Falling On Deaf Ears: Educating Children With Hearing Impairments

“For Ontario to be at its best, we need every Ontarian to be at their best.”

       - Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty

Stephen Harper would love the Ontario Association of the Deaf (OAD) position in favour of maintaining the current number of provincial schools; their argument has “firewalls” written all over it. 

Harper, remember, has intentionally gotten out of the health care game.  At a time when demographic changes, technological advances and financial pressures are causing our outdated health care model (it can hardly be called a system) to buckle, the Prime Minister has thrown a couple bucks at the provinces and said “you’re on your own.”  This is absolutely the worst approach possible; efficiencies and excellence of care are found through systematic integration (like Family Health Teams), not by multiple parties operating in uncoordinated silence.

But we’re talking about schools for the deaf.  We’ll get back to Harper later.

Seperate but Equal

As part of its call for a reduction in duplication, gaps and overlaps stemming from our current silo-based service delivery model, the Drummond Commission has called for a consolidation of provincial schools for the deaf.  The provincial school system removes children who are deaf/hard of hearing  from their home communities and the normal education stream.  Instead of being in regular classrooms, these children receive separate education based around sign-language, “the native language of the deaf”.  Note - Drummond isn't caling for the end of such schools entirely; he's simply suggesting the number of students in the existing provnicial school system doesn't support the quantity of aging schools we have at present.  The big “D” Deaf Community favours these schools; they see the provincial school system as a nurturing ground for “deaf culture”, which they feel is distinct from “hearing” culture.

In their letter to the Premier of Ontario, the OAD suggests that “no real changes have been made to ensure that Deaf people are treated as equal to hearing people in Ontario.”  The changes that the OAD seeks are a higher level of support for “deaf culture” in the way that First Nations have rightly decried the systematic campaigns that have been waged against their culture. 

Two things on this score:

Talk to the Hand

One, there’s a chillingly familiar ring to the “separate but equal” message.  It’s hardly a new notion; people throughout history have sought to isolate themselves from others, either to keep a focus on “their” values and belief system, or to block out influences they saw as negative or protect from the perceived threat of the “other.” 

In the case of the Deaf community, the fear is a loss of culture through integration.  They (rightly) feel that being deaf isn’t unnatural, that an inability to hear results in a different world view.  They are absolutely correct about that; those of us who can hear take hearing for granted and would feel lost without this sense.  But is the “deaf” way of experiencing the world at risk through social integration?  Other “cultural” groups have recently advocated for “separate but equal” education funding for their community world views, with less than universal support.

Funny enough, the Deaf community also uses the “excess burden on the majority community” meme in their argument.  They contend that community schools would have to spend more money for appropriate resources to support deaf children, should they be integrated into the regular school system.  Here’s the rub, though – when community schools and their boards see deafness, or learning disabilities, or any niche need as “not my problem” issues, they don’t invest in them. 

It’s really a counter-intuitive approach; the end result is that far too many children with hearing loss and other learning challenges aren’t identified and never receive the help they need.  As a kid with ADHD who was always in trouble with my teachers for not copying lengthy notes off the blackboard fast enough, I found elementary school more of an endurance test than a learning opportunity (I wasn’t diagnosed until high school).  Why on earth would we want to exacerbate that problem, especially when it results in bullying, suicide, family problems, underemployment, crime, etc?  We have to start looking at specific social problems for what they are; shared challenges that require collaborative solutions.

Can You Hear Me Now?

Two – what is the risk in one person having two cultures?  This is an age-old quandary; the existence of Québec language laws is based around the notion that an increase in one culture automatically threatens the existence of another.  Parents used to be told it was harmful to teach their kids two languages at the same time, as it meant they wouldn’t learn either one fully.

I’m an anthropologist by training, so I look at this dualistic perspective differently.  Culture isn’t an immobile, eternal thing – it’s organic.  Cultures evolve through time; French itself is a variant on Latin, just as English is mish-mash of several languages, including French.  To suggest that a worldview is in danger is to imply it is stagnant, which is never the case.  Besides, innovation doesn’t come through isolation, but from diversity.  Alexander Grahame Bell might never have invented the telephone if the deaf people in his life had constantly been isolated from him.

The same applies to the modern classroom.  Finding supports for the individual needs of students has always resulted in stronger, more effective teaching models and classroom environments that benefit all students.  Kids (and adults) with vision impairment aren’t removed from society; they are equipped with glasses.  In addition, text fonts get bigger and clearer, making it easier for all kids to see and absorb lessons.  Same holds true for deaf kids; technology exists to help the vast majority of deaf children hear just as well as anyone else does.  The presence of deaf kids in the “normal” classroom promotes sound dampeners on chair feet and sound amplification systems, helping teachers reach every student, particularly useful in large classes.

Placing deaf kids in normal classrooms doesn’t create an unnecessary burden; it provides incentive to make the system better for all.  When you get down to it, that’s the whole point of society in the first place.

Key to creating the right environments providing the right supports is early-identification and accommodation (something already understood, as evidenced by the growing focus on health promotion).  Communication and language acquisition isn’t just about speaking, or listening, or signing; it’s about cognitive development.  Just as undernourished children face greater, unnecessary limitations as adults, the same holds true for kids who aren’t given proper exposure to the full spectrum of communicative abilities as their brains develop.  As we get older, our brains switch gears from absorbing new information and developing new neural pathways towards solidifying existing ones; it’s why it’s harder to learn new languages as you age and why older people tend to be more inflexible in their opinions than youth.

Listening to the Voice of Reason

As I have written elsewhere, the core message of the Drummond Report was that our current, silo-based model of service delivery is failing us.  Individual groups competing for funding to provide variations on the same suite of services are costing us far more than necessary, creating a whole range of new problems in the process.  Like a well-loved old sweater, we might be used to this model, but the problems it is causing are now tipping the scales in favour of change.

What we need now is leadership willing to take on the challenge of reform.  To succeed, our leaders need a deep understanding of how the various social pieces fit into an integrated whole, plus the courage and patience to help the rest of us connect the dots.  There is a hopeful future waiting around the corner, but we can only get there if we’re moving forward together.

That means letting go of yesterday’s stigmas and looking for opportunities to work together tomorrow.  It means accepting the mistakes of the past and addressing them today; we all know what happens to those who refuse to learn from history.

Which brings us back to Stephen Harper. 

In what will likely be defined as his greatest moment as Prime Minister, Stephen Harper issued an apology to First Nations/Métis people for their isolation through the residential school system.  In this apology, Harper spoke the following words:

“We now recognize that, in separating children from their families, we undermined the ability of many to adequately parent their own children and sowed the seeds for generations to follow, and we apologize for having done this.”

Maybe he wouldn’t support the OAD’s position, after all.

Conclusion

People with hearing loss – “the deaf” – have unique experiences of the world, resulting in unique world views.  This doesn’t have to be their only world view.  Technology exists that allows the vast majority of children who are deaf or hard-of-hearing to be full participants in main stream schools, develop to the maximum of their ability, then contribute those abilities to the greater good of our society.  Having these children in regular classrooms will result in a need for stronger identification and accommodation practices in our schools.  That’s a good thing, because the need exists already – we just haven’t had enough incentive to address it completely. 

When deaf/hoh kids participate in regular schools, they aren’t the only ones who gain new perspective; the same applies to hearing teachers and kids.  By being forced to pay attention, the “hearing community” will have reason to learn more about the deaf worldview – and benefit from it, just as Alexander Grahame Bell did.  This sharing of ideas will enhance the perspectives of all involved, promoting understanding and innovation, while also encouraging more efficient, integrated service delivery.  Which is exactly what the Drummond Report called for.

Social success is not to be found through standing against, but rather, through working together.  Communication, after all, is a two-way street; we can’t learn from each other if we’re aren't prepared to listen.

It's Time To End Feudalism In Healthcare

“Getting any change made requires getting some moral authority that we have to do things together. The problem with ORNGE is that everyone in this room and everyone out there in the health sector is going to say, ‘That $25 million, that is the money I needed to run my program.’ ”

Moral authority doesn’t come from without – it comes from within.  Communication doesn’t start with the other party – it starts with you.

Ontario’s healthcare sector has an historic opportunity to do the right thing – collaborate on building an integrated healthcare system.  Starting with “but I need to fund my program” is the wrong approach.  There are countless programs out there that overlap, duplicating services for some demographic groups, leaving others in the lurch entirely.  The same applies to business supports, social services, educational services.

It’s time for public service providers to get out of their feudal mentality – Ontario is not a series of publicly funded fiefdoms, we’re a society.  We, as a people, are integrated – we need our services to be integrated as well.

The way of the future is specialized services offered in coordination.  I can think of several groups of healthcare stakeholders I have spoken to that want to develop shared service models; the consolidation of back-office functions, IT, etc was being discussed by multiple players long before the Drummond Report came out.  The biggest challenge they faced wasn’t will or connectivity, but follow-through.  “We aren’t mandated to integrate” isn’t good enough when there are people falling through the cracks. 

If government isn’t giving you its blessing to open a dialogue with partners, you do it anyway.  Boards of Directors can do this on their own time, without eating into existing budgets.  If you are in the business to serve your stakeholders with the best service possible, that means you support whatever model makes that happen, whether you’re the provider or not.  There’s lots of work to be done, everyone will have a chance to specialize – when they work together.

Besides – if the hammer is eventually going to fall, does it not make sense to proactively plan your own future rather than reactively implement someone else’s plan that perhaps doesn’t accurately reflect your ground-level reality? 

A couple of easy starting points:

- Greater accountability for financial resources – how many dollars get spent in funding envelopes because, well, it’s money, in that envelope?  If it doesn’t have to be spent in one area, reallocate within an institution or even cross-sector to where the need is.

- Shared service models for related services serving overlapping demographics

- A digital map of services to lay out what we have, who it serves and how the pieces interact

-       Look outside the box – much of reactive healthcare could be superfluous if we instead invested in proactive health and mental health promotional services.  Same applies to justice and broader social services.  Because we don’t take the time to plan and act proactively, we spend much more at the back-end. 

Some examples of this? 

     *  “mental ergonomics” in the workplace

     *  staff transition strategies

     *  Social Emotional Learning in schools (included in Full Day Kindergarten, by the way)

      * regular staff team-building exercises.

There’s a real appetite for leadership out there – all we need are people willing to lead.

The Political Organism

"In the animal kingdom, organisms evolve to become successful in exploiting a niche. I’m sorry to say that in the public sector, government evolves to become successful in exploiting taxpayers."

Solberg misses the point, me thinks, but I like that he's thinking along evolutionary terms.  Government isn't an animal; rather, it's part of a broader organism, society.  It should, at its best, serve the neo-cortex, executive function role, coordinating resource allocation and accomodation across the series of systems that make up our Canadian whole.

When we embrace this reality, consciously, we'll all be better off.

The Secret Meaning of the Drummond Report

“We can perhaps shoot for a grander goal – a province that provides the best public services, delivered in the most efficient manner, in the world.  If this sounds impossibly ambitious, put the question another way: Why not?”

“Such an objective could instill our politicians, our public servants and all Ontarians a sense of purpose that would help see us all through this monumental mission.”

    - The Drummond Report

The vast majority of media attention the Drummond Report has received relies heavily on superlatives like “profoundly gloomy” and well-worn phraseology like "tighten your belts" and “calls for cutbacks.”  The pundits tell us we must be ready for a “battle over the report” at Queen’s Park.  It seems to me that there is an underlying theme here that most folk are missing, which I’ll get into shortly.  First, some background.

Along with the gloom and doom and austerity, there was a sidebar story about how much Drummond himself got paid to do the report, with NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo tweeting messages like “Drummond paid 1500 tax $ a day says "Don't spend tax $" This passes as economic expertise.” and “Amazing! Drummond (paid 1500 tax $ a day) says cut services not tax gifts to the rich Who knew?”

Yet, it turns out that Don Drummond, the man behind the report, only charged the government for 51 days of work, although he did much more.  In essence, Drummond’s take-home was about half what it would have been if he’d charged commiserate with the work he did.

Why?  Why did Drummond cut back his own benefits?  It could have been a fear of public reaction, but quite frankly, the average bear on the street has no idea what he looks like – even now, Drummond can walk the streets of Ontario with anonymity intact.  It might have been out of altruism, setting the example he lays out in his own report; this would be real leadership on his part.

I think there’s something more going on here, something that sparks my optimism. 

When talking about the report itself, Don Drummond called it the “culmination of everything I’ve done in my professional career.”

With this statement, combined with everything else he has said publicly and even the content of the report itself, one is left with an impression not just of a fulfillment of contractual obligations, but of legacy.  Drummond believed that his report represents a turning point in Ontario’s history, therefore setting precedents that will be followed by other provinces and jurisdictions around the world.  That’s a heck of a mark to leave behind.

You can interpret this as blind ego and might not be off the mark, but take that thought a bit further down.  What is ego?  Ego is about meaning, establishing personal value in a social context.  We all want the work we do to mean something; we want to know we’ve raised our kids well, that our bosses appreciate our projects, that our friends value our contribution to their lives.  Altruism, by its very nature, is about creating meaning through personal sacrifice.

I believe that Don Drummond – wealthy man, powerful man, economist, opportunist – turned down extra cash from the people of Ontario because his work, in and of itself, had meaning for him.  It creates value for his society, etching his name into history.  Making it about the money would have detracted from the purity of his social legacy.

You can dismiss this as idealistic – (here’s a piece I wrote to give more credence to the theory); feel free to look up “work and meaning” on Google.  You’ll see that there is an increasing focus on what people want their job to mean even over how much they get paid for it.

Which brings us back to the report itself.  Yes, there are calls for cuts and a great deal of focus is given to Ontario’s red ink, which is as it should be.  The single greatest theme of the report, though, is about integrative collaboration – of breaking down Ministry and Service silos, of reducing the competition between players that provide similar resources, of creating aggregate service portals and above all, about specialized collaboration between players.

Competition is about what you get back.  Under the existing social model, services competing for resource dollars will dedicate percentages of that funding to fighting the other guy. This results in duplication, gaps and overlaps in services that leave some Ontarians out of the loop and ultimately, cost us more through inefficiencies.  So focused on their own piece of the pie, it’s a challenge for any player to proactively seek out partners doing similar or related things and find ways to work together.  This competition extends itself to government – there can be only one governing party, so the resources of all Parties go into hyper-competition, often at the expense of potential collaboration.

Meaning, however, is about what you leave behind; leaving your mark on the world, healing a patient, teaching a student, helping an employee find new work, helping a neighbour shovel their driveway.  It’s why the best politicians get into their business in the first place.  The money, fine, it’s good to make a decent living, but you can make a lot more in the private sector.  What you can’t get from the private sector as much as you can from public office is public legacy.  To leave a legacy, you have to do things.  To dedicate yourself to an ideal so entirely, it has to have meaning for you.

Politicians are ideologues.  They all have at least a glint of legacy in their eye.  Ultimately, though, their whole reason for being is the meaning of what their work accomplishes.  When work has meaning for you, it becomes bigger than self-actualization.  You might want to work with others to achieve it – in an association, for instance, or in a Political Party, or perhaps, as a society.  This, then, is the message I have taken from the Drummond Report, a reflection of the vision of the man who authored it.

Ontario is internally competitive, rewarding some disproportionately more than others.  Services exist in silos, which are inefficient; it’s not a question of less being more, but of redundant duplication being more.  To realize Ontario’s maximum potential, we need each Ontarian at their best – which means better access to training in accessible formats and working conditions and environments that are tailored to eliciting the best from Ontario’s workforce.  A proper focus on the front-end – making Ontarians stronger – will keep them out of hospitals; we can help that further by realigning systems like health care, social service and justice to work in a coordinated, integrated, specialized way.  Collaborative specialization will be more efficient and certainly reduce the gaps, but more than that – the integration of services will allow for greater cross-pollination of ideas, which is the essence of innovation.  Making this happen won’t be easy, but it will be impossible if politicians, unions, associations, profits and not-for-profits and the average person on the street dig in their heels and look to their individual interests first.

That, then, is the deeper meaning of the Drummond Report.  Ontarians can achieve great things – but only if we work with each other.  The future lies not to the left, nor to the right, but forward, together.