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Fandom Snowflake Challenge - Day 5
Jan. 6th, 2012 08:07 pm(days 3 and 4 didn't require posts)
Today's challenge is to post something I'm passionate about that isn't fannish. I really don't know if there's something I haven't posted about yet, you all know about my passion for music and languages I think, but, ok, more specifically:
I've been studying Croatian Sign Language for a few months now. It's opening a whole new world to me, not just as a language but as a social issue. Deaf people in Croatia have a lot of problems. For instance, their language isn't recognized as an official language in this country. The only law that even mentions is it the one about TV, where certain political events and I think one set of news a day has to be translated to Sign language.
When a child is first diagnosed as deaf, it is sent to our main Alliance for Deaf whose name I haven't translated even remotely well, who hold authority over all other Deaf organizations and they BAN Sign language, instead forcing the kids to hold their hands behind their back and pronounce words they can't hear. (This method is ok for some kids, with bad hearing, but for the completely deaf it's horrible.) Also, they are being taught this by linguists, not speech therapists.
The main problem is it's not an added method it's the ONLY method. Parents who want to communicate with their children have to study Sign language secretly, but most of them won't even try it because the doctors at that Alliance tell them, when they first come, that if their kid learns the Sign language it might never learn to speak (therefore integrate with the rest of society) and they aren't responsible for anything that happens to the child as a result of learning that language.
Of course, that Alliance is very important and they co-finance the implants and have connections with all kinds of other organizations that parents actually need. Also, they are the place where the DOCTORS send parents who have probably never even thought about that problem before and they just don't know better and unless they do their own research (and sometimes even when they do) they just don't know better and will follow, well, blindly.
It all ends with an 18yo deaf kid coming out of that Alliance, starting a life of their own which includes meeting new people for the first time and realizing that hearing people can't understand them anyway (because most of us can't, it sucks but it's true) and he can't communicate with the deaf ones because he doesn't know their language.
To put the Alliance aside and continue with general problems - when a child is given a Cochlear implant, even though it has to take it out every time it goes swimming etc, the child is considered "cured" and no longer gets the social aid deaf people normally get.
To be integrated into a class of hearing kids, a deaf kid doesn't have to have a professor or classmates who know how to sign or even be able to hear with an implant, all they have to be able to do is pronounce sentences. Which to me has 0 logic.
Also, despite the fact that Baby signs are now a hip thing to do, Sign language when used by deaf people is still considered shameful. And, in a wham of brilliance, when Croatian kindergartens started teaching Baby signs, they started teaching AMERICAN Sign Language. Just to make sure deaf people stay completely isolated, I guess.
So, yeah, that's a new passion I have.
The language itself is beautiful, and is teaching me to do something I don't normally do, which is show emotions on my face. And ok, these are strict, grammatical-meaning emotions, but you don't understand how incredibly cool I am :P :) It's a bit of a struggle, but I like it. Also, my poor arms : / Ever since we did the whole 100 numbers count I've been exercising because when we got to 50 I wanted to cry.
The teacher doesn't let us speak during class and rarely explains signs after we're done. It's a pretty good method, she's keeping it at good pace and so far I understood, after some repetition, everything she wanted us to learn.
Except "good evening" :D She had to write that one down on the board because after 2 months we were still not getting it :D
Oh, she's not deaf, but her family is. In fact, there are very few deaf people in the country (none that I know of but I'm assuming there are SOME) who are actually educated to TEACH Sign language. Almost all other teachers are deaf people who know Sign language and they teach a sort of modified version, not really explaining the facial expressions because it's one of those things they do naturally and can't really explain, the kind of thing we all have with our first language.
Today's challenge is to post something I'm passionate about that isn't fannish. I really don't know if there's something I haven't posted about yet, you all know about my passion for music and languages I think, but, ok, more specifically:
I've been studying Croatian Sign Language for a few months now. It's opening a whole new world to me, not just as a language but as a social issue. Deaf people in Croatia have a lot of problems. For instance, their language isn't recognized as an official language in this country. The only law that even mentions is it the one about TV, where certain political events and I think one set of news a day has to be translated to Sign language.
When a child is first diagnosed as deaf, it is sent to our main Alliance for Deaf whose name I haven't translated even remotely well, who hold authority over all other Deaf organizations and they BAN Sign language, instead forcing the kids to hold their hands behind their back and pronounce words they can't hear. (This method is ok for some kids, with bad hearing, but for the completely deaf it's horrible.) Also, they are being taught this by linguists, not speech therapists.
The main problem is it's not an added method it's the ONLY method. Parents who want to communicate with their children have to study Sign language secretly, but most of them won't even try it because the doctors at that Alliance tell them, when they first come, that if their kid learns the Sign language it might never learn to speak (therefore integrate with the rest of society) and they aren't responsible for anything that happens to the child as a result of learning that language.
Of course, that Alliance is very important and they co-finance the implants and have connections with all kinds of other organizations that parents actually need. Also, they are the place where the DOCTORS send parents who have probably never even thought about that problem before and they just don't know better and unless they do their own research (and sometimes even when they do) they just don't know better and will follow, well, blindly.
It all ends with an 18yo deaf kid coming out of that Alliance, starting a life of their own which includes meeting new people for the first time and realizing that hearing people can't understand them anyway (because most of us can't, it sucks but it's true) and he can't communicate with the deaf ones because he doesn't know their language.
To put the Alliance aside and continue with general problems - when a child is given a Cochlear implant, even though it has to take it out every time it goes swimming etc, the child is considered "cured" and no longer gets the social aid deaf people normally get.
To be integrated into a class of hearing kids, a deaf kid doesn't have to have a professor or classmates who know how to sign or even be able to hear with an implant, all they have to be able to do is pronounce sentences. Which to me has 0 logic.
Also, despite the fact that Baby signs are now a hip thing to do, Sign language when used by deaf people is still considered shameful. And, in a wham of brilliance, when Croatian kindergartens started teaching Baby signs, they started teaching AMERICAN Sign Language. Just to make sure deaf people stay completely isolated, I guess.
So, yeah, that's a new passion I have.
The language itself is beautiful, and is teaching me to do something I don't normally do, which is show emotions on my face. And ok, these are strict, grammatical-meaning emotions, but you don't understand how incredibly cool I am :P :) It's a bit of a struggle, but I like it. Also, my poor arms : / Ever since we did the whole 100 numbers count I've been exercising because when we got to 50 I wanted to cry.
The teacher doesn't let us speak during class and rarely explains signs after we're done. It's a pretty good method, she's keeping it at good pace and so far I understood, after some repetition, everything she wanted us to learn.
Except "good evening" :D She had to write that one down on the board because after 2 months we were still not getting it :D
Oh, she's not deaf, but her family is. In fact, there are very few deaf people in the country (none that I know of but I'm assuming there are SOME) who are actually educated to TEACH Sign language. Almost all other teachers are deaf people who know Sign language and they teach a sort of modified version, not really explaining the facial expressions because it's one of those things they do naturally and can't really explain, the kind of thing we all have with our first language.
