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`EDUCATION
`
`Technology No Longer Distances Deaf
`Culture
`
`May 1, 2006 2:36 PM ET
`Heard on All Things Considered
`
`JOSEPH SHAPIRO
`
`Note: Due to the su~ject matter, NPR is providing a full
`transcript.
`
`ROBERT SIEGEL, host: Gallaudet University has named
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`a new president. Jane Fernandes is the second deaf
`
`person - and the first woman -
`
`to run the world's only
`
`university for deaf students. For the last six years,
`
`Fernandes has been provost at Gallaudet. The sc11ool has
`
`always been an important symbol to deaf people.
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`Especially after its h istoric choice 18 years ago of its first
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`deaf president. Now Fernandes will need to help students
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`succeed in both the deaf and the hearing worlds. NPR' s
`
`Joseph Shapiro explains:
`
`Jane Fernandes is lhe second deafpernon-and lhe
`nrstwoman -to run lhe world's only university for deaf
`students
`
`GiJJJaudet Umversty
`
`JOSEPH SHAPIRO, reporter: When hearing people come
`
`Q & A wtth Gallaudet's I. King Jordan:
`Reflections on a Changing Culture Aprl 30, 2006
`
`to Gallaudet, they often expect a campus for deaf
`
`students is going to be a quiet place.
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`Sometimes it is. So quiet, you can hear the songbirds in
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`the trees on the campus green as a few students walk to
`class on a sunny day. And sometimes Gallaudet's a noisy
`
`place. Like inside the student center, at the food comt.
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`There's an International Day celebration going on. A deaf
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`0 + Technology No Longer Distances Deaf Culture
`
`UCllll.:ti.
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`Other students eat lunch, in groups of six or even 10
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`crowded in at small, round tables. The round tables make
`
`At Gallaudet, a Tum Inward Opens New Worlds
`Aprl 30, 2006
`
`The Deaf President Now
`Protest
`
`l l lVlllVI U. I Vl \.ll V UIJU LlllllJ l l~l l l-' l l lV'I VlllVl lL.
`
`Read about the Deaf President Now
`protest in an excerpt from Joseph
`Shapiro's book, "No Pity"
`
`it easy to see what everyone else is saying in sign
`language. And when these students sign, it's elegant. Even dramatic .. Their fingers fly.
`
`They slap one hand into the other and use strong facial ei-'Pressions to diive home a
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`point.
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`Some of the students have some hearing. Others can feel the vibration of the
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`percussive bass. 'vVhen tlie drumming stops, students at the luncl1 tables raise their
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`arms over their heads and wave their hands. That's Sign for applause.
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`At Gallaudet, when they talk about diversity, often what tliey mean is diversity in tlie
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`range of hearing -
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`from people who are deaf to ones wh o have some hearing.
`
`TOM BALDRIDGE: OK we're here. Obviously I'm using my voice today. Last class we
`
`were talking about workplace issues.
`
`SHAPIRO: Tom Baldridge is teaching his class on business ethics.
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`Most students at Gallaudet have signed all their lives. But otliers lost tlieir hearing
`
`only recently. Some use regular hearing aids or cocl1lear implants.
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`BALDRIDGE: End of chapter six, "Discipline and Discharge." There are four different
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`Ultratec Exhibit 1028
`Ultratec v Sorenson IP Holdings Page 1 of 4
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`reasons for discharge.
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`SHAPIRO: When Baldiidge teaches, he signs.
`
`BALDRIDGE: Andi·ea?
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`SHAPIRO: But today, a student in the seat closest to the front has asked him to sign
`and speak. Of the 15 students here, she's one of just a few who has a hearing aid.
`
`0 + Technology No Longer Distances Deaf Culture
`
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`two languages at the same time.
`
`BALDRIDGE: Our students are all required to learn sign language. So by the time they
`graduate, almost all of them are fluent signers. That doesn't mean they are fluent
`signers 'vhen they take a class with me.
`
`SHAPIRO: When Baldi·idge signs, he's using A.merican Sign Language, or ASL. That's
`the first language of people who are born deaf. Also of hearing children who are born
`to deaf parents. Both of Baldridge's parents are deaf. In Indianapolis, where he grew
`up, he learned Sign before he spoke English. ASL and English have different grammar,
`different word order. In English, you'd say: Have you visited Gallaudet? In ASL, you'd
`
`sign: Touch Finish Gallaudet You?
`
`BRADLEY MILLER, student: Because you know, we all live in the hearing world. All
`deaf people live in the hearing world.
`
`SHAPIRO: Bradley Miller is one of the students in this class. He's speaking through a
`sign-language interpreter.
`
`Before Gallaudet, Miller went to a school where people read lips or could hear. For
`Miller, that other school was often a lonely place.
`
`:MILLER: If I joined the basketball team, who could I talk to? If I'm on the bus going to
`away games or whatever, I just sit there by myself. Wouldi1't be able to talk to anybody.
`And so the coach here recruited m e to come to Gallaudet and I was able to tall< to
`everybody. So it was a lot more fun. So the access is greater here.
`
`SHAPIRO: But Miller knows that Gallaudet may be the only place he'll ever be where
`everybody speaks his language. Eve1yone signs. So he's gone to speech-therapy
`classes, where he speaks and reads lips.
`
`MILLER: I don't want to leave the community or leave my culture. And I know that my
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`0 + Technology No Longer Distances Deaf Culture
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`SHAPIRO: To speak and read lips is called oralism. At Gallaudet, it was often
`dismissed as a way of adapting to the hearing world. Signing is seen as more of a
`statement of deaf culture. It's a tension that goes way back.
`
`In My Fair· Lady, Professor Henry Higgins teaches a poor flower girl to speak proper
`English.
`
`HIGGINS, film excerpt: I think she's got it. I think she's got it.
`
`ELIZA DOOLITTLE, film excerpt: TI1e rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.
`
`HIGGINS: By George, she's got it.
`
`SHAPIRO: Hemy Higgins was modeled, in pait, on a Scottish teacher of speech
`named Alexander Melville Bell. Only Bell didn't go around making the Eliza Doolittles
`of London lose their Cocknev accents. Bell taught deaf oeoole how to read livs and to
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`Ultratec Exhibit 1028
`Ultratec v Sorenson IP Holdings Page 2 of 4
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`speak in the hearing world.
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`For George Bernard Sh aw's play and the Lerner and Lowe musical, it was easier to
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`make the female lead someone who could h ear, talk and, of course, sing.
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`SHAPIRO: Bell's son was Alexander Graham Bell. He, too. taught speech and helped
`
`lead deaf educators to replace Sign language vvith the teacl1ing of speech and reading
`lips, so that deaf people would adapt to th e hea1ing world. That put Amelican Sign
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`Language in eclipse for about a century. Its revival was boosted by the Gallaudet
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`student protests in 1988, when the sch ool p icl<ed its first deaf president. To use Sign
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`became an expression of "deaf pride" and belonging to the deaf world.
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`Some of Alexander Grah am Bell's biographers say that when he helped invent the
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`telephone, what he really was trying to do was com e up with a device t o help his deaf
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`wife communicat e.
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`0 + Technology No Longer Distances Deaf CLilture
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`SHAPIRO: Today deaf people h ave found technology to connect them to both worlds
`
`When's the last time you saw a teleph one booth? At the Gallaudet Student Center, they
`
`have them.
`
`I. KING JORDAN, Gallaudet p resident: This is called a video-phone booth. See there
`
`are four here. You can see, three are in use.
`
`SHAPIRO: I. King Jordan is the current president. The school's histolic, first deaf
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`president. He shows off a bank of phone booths, each with a black cmtain and a video
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`phoneinside.
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`JORD • .<\N: Here what you do is you sit down and you turn it on. Autom atically, an
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`interpreter appears. And that interpreter asks you who you're trying to call. You give a
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`phone number. The interpreter calls th at person and speaks to that person and signs
`
`to me what that person says back. So it's really been a huge, huge improvement in
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`relay communication for people wh o are deaf.
`
`SHAPIRO: That's to call a hearing person. Or a deaf person can just dial up another
`
`deaf person with a TV phone. l\'Iany students have Web cams on the computers in tlieir
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`dorm rooms.
`
`Even more popular is text messaging. Students walk across campus, often with their
`
`heads down, banging out messages on Blackberrys and Sidekicks.
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`And on this day, as Jordan walks back to his office, h e gets a message on his. It's from
`
`his grandson. He's nine. He's hearing. And h e's on vacation in Flolida.
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`JORDAN: He used his grandma's pager. He typed: "Well I just wanted to say hi since
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`life is not fun witl1out you." Ohhhhh.
`
`Joseph Shapiro, J\TPRNews, Washington
`
`Related NPR Stories
`0 + Technology No Longer Distances Deaf Culture
`
`11
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`Books Featured In This Story
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`Ultratec Exhibit 1028
`Ultratec v Sorenson IP Holdings Page 3 of 4
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`I
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`'
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`'·
`I
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`•
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`'
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`•
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`~<>
`P i ·ry
`
`No Pity
`People With Disabilities Forging a New Ci\il Rights Movement
`by Joseph P Shapiro
`Paperback, 382 pages
`
`'):;!purchase
`
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`Ultratec Exhibit 1028
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