Change and Promise by Barbara Gerner de Garcia & Lodenir Becker Karnopp

Author:Barbara Gerner de Garcia & Lodenir Becker Karnopp
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallaudet University Press
Published: 2016-04-10T04:00:00+00:00

CONCLUSION

We reaffirm that at the center of the debate on deaf education in Mexico, we find the lack of a linguistic policy and of evaluation mechanisms that could allow us to identify what is happening with the implementation of the Bilingual Model for deaf people. The problem we face will not be solved by only focusing on the education of this community using LSM but must include discussion of the training of bilingual teachers and educational interpreters. Additionally, we must investigate why deaf students, even after completing all levels of Basic Education, still have difficulties reading and writing.

On one hand, a critical analysis of the education deaf students have received in Basic Education—referencing the approach detailed by the Secondary School Reform (SEP, 2006), which put emphasis on the written language—should lead us to search for strategies that allow deaf students to continue onto the Middle Education school level with appropriate skills and competencies in written language. On the other hand, substantial steps we are making allow us to recognize that there are language mechanisms that organize a visual and spatial language and impact the learning process of its users. Thus, being deaf allows an individual to adapt in some other way in order to interact with a mainly hearing world, and strategies must be designed with satisfactory learning in mind. We insist the problem is not deafness itself; the problem is an education system that does not respond to the fact that LSM is a fundamental element for the development of deaf people and an indispensable tool in the education of deaf students.

It is not enough to expand education or to implement remedial courses. What is needed is to go to the root of the problem: acquisition and fluency in LSM as the primary language for deaf people in Mexico; lack of competence in written Spanish; and, equally important, lack of infrastructure (human and organizational resources) that would transform the training of teachers and interpreters in the adequate use of LSM corresponding to the needs in Middle School education.

The role of the sign language interpreter is vital to guarantee access and the retention of deaf students in secondary school. Nonetheless, we cannot place all responsibility for deaf students’ success or failure on their shoulders. Nowadays, interpreters are evaluated not only on their abilities to perform their work but also on their teaching skills. Sign language interpreters working in education have intuitively developed strategies that allow them to attend to deaf students’ needs in the classrooms. For example, they study alongside the deaf students to answer their questions, help with homework and administrative paperwork, and, in many cases, become the tutor of the group they interpret for. Their actual duties surpass those of an interpreter, and this issue should be addressed, formalizing the expectations that the education system has of sign language interpreters.

There is no question of the interpreter’s importance in the classroom and in other public spaces, and thus the need for their professionalization. We must recognize the lack of

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