Table Of ContentEars, EyEs, and Hands
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Ears, Eyes,
and Hands
rEflEctions on l anguagE,
litEracy, and l inguistics
Deborah L. Wolter
Gallaudet University Press Washington, DC
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Gallaudet University Press
Washington, DC 20002
http://gupress.gallaudet.edu
© 2018 by Gallaudet University
All rights reserved. Published 2018
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
[to come]
∞ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of
Paper).
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contEnts
Foreword vii
Preface xi
Part 1. Language 1
Introduction: Defining Language 3
Welcome to Dictionopolis! 4
Go Figure 10
Magic 17
Part 2. Listening 25
Introduction: Defining Listening 27
The Little Terrors 28
One Ball of Confusion 35
Second-Grade Otolaryngologist 43
Cat and Mouse 50
The Help 56
Part 3. Speaking 63
Introduction: Defining Speaking 65
Fonts and Elocution 66
Baby Stuff 72
Part 4. Conversation 79
Introduction: Defining Conversation 81
Two Truths and a Lie 82
Skipping Stones 88
Eyes in the Back of My Head 94
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vi Contents
Part 5. Reading 101
Introduction: Defining Reading 103
The Poetry Slam 105
Oh, Gee 112
Dribbling Vowels 119
A Village 124
Part 6. Writing 133
Introduction: Defining Writing 135
Finger Painting 136
Jiraf, Tutul, and Bune 142
“‘Nother Stinkin’ ‘Signment” 148
Marginalia 153
Part 7. Literacies 159
Introduction: Defining Literacies 161
Nosy 162
The Gargoyles 168
Snap, Crackle, Pop 173
The Odyssey 180
187
Introduction: Defining Linguistics 189
Part 8. Linguistics
Speak English 190
The Ann Arbor Decision 196
Part 9. Conclusion 203
Kerfuffles and Knickers in a Knot! 205
Notes 211
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forEword
Late one afternoon I landed my two-seat Cessna at a small-town airport
in rural Ohio. Upon learning that I was profoundly deaf, the friendly air-
port manager wanted to know all about FAA-certified deaf pilots who fly
under visual flight rules without radio. After our lengthy chat, he invited
me on a test flight of a Piper he had just serviced. During the hop, he
briefly gave me the controls and nodded approvingly at my skills.
When we returned, a thunderstorm was gathering, and I said, “I’d
better overnight here. May I borrow the airport car?” Rural airports
often keep such vehicles, mostly old beaters, to allow stranded fliers to
find nearby motels.
The manager replied warily, “I don’t know. Are deaf people allowed
to drive?”
That would have been funny, I am sure Deborah Wolter would agree,
if it weren’t so appalling. As a profoundly deaf educator, she has suffered
similar ignorance and stereotyping from otherwise well-meaning fellow
teachers as well as parents despite her impressive academic credentials
and more than 20 years of experience working one-on-one with strug-
gling young readers. So have her pupils.
Instead of dismissing such incidents of low expectations, however,
she turns them into powerful teachable moments.
In Ears, Eyes and Hands, she explores the deep reasons behind those
incidents in stunning, eye-opening detail. These hard knocks have
broadened her knowledge and sharpened her responses to inequity and
oppression. They have made her an effective advocate for new ways to
boost youngsters’ lagging skills, elevating them “from learning to read
to reading to learn.”
vii
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viii Foreword
This book, however, is not a litany of complaint. In linked essays,
Wolter discusses both the richness and frustrations of human commu-
nication on the background of her deafness. In some ways this book is
a romp on the playing fields of language. In showing us how to steer
a course across “our bewildering but delightful world of diversity,” she
tells stories not only about herself but also about her students, many of
the tales as endearing as they are illuminating.
She explores the deeper meanings of the term “literacies.” (There are
many kinds.) She plumbs the intricacies of reading and the strategies of
persuading a pupil to read and to write. She breaks down the process of
writing with closely linked detail.
With fierce gusto, she confronts society’s stereotyped and shallow
ideas about accented English, such as that spoken by African Americans
and others whose language and culture lies outside “proper” norms. She
wants her fellow educators to avoid easy labels for struggling readers,
for they amount to covert segregation of those who are “different.” She
wants us to open our minds to people with disabilities as well as mem-
bers of racial and social minorities.
Wolter did so for the children who are her charges, a challenging
task because she is deaf and classrooms tend to be noisy. She shows how
not only deaf people such as she, but also everyone else, must learn to
listen—parents, teachers and aides in particular. Listening, she shows, is
a surprisingly complex skill. (It is not the same as hearing.) On the way,
she demonstrates why speech and language are different phenomena,
and why talking about little things is often more important than talking
about big things. Most of all, she declares, be kind: “Communication
and conversation calls for gentleness and commitment from all parties
involved.”
She believes schools have become segregated according to misper-
ceived ability, and must adjust and expand their views of what literacy
means. Further, they must drain the swamp of dependency on phonics
instruction and refill it with more meaningful practices that focus on
the message rather than the means and explore the differences between
spoken and printed language.
She argues that educators should stop using testing alone to judge
the capabilities of readers and rely instead on the rich community of
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Foreword ix
reading: “a village of bookmobiles, ice cream trucks, and recreation
supervisors. A village of patient family dogs and doting grandparents. A
village of bookstores and friends who wander through them.”
At the end of the day, more than a quarter of a century after passage
of the Americans with Disabilities Act, we must still clear cobwebs of
prejudice from our minds and appreciate diversity for its own sake. We
must open our hearts in order to grasp the similarities as well as differ-
ences among human beings.
Most of all, we must accept Wolter’s powerful argument that making
apparently expensive accommodations, such as sign language interpret-
ers and keyboarded communication for the deaf, will help people with
disabilities become productive and well-paid members of society who
give back economically rather than go on welfare—which can be more
expensive in the long run.
Eyes, Ears and Hands speaks to me in particular. Like its author, I am
profoundly deaf. Although we are two decades apart in age, I also grew
up privileged in a university town—white, comfortably situated, learn-
ing and speaking standard English, and attending progressive schools
with complete inclusion in classes and activities. Like her, I grew up to
work with words, sounding them out on the twin tympanums of mem-
ory and imagination. Like her, I write to be heard. Like her, I strive to
communicate—and, after reading this illuminating book, I will also try
harder to empathize with people and ideas outside my experience, to
appreciate other “ways of being.”
So, we can hope, will parents, teachers and administrators as well as
general readers concerned about the future of American education. This
book is for them.
Henry Kisor
Henry Kisor is the author of nine books, including What’s That Pig
Outdoors?: A Memoir of Deafness (Hill & Wang/Farrar, Straus &
Giroux, 1990) and is co-author of Traveling with Service Animals:
By Air, Road, Rail and Ship Across North America (University of
Illinois Press, 2019).
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