreter.
Of the department’s 26-member staff, five are teachers and the rest are interpreters for the 40 hearing-impaired students enrolled. Over the years, the program’s enrollment has fluctuated.
“At one time we had about 125 students,” Raci said. “Next year we are looking at having 50 students–we’re going to graduate 10 this year and bring in 20.”
Students come from as far away as West Chicago and Evergreen Park. For some it can mean a ride of up to an hour–longer in bad weather. But for many of the students, the socialization with other deaf students is a powerful draw.
Some of Butler’s students enjoy essentially a complete high school experience, including participation in the school’s regular sports activities such as football, soccer and swimming.
“They have interpreters for their practices and games that follow them around,” Butler said. “Interpreters are sometimes here at school from 7 in the morning to 10 at night.”
Although Butler teaches classes with only hearing-impaired students, some classes have students with no hearing impairments at all. One of the offshoots of having the hearing-impaired students at the school was the interest hearing students have developed in sign language.
Today, Hinsdale South offers two years of American Sign Language to hearing students who take the class as a foreign language.
From day one, the rule in the sign language classes is no talking–except with the hands. Total immersion in sign language is the best method, Butler said.
In her classroom there is silence so total that the whisper of warm air from the heating ducts is the loudest noise, except for occasional laughter when something funny is signed. In contrast, in her classes with deaf students, the students are encouraged to speak their answers. In both classes, when Butler wants the students’ attention she flicks the lights on and off.
Throughout the sign language class, Butler or aide Joann Ikeda will occasionally sign a question and student hands flutter in response, some more sure than others.
“I would say to be proficient in sign language it takes more than a year, probably a good two years,” Butler said.
The comparison to a foreign language is a good one, Butler said.
“Just like, for instance, Spanish has a different way of arranging the words, that’s exactly how American Sign Language is. It’s not like you go in and learn signs so you can sign every word that you would talk. There is a grammatical difference to sign language, there is a dialect and unique syntactical logic to sign language.”
Gena Louise, a 15-year-old sophomore from Willowbrook, is finishing her first year of sign language. She had previously taken Spanish but said she finds sign language to be more enjoyable.
“Spanish was a lot harder because it was verbal; sign language is more memorization and working with the hands,” Louise said. “It is easier for me and more fun too.”
There is a practical side to her decision as well.
“I use it every day,” Louise said. “I have a lot of deaf friends [at Hinsdale South] and I wanted to learn how to better communicate between us.”
Louise also has a family application for her new sign language ability.
“My mom has some deaf aunts and uncles, so when they come by I can talk to them,” she said.
Previously her only sign language skill was in finger spelling, and there are some words that don’t have sign language counterparts. In those cases, and in cases where exact spelling is important, such as in a name, the American Manual Alphabet is used to finger spell letter for letter.
To Louise, the deaf students fit in at Hinsdale South.
“Some of them are verbal, and they talk a lot so usually the hearing kids can understand what those deaf kids are saying,” she said. “Overall it works out really well.”
The association with deaf students also is leading her to a career choice, Louise said. “I plan to major in deaf education and either I want to be a rehab counselor for the deaf or teach deaf kids.”
Each year many of the deaf students have the opportunity to take part in the school’s Job Shadowing program, through which they visit the workplace of hearing-impaired people who often are Hinsdale South alumni.
“All kinds of careers are represented: computer programing, software designers, social workers, nursing home workers and all kinds of teachers. I even have an assistant vice president of a bank downtown,” Butler said.
Theodore Hughes, 17, a deaf senior from Maywood, plans on going into the culinary arts field and recently job-shadowed a deaf chef in the dietary department of a nursing home.
“I felt it was really great,” said Hughes of the experience.
Besides taking classes at Hinsdale South, Hughes also is enrolled in a culinary arts program at the Technical Center of DuPage in Addison. He takes vocational instruction there daily from noon to 2:30 p.m.
“I’m learning a lot there,” said Hughes. “I’m learning about culinary vocabulary and I’m learning about recipes. I’m also learning about how to be a line cook, how to bake and also cake decorating.”
After Hughes graduates from Hinsdale South he plans to go on to college, although he has not yet made a selection.
“I’m waiting to see which ones accept me,” he said.
At Hinsdale South, the deaf students can get a feeling for the possibilities of what they can accomplish, Raci said. But just as important, they feel comfortable there.
“There is open-mindedness both ways. The hearing students accept them, so the deaf students like being here. I think the faculty deserves a lot of credit as well. They accept the kids for their talents and don’t worry about their hearing loss.”
After 35 years, the program even is drawing a share of second generation of hearing-impaired students.
“I am seeing the children of students I had here when I was a teacher,” Raci said.
MISCONCEPTIONS
Two staffers from Hinsdale South High School’s deaf and hard of hearing department would like to clear up a few misconceptions.
Contrary to common belief, the hearing impaired are not necessarily adept at lip reading.
“It’s funny because a lot of people think that if you are hard of hearing you probably can read lips,” said teacher Candy Butler. “There are profoundly deaf people who can read lips better than some hard-of-hearing people, but it’s really just a talent that some can do and some cannot.”
Butler said another common mistake the hearing make in dealing with the deaf is to speak louder. But what bothers her even more, a misconception that brings passion to her voice, is when the hearing believe the deaf are not as smart as they.
“Maybe in the case of a hearing person who worked with a deaf person and saw that their written language was not all it could be, they think that the deaf person’s language or reading levels reflect their intelligence–but they are not taking into consideration that it is just a totally different language for them,” Butler said.
“There are very, very intelligent deaf people and deaf students in this program who are not capable of grammatically perfect sentences–but they are brilliant people.”
Another mistake made by those with normal hearing is to rely too much on a sign language interpreter, when one is available, Butler said.
Students with jobs through the school’s transition service can have an interpreter with them when needed, but employers might decide to speak to the interpreter instead of to the deaf student.
“If there is an interpreter around, they say, `Tell him I said …’ instead of talking directly to the deaf person,” she explained. “Instead of looking at the deaf person, they’ll look at the interpreter and almost avoid looking at the deaf person. I know it’s a nervous thing because they aren’t comfortable dealing with the deaf, but it’s so much better just to talk to the deaf person.”
Ignoring a deaf person in favor of the interpreter is something that makes guidance counselor Don Raci bristle.
“It still ticks me off to see that,” Raci said. “People should make eye contact with the deaf person and try to communicate with them. I always like to see people at least try to communicate with the deaf person and then go back to the interpreter if anything needs to be cleared up.”
— Charles Stanley
