Journey Writer

ASL is a language

2005-05-20T17:41:00.000-04:00

ASL has previously been defined as the language of the Deaf and has such has faced discrimination and minimization. Even since it has been shown to be a full language complete with all necessary linguistic elements it still struggles to be recognized in the same vein as other foreign languages. Even within the ASL community there are feelings by some that ASL should only be taught by Deaf people. While that is a positive thing in declaring that Deaf people are the primary maintainers, developers and spreader of the language and the culture it also keeps the langue and culture restricted to one group of people who have a personal quality that is unrelated to the actual language and culture.

As more and more people, Deaf and not Deaf acquire fluency in both the language, culture and history of ASL its reach is expanding. I think that it's important for people within and on the outside of this community start to recognize that ASL is a langue like any other langue, with a valuable and living culture connected to it. I am a hearing person fluent in ASL. As such I am teaching my two hearing sons ASL. Not baby signs, not a few signs, but the entire language with its unique grammar, syntax and structure. Whenever anyone sees me signing to my sons they ask if they or I am deaf. I didn't think much about in the beginning, but as I see many other parents using a non-English language with their child I notice that they're not asked why they're teaching their children all the languages they speak. I explain to people that ASL is a language like any others and since I'm fluent I feel that it's important to teach my children how to communicate with me in all my languages.

This also reminds me of how my grandparent's parents all spoke Yiddish, but when they moved to the United States they kept it strictly away from the children. They didn't want their children "contaminated" with an "old country language." Yiddish, as a language, started dying because of such shame and unwillingness for Yiddish speaking children to "harm" their children with the knowledge of such a non-English language. It saddens me to think how much greater the culture could have been and grown to if the shame was not (forced) on immigrants as well as what was the effect it had on the U.S. people staying out of the atrocities against the Jews that were happening in Europe in World War II. Did the shame of being different cause people to be silence when they needed to speak loudly and intently for people who could not?

Yiddish meant Jewish to so many people and people were ashamed of their Jewishness. They wanted to be American, not Jewish. The Jewishness could not be expunged so the vestments of it needed to be, the language and culture had to be hidden. Yiddish, though, is its own language and has its own right to exist, separate and together with the culture that brought it into being and keeps it alive. ASL is the same way. Although most leaders in the Deaf community are anything but ashamed of being Deaf and using ASL such negative feelings persist with many people, which then gets transmitted to deaf children.

Perhaps Deafness and ASL need to be separate as two entities of their own. There needs to be Deaf pride transmitted both within the Deaf world and to the mainstream. More and more television shows that I see now with Deaf people portray them far more accurately and with far less patronizing. Some of Marlee Matlin's recent appearances have been in less flattering, but perhaps more realistic roles. Instead of looking like Super Deaf, she looks like a Deaf woman living a normal (or even abnormal life). Deaf people are not some kind of super disabled people they're just people. ASL is not some kind of perfect language suitable for communicating with babies and other people who can't do something, can't hear or can't speak or whatever. ASL is a language that deserves and requires that it be transmitted from parent to child, peer to peer and every way in between regardless of the hearing or speaking abilities of the people involved.

Not-so-positive Deaf Identity

2005-05-04T19:08:00.000-04:00

Today I had a very sad moment as a teacher. My English class read the play, Children of a Lesser God. We talked in depth about identity and what it means to people. We talked about the reframing of what has been considered a disability into a culture. We watched video of the Deaf President Now protest that happened at Gallaudet University in 1988 which was when the students protested the board's appointing a hearing, non-signing president for the seventh time for the college. The students held a week long, non-violent protest and were able to get the board to change their mind and the hearing president resigned and a Deaf president was appointed and is still running the university today. I then assigned a creative writing piece. They were to write a story about anything related to deafness. I got all but one story today. Two of the students had nice stories with a deaf character in a rather hearing setting. Two, though were very intense stories about hearing parents with deaf children, abandoning or even destroying their deaf children.

This is one of those times when I can see why the idea of having only Deaf teachers for Deaf kids is a good idea. I may be able to teach these kids many things, but I'm clearly not doing all that well on positive Deaf identity. My involvement in the Deaf community started when I was fifteen years old and was very positive and strong. The Deaf people I interacted with considered themselves to be a minority culture with a rich and expressive language. My students, on the other hand, do not seem to be adopting these positive connections.

Coincidentally, another student, not in my English class who just transferred from a very Deaf-empowerment school, was telling me about his family. He said that he was born hearing and then became deaf at 4 years old, his brother was born deaf and then his next brother was born hearing. He said that that last brother was so lucky to be hearing and he wished he could be him.

By the way, if you think my shift key is dysfunctional you can read why I've capitalized the "d" in deaf sometimes and not other times here.

Activism and parenthood

2005-05-03T18:52:00.000-04:00

Today I talked to a woman who was on the steering committee for Northampton Pride for an article I'm writing for Bay Windows. I was on the same committee in 1992 and the conversation brought back good memories. I feel like I've sort of had to drop out of my lesbian community involvement while raising babies. My children are finally potty efficient (not a diaper in the house) so I feel like I'm ready to get out there again. I started activism in the late eighties when I came out. I was somewhat afraid that parenthood would put me out of the action for the full eighteen years, but I'm feeling like there may actually be a way to balance parenthood and me-hood.

I think that there was a bit of a backlash from everyone thinking they could have high powered jobs, kids and keep their lives similar to before they had children. Then people said, no way, you can't have both, you have to choose. I have a pretty low-powered job as a high school teacher and my kids are becoming lower and lower maintenance. I can already feel the itch to get involved again.

The future of my students

2005-05-03T06:01:00.000-04:00

I have eight students in my class this year. We had one extra that started the year, but has stopped coming and another student started last week. All have a hearing impairment of some degree and sometimes other disabilities as well. I have spent so much time involved in the Deaf world that I have very little idea what outsiders think of deaf people. I have found recently that they generally think that they're nice, sweet and somewhat pitiful. Well let me dissuade everyone of that notion immediately.

The student that no longer comes to school is almost 19 and is a sophomore.
He is in and has been in a gang since he was 9. He said his cousin brought him when he was that age. Last year I taught him all about the checking account and so forth during math. We wanted him to have as many adult skills as possible. Now, generally, I have very little problem with this student because I tell him I'll respect him and he needs to respect me. He gets that and is quite polite to me. So he humored me all he way through my multiple day lesson.
At the end I looked at him and realized he thought the whole thing was useless. I said, "you're never going use a checkbook are you?" He said, "no." I said, "you're going to use cash for everything right?" He nodded. He thinks that my little world is completely irrelevant, that nothing he could possibly learn in a school would be of any use.
It's frustrating. There are things I could teach him that would be of use, but he won't know that for many years. He tells me that he's going to be a music producer. He'll make about one point something million he tells me. What can I say to that?

Another student is graduating in less than a month. She's incredibly manipulative. I talk to her often about making choices about her life and making decisions about positive things to do instead of just working to manipulate everyone around her, but I don't think it's taking. I think that she is just majoring in manipulation and loves how she can get what she wants with it. Most people in her life don't really fall for it, but the combination of people and her working around us just allows her to succeed at it. She, again is learning no real life skills. She's actually very, very smart and talented in a number of areas, but may throw all that away in order to get things solely by manipulation.

I learned many years ago while working in group homes and as a social worker supporting people with mental illnesses that you can't really ever change people. You can talk to them and offer your ideas and opinions and support, but if they don't want to do all the actual work then there's nothing anyone else can do.

I have other students that are on their way to the top, some with some horrible circumstances to overcome. They work hard in school and have goals for their future and are trying hard.

Writing for the world

2005-04-30T08:32:00.000-04:00

I haven't recently started writing, but I have recently started to take it more seriously and to allow it to be out in the world which seems to be the harder thing for me to do. I'm not really sure what direction my writing will ultimately take so for now it seems scattered and in all directions and unfocussed. I'm sort of allowing that to happen to see where all the pieces land. I have finally submitted some of my pieces places. I've been wanting to do this for awhile. I've been wanting to at least collect some rejection letters, but have been too scared. I'm not even expecting that I'll figure out how the whole publishing world works immediately and am truly fine with rejection letters because that does make me feel like a "real" writer.

I found out when I first started blogging that I was terrified by even this much "publishedness." I am by nature, not terrified by much. I am not known as a shrinking violet, but for some reason writing for people outside my head is terrifying. I've decided to just let my work out there and be judged.

What to write and where to send it from here, though, is cloudy for me. I am often writing many things and don't necessarily know what to do with them. I'm assuming if I just sort of move things out into the world that I'll figure out what works best for me and what doesn't make me feel right.

Single Parenting

2005-04-28T18:30:00.000-04:00

Single parenting is often seen one dimensionally as something people end up as by mistake or by happenstance or though trauma or tragedy. Because of that it's somewhat pitied. It's considered to be entirely worse than parenting with a partner. I, though, am a single parent by choice. I decided to adopt my two sons on my own. It was not because I couldn’t find a partner or was doing this as a fall-back choice. I had a partner for some of my parenting, although, not the children that I am finally adopting and found that to be more difficult than my subsequent single parenting.
There are certainly many things that are logistically difficult about being a single parent, earning enough money, being stretched for time and energy, but there are also many things that are easier about being a single parenting. I think it's time to take a more realistic look at single parenting so that single parents can claim some status as good decision makers and not just a pitiful minority.
One of the things I love about single parenting is the comfort I have getting to make all the decisions about my kids. I decided on their names, religious education, rules, everything. I like not having to argue and struggle to provide my children with the upbringing I want. The most important thing that I get to decide all on my own is discipline. I have very clear ideas about how I want to deal with my children and they are neither completely mainstream or something that I'm comfortable being flexible about too much. I feel that it's very important to really listen to kids even if that seems that it would be "spoiling" them too much. I don't have to worry about my children getting yelled at or having to deal with a primary parent disciplining them in a way that I'm not comfortable with.
I also find that, not having to take into account another adult's desires and daily needs mean that my kids and I can be spontaneous and do many types of activities that might have to be debated with a partner. We can do something like decide to drive to the Boston Children's Museum, two hours away, one Friday evening if we feel like it.
My time is available for my children. I am not focused on meeting someone else's needs. I find that people with partners often have to find time for their children, time for their partners and time for themselves. I only need to find some time for myself which is relatively easy after my children's early bedtime. I do find that I spend a huge amount of time with my kids. I teach them what I want directly and spent a lot of cuddle time with them. I can also slip them some candy when I feel like it at a store without having to answer to a more restrained, perhaps right-headed partner.
Okay, there are definitely some downsides to single parenting. One that could go either way is finances. I did make sure I got my education before I had children so I am able to earn a living as a High School teacher while having plenty of time for my children. I've noticed that two parents can definitely make more money, but I also notice that they spend more. I can keep a tight grip on my budget and don't have to spend any money on anyone else's wants and needs. Some couples don't have a problem with overspending and many single parents are not lucky enough to have a job that earns enough money to support a family while allowing them significant free time.
One of the problems I do run into is when I go out to do things where I want to do something separate from the children, like temple. I want to be in services and I want the kids to stay in the childcare room. It's a fantasy of all us parents of small children, but with families with two parents the parents tend to switch off so that one parents actually does get some quality praying time. I've been lucky to meet people in my congregation who like to help entertain my children for some time so that I have a little "off" time.
The larger problem that I face and all single parents and many partnered parents as well is the lack of time and energy to do everything that we want to do. The loads of laundry, rooms covered with toys and general clutter, the meals to be made, the diapers to be changed, all of it is my responsibility. Nothing gets done unless I do it and I just can't do it all. The latest load of clean clothes is sitting on the kids play table in the dining room. Toys and books are strewn across the house instead of neatly tucked away on the shelves and boxes I set up for them. It's because I'm too tired. I work as a teacher all day then spend the afternoon picking them up from daycare (no easy task, in and of itself). I make them a nice homemade dinner and then it's cuddle time. The whole day is tiring. Did I mention having to be responsible for all the indoor chores and the outdoor ones as well. I put the garbage out, take them back in, I mow the lawn, rake the leaves, shovel the snow and trim the bushes. Not much of this reality, though, is different from partnered parents.
Parenting in general is hard. There is so much work trying to do what's right for your kids as well as what's right for you. There are many days when I'd like to have a partner for reasons other than helping me parent, for someone to go to a movie with when I get a babysitter, for sharing special moments, for sex. It would be nice to have someone to rely on who could take on some of the household chores. Many of my friends have very good relationships and enjoy parenting together, once they survived those difficult early months of co-parenting, but what I get from single parenting I can hear the envy in my coupled-friends voices as well. It is nice to provide the exact environment for my kids that I've always wanted and also to be able to spend so much un-distracted time with them.
Single parenting is something I enjoy and I think my kids enjoy as well. They love having me all to themselves. Perhaps they aren't learning some of the lessons of not being the center of someone's world and so forth, but I know that life will teach them so many of the harsh realities on its own without my help.

Adoption getting closer

2005-04-26T18:44:00.000-04:00

I got a call from my social worker yesterday and she said she's sending me the last legal papers needed for the adoption of my sons. It's been a long haul. I got S when he was almost 7 months old and he's four now. J was placed with me at birth and is now three. I can't write any details of the process until the adoption is legalized, but will write about it afterwards, probably this summer.

Geezer Dykes

2005-04-25T16:59:00.000-04:00

I picked up a copy of Velvet Park, a lesbian culture magazine out of London the other day. The cover story was on The L Word, my new favorite show. Wow, do I feel old. I spent my twenties speaking at rallies, organizing for social change and marching on Washington. In my early thirties I opened a sex toy store to support women’s and men’s conscious discussion and thought about sex and relationships. In my middle thirties I fostered many children and adopted two. I was there, I was hip, I was young. "Was" seemed to be the operative word.

I’ve wanted children since I was a child myself. I generally didn’t care how I came by them, but I knew that I enjoyed most children so it didn’t make a lot of sense to me to go through the trouble and expense of making one myself when so many were needing a safe home. So I fostered and then adopted. I love and adore my children. I teach them about themselves and the world and at three and four they’ve already marched against the Republican National Convention in NYC.

As for me, though, I feel old. I heard a piece on NPR about a new magazine called Geezer Jocks for athletes over forty years old. I’m considering starting a magazine called Geezer Dykes (totally kidding). "We’re here, we’re queer, stop hitting your brother with that'" will be our chant. I’m out in every environment, at work, at my children’s school, at the park, wherever. Nobody even blinks. Everyone’s tired from running after their preschoolers, carpooling for early movement classes and planning age appropriate birthday parties. The “sexual” orientation of the children’s parents is a joke. Everyone parenting small children knows that sexual anything is not all that relevant, as we don’t have time or energy for such pursuits.

That activist drive, though, still knocks around in me. It didn’t occur to me that being out and fabulous would become nothing to discuss. I worked so hard for a place for everyone to be able to live their lives and be who they were that I didn’t so much know what to do when it was a reality. I wore a “warm fuzzy dyke” pin on local public transportation and it actually caused a stir in the late eighties, now I would never wear such a sharp object that my children could get a hold of.

Now I don’t know where the coolest dyke hangouts are, I don’t know what “everyone” is wearing, I am not speaking at any upcoming rallies, I do know what I’m making my kids for dinner. It’s not the details of what my youth was like that I miss, it’s the energy. The energy was so focused outwards whereas now it’s focused inwards. I wanted the right to be exactly who I was at parent-teacher conferences, done. I wanted to be out at work with both co-workers and clients, no problem; I wanted to be out in my neighborhood, yep. I got what I wanted. I like it. It makes for a comfortable and safe life for me and my children.

Where’s the place for us “older” activists and lesbians. I feel left out by not being free to run off to marches and it’s There are still many things to do, especially with the current administration in power, and I’m sure I'll be back out there marching regularly and writing about changing the world, but for now I'm accepting my new role as perhaps "been-there, done-that, too-tired-for-now dyke."

Family Connections

2005-04-24T18:41:00.000-04:00

Whew, what a weekend. On Saturday we went to my parents for Passover. A number of my cousins were there along with long time friends of my parents. It was interesting. We used a Haggadah that one of my friends wrote and I used to use with them in Seders every year. Our paths have diverged and I don't see them as much as I used to. Their children are different ages from mine and they are raising their children within a Jewish private school and their lives revolve more around that. Using the Haggadah that I spent so many Seders with my close friends made me feel sad and nostalgic. I miss those Seders and the friends, but also see how our lives are different now.

As for the family that was there I felt somewhat distant, but also connected. I have known many of the people in the room since I was born or since they were born. In spite of that, though, we're not necessarily close or maybe we are and just don't talk about how we're close much. What was clear was that we are all living our own lives and moving ahead.

My two young cousins (really my first cousin's children) are starting or finishing college and planning quite fabulous careers and futures. My sister, who is in her mid-thirties (or twenty-two if you ask her) has a very fabulous job which includes a huge amount of travel all over the world and lots of money. She has a nice condo and a sports car. She never really liked kids so doesn’t have any. Sometimes I wonder if I should be doing something more fabulous. I have an M.B.A. and certainly could, with some effort, switch over to doing something higher paying in the corporate world. When I think carefully about it, though, I realize that I have willingly traded off having far more free time and flexibility and having no one "owning" me for money and fabulosity.

That was Saturday night.

Sunday, my soon-to-be-adopted sons' relatives came over. There is one family that is their aunt and uncle who had been fostering one of their full brothers. We've kept in touch for awhile and have gotten the kids together often. This time they brought my boys' half sister on their father's side (the same side the aunt and uncle are on). I'd never met the half sister or her mother. The mother told me how her daughter, now eleven, worried a lot about her siblings by her father (a total of five). I worry that my sons will also feel that way about the siblings that they don't have much contact with. Right now one of the siblings is with the birth parents and another (the one that the aunt and uncle have been fostering) will probably be moving in with them soon. I have contact with the birth parents and told them I really wanted them to visit at least as much as they agreed to in the post-adoption agreement (4 per year). They have visited once so far in about nine months. We probably won't see those younger children that will live with them perhaps ever again. We all worry about them.

This is a family that I am now connected irrevocably and permanently because of my children. I strongly believe in family and connections of all kind, but am awed and confused by them. How come I feel so connected to certain people at certain times, people who are unrelated, but become like family and then can quietly disappear from primacy in my life? How then can I feel somewhat disconnected to other people, but have them in my life forever?

The Drive to Have it All

2005-04-22T12:41:00.000-04:00

People have high expectations for themselves that are often not related to what they actually need in life to survive. They often feel, no matter how much success they achieve, that it’s not what’s necessary so they pass on this anxiety to their children and their children feel the same way. How much do we, as people need, though?

What is necessary to have an enjoyable life? Why do people strive for so much more than they actually need? I think it does come from some panic about having not enough to survive, but I think also that our ideas of surviving have changed and evolved as there have become more and more “things” to have and own. People, now are less worried about just the basics of safety, food and bare comfort, but also of large amounts of entertainment and fun and excitement and all the extras that first world living affords us.

People seem so afraid of not having everything. What is everything, though? What are the elusive “everythings” that everyone seems to need so much and spending so much time teaching our children how to want and get.

Perhaps a question is, why worry about people who want it all? Why isn’t it a good thing to strive harder and longer for everything to make a person’s life bigger and better and more productive? I guess my answer is that the increase in anxiety that this causes along with the drive for higher profits is often achieved or strived for at the expense of those who have less power.

This drive for more and more money to be able to have more choices is also a drive for power. It’s like an attempt to become a God and be able to control the world. People think that there is some way to be able to not be at the mercy of the universe and the chaos of how the world works. The ancient peoples felt the chaos and the unpredictability of the world just as we do and named them and represented them as Gods. People today want to be those Gods so that they are not at the mercy of them. Unfortunately, people don’t want to admit that there is actually no way to be in control of all the uncontrollable things in the world.

Money does, in fact, help people find safety, but there’s a limit to how much money will make that much of a difference. Having a home that protects from the elements, food to avoid being hungry ever and the ability to live in an area that is somewhat safe is about all that money can really do. After that people just start to accrue entertainment and things to alter how they feel and how they can basically experience their day-to-day existence. Money is also able to help people not have to work so hard.

Of course, one thing that often happens is that people work so incredibly hard in order to not have to work so hard. In other words, people work long hours, doing stressful work in order to make enough money to hire someone to take care of their children or clean the house or do the yard work. Is it always worth it?

So then what are we doing when we work so hard to make our children “ready” for adulthood? So many things in this environment and culture do seem important. It’s important to be able to understand how to earn money on your own to live a basically decent life and how to get along with people. There are certainly many people who end up struggling continuously in life because they are missing some important skills. Perhaps, then, it would make sense to look at what skills and preparation is important for adults in our society to have the basics of what is important to live a comfortable life.

As a parent and a teacher I think of this issue often in figuring out what is most important to teach, especially in students at risk and those who will probably not be going to college or even graduating from high school.

So what are the basics and what are the extras? The basics to live a decent life seem to me to be ability to get a job that one likes and that pays well enough to afford housing, food and transportation. Other things that are important are the ability to deal with money matters, such as spending, saving, getting credit and loans, saving for retirement. What else?
How about ways of dealing with difficult things that happen, traumatic things and how to deal with people non-violently. Maybe how to change things in the world that you don't like. Problem solving seems so important. This whole No Child Left Behind is missing the point of education. It's not that it's most important to understand how to write an essay well or do geometry, education is intended to help stretch and grow people's brain so that they can take any problem or amount of information and process it and deal with it and apply it to life. Passing a test is immaterial.

Writing for an audience

2005-04-22T12:16:00.000-04:00

I noticed when working on this blog that there are so many things about me that are so different from the "norm" that I have always felt silenced and unheard. Whatever I've said has often been ignored and often belittled. I've been an activist since I was a young adult and was luckily trained to understand that most people will not like what I have to say, but that it's important for silenced people to have a voice. I can understand that on a political and general level, but have had a hard time convincing myself that what I have to say is legitimate as an individual. I'm so tired of feeling like I have to have major degrees or particular jobs to be an "expert" in a certain field before anyone will listen to me. It's the way that people in power have always kept the "unpopular" ideas away from mainstream media.

I am convincing myself that I need to say what I think and understand that it will make many people dismiss me and my thoughts, but that it will connect with others.

First Post

2005-04-20T16:59:00.000-04:00

I’ve decided to start blogging because I write so often and then just store the pieces away in a folder on my computer. I want to put it online so that maybe I can communicate with other like or not so like-minded people.

The first post, though, I’ve debated what I should write. I didn’t want to just dive into stuff because I feel like people couldn’t get a sense or where I was coming from so I’ve decided to do a sort of introductory post and see what comes up next.

I would like to write here that ever since I was a child I wanted to be… I’ve always been envious of people who’ve always known what they wanted to be. I’ve not only not had many “always knowns”, I’ve also done many things on my search for “what I want to do” and am probably still searching.

What I did know from a young age was that I loved and wanted children. I was scared, though, of having children because I thought it would be too hard for me. My mother seemed to have such difficulty with my sister and me. She was always yelling and screaming and threatening us. She always seemed overwhelmed by us. I thought that was just the nature of kids. We weren’t particularly difficult kids when small, although I became very depressed and anxious as I got older trying to do everything right in an attempt to avoid making my mother scream and yell.

I waited until I was in my early thirties to go ahead and get kids. I’d always wanted to adopt (perhaps the whole idea of giving birth didn’t seem all that exciting to me) so my partner of the time and I started doing foster care in 2000. After ups and downs and eighteen foster children I now have two beautiful boys who I will legally adopt sometime this year (I hope). They are now three and almost four, full brothers. I’ve had them each for over three years.

I find parenting to be far, far easier than I had expected. Perhaps having expectations of misery helped. I also worked with children from the age of nine and was able to figure out some techniques that worked and more importantly those that didn’t.

The other “always known” that I remember is a love of sign language. I picked up a Helen Keller when I was nine and was completely taken in. I remember wearing an eye patch with eyes colored on the outside and then learning the whole manual alphabet from the book. I taught all my fourth grade classmates and we’d fingerspell to each other during music class.

I looked everywhere for books and classes on the subjects, but could find few. I remember a sign language book that I really wanted that cost $12.95. It was such a huge amount at the time. I finally saved enough and got it and spent time memorizing all the signs. Finally when I was fifteen I found a class at a local church with a sign language class. After that I found an ongoing class with a Deaf teacher a couple of towns over. I think my parents drove me until I was able to drive myself. After that I went every Tuesday night.

When it came time for me to choose a college I was pretty unsure of what I wanted to do so the sign language teacher told me to go to a local community college to become a sign language interpreter, so I did.

I worked as a sign language interpreter for many years and a number of other professions as well. Nothing fit quite right. I was working on developing and online store for the sex toy brick and mortar store that I had started with the Internet bubble burst and I was unemployed.

I stayed unemployed for almost two years. I took foster kids in, but it didn’t quite make enough money to live on. My mother suggested I substitute teach. I had never considered it because I thought you needed a teaching certificate. It turns out that in Massachusetts you need a Bachelor’s degree and a TB test. I started subbing in two local school districts and the closest school for the Deaf in my area.

Soon the school for the Deaf asked me to take the tests to become certified so that they could hire me full time. I took the tests and am now teaching at the High School level. Phew, it’s nice to be employed again. I’m also loving this job. I had never really considered being a teacher, but I’m finding that I love it.

I love trying to figure out how to communicate the information and skills that I think are necessary and important for people to live lives with lots of possibilities and fulfillment. It’s all about communication and that’s always seemed to be at the basis of what I enjoy doing.

So, I’m a teacher of Deaf high school students, a mama of two preschool boys, what else? I like writing both junk and not-so-junk. Right now I’m trying to simplify my life more than complicate it. I’ve septn so much time worrying about my future and trying to be whatever I’m supposed to be that Im just tired and disillusioned with planning for the future. I truly don’t know what I’m supposed to be other than what I am and so I think I’m going to stick with that for awhile.

I plan to be writing about parenting and writing and my liberal lefty politics, the state of Deaf education, the state of the nation and whatever else irks or non-irks me during my days.