Words from the Byrd


Byrdfly likes to write rhymes.
Next year he will be in the 8th grade.
He would like to have a career as a rap performer.
We sat down with him recently to talk about his experience with hearing loss.

Q: You used to use an FM unit in school. Why did you stop?
A: Because the other kids used to make fun of me. #1: I didn't think I really had hearing loss #2: The kids were making fun of me. And #3: People thought that I was deaf and I was not deaf.

Q: Do you think it would help if the other kids knew more about hearing loss?
A: Probably.

Q: Say the kids had not been making fun of you. Say they just accepted that sometimes you needed to wear that equipment, like wearing a pair of glasses. Do you think that it helped you? Did you hear the teacher better? Did it help you with your schoolwork?
A: I could still hear the teacher without it.

Q: So you feel it didn't boost your hearing enough to make it worthwhile?
A: Wait - it did boost my hearing. I ain't gonna lie about that. I remember I used to be able to sit in the back and I would still hear the teacher's annoying voice!

Q: So now you sit up in the front which is one thing anyone with hearing loss can do so they can see the person who's speaking and hear as much as possible of what they're saying. But going back to when people first suggested that you wear the FM equipment, what did you think about it? How old were you when you first noticed you had some hearing loss? Did your mother notice it first? Maybe she was calling you to dinner and noticed that you didn't come right away?


A: No, I had no problems. I had a hearing and seeing test at my school. They said that my hearing was low. I didn't start wearing it then. Then my mother took me to my audiologist and that's when he checked my hearing and said I needed it.

Q: Did you ever wear any equipment at home? Or just at school?


A: Just at school.


Q: What advice would you give someone your age (or younger) if they just found out they had a hearing loss?


A:
1) I would be myself.

2) Just say "Come again," or "I beg your pardon," if you want people to speak up louder.

3)The support of the teachers is very essential.

Please leave a comment or a question for Birdfly.
We hope to feature some of his rhymes very soon!

Deaf ? Don't Call the Doctor in This "House"

I was looking up stuff on DeafRead when I found a review of a House episode. I decided to take a look, and well...here is a selection from the review and my thoughts on the topic.

- AMP (A Misunderstood Person)

"When I sit down on Monday nights to watch House I expect to be mildly insulted and wickedly entertained. Unfortunately last night I was just shocked by the amount of ignorance spread by the writer's of the show. The episode centered around a young deaf wrestler who falls to the ground with exploding sensations in his head. After a bit of investigating he is diagnosed with "NF2 cancer" and told treatment would be relatively simple, and that afterward he may regain his hearing which he lost at age 4. Throughout the show the boy is referred to as an idiot and insulted repeatedly for being a well adjusted deaf child. At one point during a simple brain biopsy House directs Chase to put in a Cochlear Implant, without any planning or a specialist. It was actually hilarious. The boy wakes up and House is in his hospital room tuning his CI as he begins to awaken. He can immediately hear the tiniest of sounds, and within hours is asking if his speech sounds slurred as he hears his deaf girlfriend for the first time. He looks at her pitifully as she walks away. House is excused from forcing this contraption onto an unwilling patient because he "did the idiot a favor" by providing him with hearing. I expect that sort of belligerence from House, but even the other characters mirrored his viewpoint. The deaf boy was called an idiot and a moron repeatedly, and at the end when he is touched to hear his name on his Mother's voice he accepts his new gift and all is supposedly well.

I can deal with the fact that House is a fictional show, and not known for medical accuracy. How can they disregard the potential ignorance they are spreading about NF2 though? I do not have cancer, now all of my friends who watch House are probably thinking oh lord she has cancer! Should I be expecting muffin baskets? (Probably not.) When you are deafened by NF2 removing the tumors does not bring your hearing back, and may in fact also cause facial paralysis and disequilibrium. So aside from the general ignorance of NF2, the attack on Deaf Culture was nothing short of hurtful. There were not a handful of tongue in cheek remarks, the episode was a nonstop diatribe about the stupidity of Deaf people to stay hearing impaired when there are supposedly magical implants that can fix anyone. These implants rarely work on people with NF2, and I already deal with people on a daily basis who treat me with disdain and contempt, as though it's my own fault I am deaf. Thank you House for further increasing the misconceptions of deaf people, and causing all of us Deaf to turn off our TVs feeling like we just got beat up in gym class. For a show that generates millions of dollars in profit, you would think they could afford a medical fact checker, or at least a writer with enough common sense to write a witty joke without being bigoted toward an entire culture of people. The show had a chance to be a platform for the deaf, and instead reminded most of us exactly why many Deaf don't want anything to do with the hearing world."

- From Fabulous Running Mommy on DeafRead, NF2 House

Here are My Thoughts on the Topic:

While I don't watch House on a daily basis, I feel this woman's pain about this episode being little more than an attack on Deaf Culture. Srsly, there's no real reason why it's just a good idea to go, "Hey, let's just insult the deaf wrestler! Deaf people are too stupid to know how to watch TV, and our viewers will love it so much that we'll be rolling in cash!'

Meh, just because deaf people can't hear, doesn't mean they don't have feelings at all...but of course, most people don't realize this and just assume they're stupid because they totally can't hear them and misinterpret stuff because...yeah, the answer is obvious. They can't hear! >_> And you wonder why deaf people don't want anything to do with the hearing world...

So, about the 'boy gets cochlear implant, he gets to hear everything again, everything is just fine' part. Maybe that kind of scenario works in your mind, but in real life, no. Just no...after all, you have to learn how to use a cochlear implant to get anything out of it, and that usually takes a few months or years depending on how good a learner you are or how deaf you are (born deaf or just deaf in adulthood). You see, the implant sends sensations to your brain, and these can be a real pain to get a hang of. Whether it's solved or not, depends on what the deaf man or woman thinks, and it's usually never solved for them. Many deaf people end up abandoning the implant after a few years, because they either believe that being able to hear stuff again is not worth the hassle they have to go through to recognize these sensations that are either very confusing to get a hang of, or just a real pain. Or, they prefer just not hearing stuff like hearing people can or for some other reason.

In any case, cochlear implants....they don't ever work in real life like how House depicts it. So meh on that.

NOTE:

tl;dr version: The creators of House need to get better writers that know how to make a joke without being biased towards cultures of people who might take offense at it, or at least get a medical fact checker.

Welcome

Chronicles of the Unheard is written by and for young people in the Hearing Education Services program in New York City.

In most ways we are just like other people our age. We go to school every day. We have big dreams for our future and big questions about how to get there. We are more like you than we are different.

Okay, I know what you're thinking now. "Hold up! Different? What's different about them?"

With some of us the difference is obvious. We might wear hearing aids. We might use sign language. When we come into a classroom, we might hand the teacher an FM unit to wear around her neck.

With others, the differences are more subtle. You might notice that we ask you to repeat things more than other people do. Or that we sometimes seem to answer a different question than the one you asked. But you don't think about it too much, because most of the time we react just the way you expect us to.

We want to use this blog to communicate our experiences to the world. We especially want to hear from other young people who are Deaf and hard of hearing. We want your short stories, essays, reports and poetry about aspects of life as Deaf and hard of hearing youth. If ASL is your language, we will post your V-blog entries. Send an e-mail to mchoffman135@gmail.com if you would like your work to appear on our blog.

If you are a hearing person, please leave your comments and questions.


Note: Our title is inspired by a book by Josh Swiller. The book is called The Unheard, and it is all about his experiences as a Deaf man in Zambia, Africa.


Our First Post is by
A Misunderstood Person

The first day of seventh grade was a beautiful day, but it was a lie considering the stupid things that happened once I got to school.

First I was assigned to the wrong class. I mean, I had the paper that told me what class I was supposed to be in, and I was convinced it was the right one until the teacher spotted me among the 28-odd heads of students lined up for roll call.

She went: "Hey, I've got news for you, you aren't supposed to be in here young man. Get out. Get out now." And basically she pushed me out the door and onto the floor to the laughter of my classmates.

I picked myself up while trying, and failing, to hide my face. Before we even got halfway through the door one girl said to me: "Ooh, is the little baby crying?" She laughed in my face with her friends. It made me feel worse, but I tried to pretend that it didn't affect me.

We took our seats and I happened to wind up sitting next to another girl who thought what happened to me was hilarious. Yay, me! Off to a great start in seventh grade.


I listened to the teacher make her introductory speech. Meanwhile the whispered comments continued from the other rows of desks.

"Hey, you saw Ms. S. push that retard to the floor like that?"
"Ooh, yeah, the look on his face just got me so bad. I'll never forget that as long as I live."

The insults went on and on. They said maybe I went into the wrong classroom on purpose. Yeah, right, like I wanted to get a bad name for myself on the first day.


Lunch time was no better. I got to see my friends from another class, sure, but the food sucked as usual, and the insults didn't stop. It was so bad that since that day I haven't returned to the cafeteria at lunch time. Instead I spend my lunch hour in the room where I meet the hearing and speech teachers. At least I have something to do there. No one stops me from using the computer.

You could say the computer has kept me from feeling completely isolated. The only real friends I've ever had are internet people, especially people interested in RPGs. Too bad not people people realize this. Sigh.

(Note: RPGs are Role Playing Games.)

Writers note: The is just the edited version of the events. The real version is more vulgar than this. I think it gets the point across better, but we don't want to corrupt the younger kids who might read this blog! If you want to read the original version, send an email to: mchoffman135@gmail.com.