THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 9, 1995 TAG: 9504070212
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY PATRICIA HUANG, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 238 lines
FOR YEARS, BECKY Walton, a sign language interpreter for Chesapeake schools, felt compelled to assist her deaf and hearing-impaired students in any way she could.
``It involved everything down to carrying extra supplies for them,'' said Walton, who accompanies Camelot Elementary School's deaf students from class to class. ``If they said, `Oh, I forgot my pencil,' I'd be pulling one out, saying, `Here, take this. Use this.' ''
But now, with new national guidelines for education interpreters set in recent years, Walton and her counterparts say they know how to be of even more help.
``Now if they say to me in sign, `Oh, I forgot my pencil.' It's like, `Oh, I forgot my pencil,' '' said Walton, throwing her head back slightly as she spoke and demonstrating that she would function merely as the student's voice.
The teacher of the class would then most likely treat the student just as any other and tell him to return to his locker to fetch one, she said.
``The interpreting profession has grown so that we're no longer helpers and aides but `facilitators of communication,' '' Walton said. Not private tutors. Not baby sitters.
``So when (the students) leave and go out into the community, they're more able to deal with things.''
In the past, she said, some students have suffered when teachers neglected them, seeing them as the interpreter's students, or when interpreters failed to teach or ensure communication. ``But we are not teachers. We do not teach,'' Walton said.
Now the new guidelines give interpreters and others a clearer outlook on their role in the school system. The rules also set standards that better deaf students' educations and lend more structure and credibility to a budding new profession.
Although many schools across the nation began using mainstream interpreters during the early 1970s, interpreting as a profession is still very new. As recently as the early 1980s, there were still no requirements or laws addressing the qualifications of sign language interpreters, according to the Virginia Department for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
``Years ago, schools would say, `Oh, you have deaf kids? You know a few signs? Come work for us.' And nobody really knew what they were doing,'' said Walton, who became the city's first educational interpreter in 1983. ``There just were no standards in the past. The scenario of people writing notes to deaf kids was very common.''
This year there are 38 deaf or hearing-impaired students in Chesapeake schools. Thirteen of them use the school system's seven full-time and three part-time interpreters. The students are mainstreamed in classes most of the time, and all but three students are accompanied from class to class by a personal interpreter. The other three students, who attend the same classes at Camelot Elementary School, share one interpreter.
In their Camelot classroom for the hearing-impaired, they sat in a circle on a recent Wednesday for their weekly deaf-culture session. On one wall, a colorful display with the phrases ``Top dog,'' ``In the doghouse,'' ``In hot water,'' and ``Dead meat,'' make up a discipline board. The name of each deaf and hearing-impaired student appears under a movable magnetic picture of a dog.
``Deaf people have a hard time with idioms,'' said Julia Harper who teaches the hearing-impaired class. If the students misbehave, she explained, they physically move their names from one section of the board to another. If they misbehave so much that their name is moved to the ``dead meat'' section of the board, they may be sent down to the office.
It is here that the students talk about the deaf community, work on learning sarcasm, multiple meaning words and other concepts foreign to the deaf world.
``One time when I went to a Burger King in Washington, D.C., they had a button (for deaf people) you could push to place your order,'' said Jennifer Powell, a Camelot fifth-grader.
She sat in a circle with her peers discussing advances made by the Americans With Disabilities Act, a federal law passed three years ago. The class spoke of Telecommunications Devices for the Deaf, doorbells with flashing lights and other things that make their lives in the hearing world easier.
Well-versed in deaf culture, Jennifer made reference to the heavy deaf population in Washington and Gallaudet College, the first liberal arts college for the deaf.
Born of deaf parents, Jennifer, who is mainstreamed in Chesapeake schools, said she hopes to attend a deaf school by the seventh grade. Several other deaf Chesapeake students said they felt they, too, would benefit more by attending deaf school than by being mainstreamed in public school. But most parents and students elect to wait until middle school or high school before pursuing this, since deaf schools are traditionally residential and students return home only on the weekends.
``Our children tend to be isolated from deaf adult role models, so they don't pick up (sign language signs) as much,'' Walton said. ``The deaf have their own culture and their own controversies that the hearing world never comes into contact with.''
It is those things that several of the students said they felt they are missing out on. But for those like Sarah Frain, a hearing-impaired fifth-grader, the benefits of mainstream socialization are great.
Running with her class at gym time, Sarah and her hearing friend Tiffany McCullough sign to each other. The two close friends have been in the same classes for three years and in that time Tiffany has learned some American Sign Language from Sarah, who does not plan to attend deaf school. She said she is fine in the hearing world and does not need the specialization of an all-deaf school.
Like 90 percent of deaf children, Sarah was born of hearing parents.
It is only within the past four years that most positive changes for deaf students have taken place, Walton said. Federal regulations require that educational interpreters meet at least the first level of the Virginia Quality Assurance Screening test - a proficiency test that involves both written and performance assessments.
Most interpreters take the assessment test about twice a year and study to reach level four, the highest level of proficiency. This year, Chesapeake schools began reimbursing interpreters the $80 fee for the test. And for the second consecutive year, the school system is also offering a course to help them improve their skills.
Jay Shopshire, a math teacher from Hampton School for the Deaf and a third-generation deaf person, teaches the once-a-week class for eight weeks. He moved with animation and enthusiasm as he spoke in American Sign Language one recent Tuesday night, helping interpreters with their reception of ASL and teaching them new signs.
``We have to spell out words a lot because there isn't a sign for it,'' said Frances Vernon, a school interpreter. Sometimes, she said, interpreters need to improvise when lessons keep repeating some words that simply take too long to spell out. For example, Vernon said, once in a biology class there was the name of a fish that kept popping up in lecture. They created a sign for ``bony fish'' as a reference.
She warns students, however, to remember that the sign is just for school communication between her and the student. The school's 10 interpreters also meet periodically to ensure uniformity in the signs they use.
Although most deaf and hearing impaired students have their own personal interpreters, Chesapeake schools are constantly seeking qualified candidates, especially those familiar with deaf culture.
``There is a very small pool of sign language interpreters,'' said Karen Neidermeyer, who oversees the schools' interpreters. Low pay and hard work keep the pool of interpreters very small. The average salary for a starting educational interpreter this year is $15,235, an 8 percent increase over last year.
In Chesapeake, beginning interpreters are paid between $13,614 and $22,865 for a 190-day year and receive full benefits. More experienced interpreters are paid up to $24,623.
Most of the school's interpreters say they wouldn't be doing it if they didn't love deaf culture and working with children.
For Pat Major, an interpreter in her third year with the school system, the job's attraction is the creativity and expression of American Sign Language.
``You can't find a more creative mode. (Sign language) has more nuance than the spoken language has because you're using your body, your facial expressions and your hands,'' she said. ``It's so much more exciting. Every movement counts - even down to the position of one eyebrow. It's more like poetry and dance than like anything else.''
It's a tricky job that requires a high level of concentration and energy, interpreters said. Many of them find themselves signing as they talk to hearing people.
Major left the Navy four years ago to pursue an interpreting career after she began taking sign language classes with a friend who enrolled because her daughter was born deaf.
She finds herself signing to the car radio with one hand as she drives. In church, she ponders the sermon and wonders how she would interpret it, and at home, her hearing children read stories aloud to her so she can practice. Finding the best way to translate spoken English words to American Sign Language is one of the greatest challenges, she said.
The emotional attachment to the students also plays a big part in in terpreting, Major said. ``I'm with these same (students), five days a week and more so than their teachers because I follow them for seven bells,'' she said. ``You want to help as much as you can, but you don't want to over-help because then you're not doing any good.''
Interpreters need to be wary of stepping in and out of the interpreter role, Major and her counterparts said.
For Walton, moving from the high school level to the elementary school level was a big challenge. When she would try to function as an interpreter, the little children would talk to her, forcing her to stop acting as their voice. She came to wear a smock to let them know when they could talk to her and when she was functioning only as their interpreter.
``If I could be a pair of glasses, I would be,'' Walton said. ``The more interpreter savvy these kids are, the more chance they'll have to lead a successful life.''
The ones that are interpreter savvy, however, like to test their interpreters to see if they can keep their composure, she said.
While interpreting for younger children, interpreters like Walton must try to be accurate in speaking for them, making sure to keep even the same tone and inflection of speech as the child.
``Kids are apt to say anything,'' said Walton, who added that it is sometimes hard to keep a straight face.
Walton was once interpreting for a student who was sitting in a circle cutting out pictures and talking with her friends, she said.
``She started talking about her uncle who died of AIDS,'' Walton said. ``And she was like, `Well, you know what AIDS is? You know how you get AIDS? He was gay.' ''
Since the role of the interpreter should not interfere at all with the class or academics, interpreters are not allowed to act if they see students cheat in class. If the student they interpret for looks away or puts his head down, they continue to sign. It is up to the teacher of the class to say ``pay attention'' or ``stop cheating.''
``You have to put those things out of your mind,'' Walton said. ``The more we stay away from the role of the tutor, the better. There's a fine line that interpreters walk by being in the classroom.''
Most teachers grow accustomed to having an interpreter in the classroom with them, but some tend to resent having another adult there, Major said. ``There are some teachers that feel like there's always someone there to judge them. There are a few who meet a block and have trouble getting over it,'' she said.
Terry Cornett, who teaches a landscaping class at Chesapeake Center for Science and Technology, said he can understand how some teachers feel. Cornett glanced over at John Ainsley, a Deep Creek high school junior and Cornett's first deaf student.
``It's real unnerving at first, but now I forget he's deaf, and I sometimes chatter away at him,'' he said. Cornett stood a few feet away from Ainsley and his interpreter Decie Buckwater, a first-year interpreter, in the center's greenhouse.
Cornett gave Ainsley instructions as Buckwater signed them, as she tried to fade into the background.
``The ultimate compliment for an interpreter is that if she leaves the room, nobody notices,'' she said. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by STEVE EARLEY
[ Decie Buckwater signing - color cover photo]
Dianne Yancey uses sign language in her deaf culture class at
Camelot Elementary School.
Decie Buckwater signs for Deep Creek High junior John Ainsley.
Tiffany McCullough, left, learned sign language so she could
communicate with her friend, Sarah Frain, right.
Decie Buckwater and John Ainsley spend the day in school together.
JUST THE FACTS
Sign language is the third most frequently used language in the
country, after English and Spanish.
There are three predominantly used forms of sign language -
American Sign Language; Signing Exact English, which is an
English-influenced system; and Pidgin, which is a combination of the
two.
Roughly 61,000 deaf or hearing-impaired youths are enrolled in
schools across the country, according to the U.S. Department of
Education. Nationally, 29 percent of the students attend special
schools for the deaf. The rest - many of whom are hard of hearing,
not completely deaf - attend regular schools.
by CNB