Rochester! Deaf Unity has landed

So, David and I travelled a mammoth 11 hours from Washington to Rochester, in upstate New York. On first impressions, this is the first ‘real’ American town we have met. Rather than the bright lights of New York City, or the slightly contrived historical feel of Washington, we are now met by urban decline and sub-urban rise. Welcome to Rochester!

The upside of Rochester is that they have the highest ratio of Deaf per capita and is the home of Rochester School for the Deaf and RIT/NTID – three of the largest, more successful and historically significant deaf centres on the east coast.

Our first visit, after recovering from the laborious train ride, was to the Rochester School for the Deaf. Our host Frank Kruppenbacher had organised a lovely agenda for the morning, including the added surprise of Joel Barish from Deaf Nation addressing some of the high school students about his organisation and work.

This is an amazing sensory room they use for promoting hearing use and movement with little infants! We were made to do a dance – no pictures!

RSD is a very historical site and was the pioneer of a teaching/literacy method called the Rochester Method, which comprised mainly of spelling EVERYTHING! They were also a leader in the Oral Method. Despite being proud of these roots, they are now a bilingual school and utilise both English and ASL in the classroom, when deemed required/useful.

We had a great discussion with the director of their high school section (they have children from infants until around 18 years old!). We were able to discuss at length about transition – how they support students graduating on to higher education or employment. Two things struck me through this discussion and our tour of the school:

– The school is actually not hugely proactive when it comes to transition and I can see why – in Rochester, they have education provision from infants through to Phd, all in the same town. They definitely ride the reputation built over the years, and rightly so, and expect most of their students to progress on to a Deaf establishment in Gallaudet or NTID/RIT. When I raised the subject of encouraging students into a mainstream environment, it was something that seemed like a negative idea and the description of services provided from these establishments was less than complimentary. It keeps making me wonder whether we would want a Deaf university in the UK and if it is something that would help or hinder the community… Jury is still out.

– Something that I was impressed by, here at RSD and at all of the other schools and Universities I have visited, is the school ‘spirit’ – specifically, their celebratory treatment of each other and their Alumni. Deaf Unity is working to establish a Role Model programme that celebrates the successes of our graduates and community members. In America, it seems an ingrained thing to have pictures up on the wall, reunions and visiting speakers from their alumni, all designed to make the young feel part of a wider group and to inspire them to greatness. I wish we had something like that in my school/college when growing up.

After RSD, we attended the Deaf Nation Expo based at RIT. For those in the UK, it was like a Deaf Day that we have at City Lit. Actually, I was proud of the UK that day – this expo was just full of VRS companies and interpreting agencies showing their wares. It was not exactly a trade fair, but something like that. I was glad that Deaf Day does more to hold workshops and educational discussions and training. It is a shame that we do not have more than one site in the UK tho – it might be that having something further north than London would be a good way of spreading news and best practice. Food for thought.