Teaching Deaf Students...I learn a thing or two!

My new students all have two things in common, a desire to learn and a disability with their hearing. I knew going in teaching them woodworking would be a challenge, but what I didn’t know was how rewarding it would be. Although they can’t hear, they can smile, and the smiles I see everyday at the school make it all worthwhile!

Woodworking is inherently dangerous, and one of the challenges the school faces is how to minimize or eliminate as many dangers as possible. Those of us with hearing automatically rely on that sense to understand a number of things going on in the woodshop. Is the machine running? Am I feeding the wood through to fast? Is the drill bit bogging down? Is there a piece of wood stuck somewhere in the machine? All of these things we take for granted are not available to these students. With some of their other heightened senses, they can sometimes detect changes in the vibration of a machine, but it is still limited feedback. When the shop first opened, teachers soon discovered some of the machines were still running after the students were finished. This problem was solved by installing flashing yellow lights on some of the machines and now students can tell at a glance if a machine is running and potentially dangerous. Along with these and other safeguards, all the students are instructed and fully checked out on a machine before they are allowed to operate it alone.

As I mentioned in my previous post, perhaps the biggest challenge is that I do not sign. I have learned, and will continue to learn some of the basics of the language, but as I am studying Spanish as well, it would take more time then I can currently give to become proficient. In the meantime, I have to get by with simple intuitive hand signals, and just like the locals I speak to in my broken Spanish, the students do their best to understand me and try not to laugh!

Right now, I am working primarily with Max. At 39 years old, Max is not a “kid”, but the challenges he has faced have made it difficult for him to obtain employment. With his enthusiasm for the program and his ability to learn new skills, the school has made Max a “lead” in the shop, and he is being trained to not only operate the equipment, but pass on those skills to future students. With this he is also being given an opportunity to earn some income through the sales of items being built by the students. 

Currently, the shop is cranking out furniture for several groups including Casita Linda, and also builds a variety of craft projects such as puzzles, coat racks, and other saleable knick-knacks.

Max is a quick learner, and prides himself on the quality of his work. Unfortunately, this slows him down a bit, but we have been working with him to get into more of a production mode without sacrificing quality. Recently we managed to get the assembly time down on a bench from a high of about 4 hours to a low of about 30 minutes. Max was very proud of his accomplishment, and the smile and two thumbs up that I received made my day as well. Even in this setting, time is money, and the more we can produce means more funding for the school and more pocket money for the students.

Life in Mexico can be challenging enough for many students. Add in a disability like being deaf, and it is a hundred times more so. Life has been good to me, and I am humbled to be able to mentor and offer some of my skills to these charming and delightful students.

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My new students...Teaching at the Escuela de Educación Especial de San Miguel de Allende!

Through my work with Casita Linda, I met John and Max with the Escuela de Educación Especial de San Miguel de Allende. The school primarily focuses on Deaf Children, and provides an essential service in an area where there are few resources available to children with special needs. They were delivering furniture to an
Housewarming Party at one of the Casita Linda homes, and I started up a chat with John. In his charming Scottish lilt, John explained that one of the skills the school teaches is woodworking and the students had built the furniture they were delivering. As I have a fair bit of experience in that area, he invited me to drop by the school, check out the program, and see if I would be interested in volunteering as a teacher.

We arrived just as lunch was being served, and were invited to join the students and faculty for lunch in their small but well equipped cafeteria. The students, all of whom are deaf to one degree or another, welcomed us with big smiles and a variety of hand signs, none of which I understood. I do not know sign language, and found out later that while the sign language used in Mexico is similar in many respects to that used in the US, it is indeed its own dialect with its own unique signs. In spite of that, it was easy to understand they were joking, laughing, and flirting with each other throughout the meal and I quickly began to feel more comfortable being with these delightful students.

It is hard for us to understand how difficult it is to be deaf, let alone deaf in a country that is not as well equipped to deal with it. The school system here is largely unprepared to teach deaf children, and for the families it can be just another burden to an already difficult life. The school was established to give students a far greater chance at becoming productive and happy adults, and offers training in not only a variety of skills such as jewelry, sewing, and woodworking, but sign language, general education, and computers as well. John tells me that when many of the students first arrive at the school they are often shy, withdrawn, unhappy, and socially inept. The school has had a great deal of success at bringing them out of their shell, improving their interaction with other people, and teaching them a variety of skills to help them in the outside world. In addition, the school offers parents and family members training in Mexican Sign Language to help them interact with their deaf children and siblings.

After lunch, we were given a tour of the school, and I was impressed with the quality of the equipment, the cleanliness of the classrooms, and the high level of activity going on. The wood shop itself was extremely well-equipped, and the small group of boys gathered there welcomed me with the “San Miguel Bump”, a common style of greeting here in the city. I also got to meet a few of the teachers who were on staff that day, and felt instantly welcome to join their ranks. It was easy to make a decision to help the school and to hopefully improve the lives of the students. I told John I would let him know my schedule and be back to teach next week!

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Next- Teaching students to run dangerous power equipment is challenging. Teaching DEAF students is a whole new ball game!