Speech and sign language or....

just speech? The perennial issue came up in a discussion on a website yesterday. There are strong views on either side when discussing the education of the profoundly deaf.

I am in the "speech and sign language" camp. I have been right from the first time I met a profoundly deaf person. She was a girl about my own age. We managed to maintain a sort of friendship for as long as the long bus journeys back to our homes in the country took. 

It was very clear to me even then that lip reading cannot do all the work for the vast majority of people born with a profound hearing loss. Lip reading requires intense concentration. No two people speak in quite the same way. It is impossible to lip read some people. To ask a person with a profound hearing loss to rely on nothing but speech is unreasonable. It adds immensely to the stress of their lives - and often the lives of those around them.

Of course the argument is made that allowing the deaf to sign from a young age means they will not make the effort to lip read or communicate with speech. It is an argument I have heard many times. I disagree. Other people feel differently.

I was not really involved in the discussion yesterday. I was much more concerned with trying to sort out something else. Despite that I was trying to keep an eye on what was being said and eventually found a moment to add something that is not being addressed in most discussions. 

It is this. Deafness is a very, very isolating thing. It is even more isolating if you do not have spoken language learned naturally as a child. The acquisition of sign language can be just as important here. Older people need stimulation just as much as younger people. A profoundly deaf person who cannot sign also has to make a far greater effort to communicate. If they do not have the capacity to use a sign language they are at even greater risk of developing dementia because they are not getting the same level of stimulation.

Age related deafness is of course common. Many people mask it well. They unconsciously learn some lip reading skills among people they know. They rely on other cues as well. The problems associated with all this should concern all of us but they are not the same as the problems are for a person who has always been profoundly deaf. We need to be aware of that. Wanting a child to be "only aural-oral" may seem right to parents and others but it may not be the best thing for the child, especially later in life. If both speech and sign can be achieved might that not be a better option?  

There was a violent altercation

in the street yesterday. Two boys from the local high school were pounding each other and another, much smaller boy, was sitting on the footpath with blood streaming from his head.

I was about to stop (very cautiously) when someone else came running up. One of those fighting ran off and the two who were left were being questioned by someone who obviously knew them. I left them all to it.

What was going on I do not know. I suppose I do not want to know but I am aware that there has been more of this sort of behaviour since the Covid lock downs. There is less tolerance. 

The one sitting on the pavement obviously has Chinese parents. That might have been enough. There was an article about the origins of Covid in the paper and it might, if a parent had said something, caused a teenager to say something to a younger and more vulnerable child.

It could have been anything else at all. The young one sitting on the pavement may not have been blameless. That two more were fighting in a serious, hard way was what I found so disturbing. There were the occasional physical altercations at schools I went to but I was never aware of anything quite as serious as yesterday's violence,

Yes, it was violent. I found it quite frightening. I have been left wondering whether the amount of violence seen on screens has left us somehow believing that this is how we now settle arguments. Is there any room left for discussion and negotiation in our lives?

It is not helped by those in authority who appear to condone violence even when they appear to be condemning it.   

"No you may not go and protest"!

Apparently school students are "going out on strike" to "protest" next week. They are "protesting" against "racism".

Now I will protest against "racism" too. Nobody should ever be treated as any less or more worthy on the basis of their identity. I could not care in the least what colour your skin is or where you come from. My only concern is the colour of your thinking and how you care for other people.

Does it mean I would go out and "protest" like the students are being urged to do? Absolutely not. 

The protest is supposedly about a far right political group, one currently (and alarmingly) popular in the pseudo-polling done by the so-called "polling" companies.  The protest is being organised by the leader of the national student union. That person is a member of a group called "Socialist Alliance". It is about as far left as it is possible to get without actually saying "old style Communist". It is inevitable the two will clash. 

Students, many of them secondary school students, are being "encouraged" to walk out of classrooms and attend the "rallies" being organised. All this can now be organised via social media.

We could not have done anything like this as teenagers. There was no social media. We would not even have considered doing it. The closest anyone came to anything like it were the few brave souls who skipped school for an afternoon.  The reason they did it was to see the plane carrying the Beatles land at the airport. There were not many of them who did it. I did not know anyone who did it,

We were kept firmly in school. Our Latin teacher had an alarm clock with her. It rang at the moment the plane was supposed to be landing.

I was asked last night what I would do now if students left to attend a protest. My answer was, "Nothing."  I would say nothing. I would instead have set a series of short tests which counted towards final marks in the subjects they missed. I would inform them of my intention. I would tell them the tests would not be repeated. They would tell me it was "not fair" and I would agree that life is "not fair".  I might suggest they write me a piece about the issues they were protesting about, why they felt so strongly about it and how protesting had helped. When they had done that then we could discuss it...actually discuss it.

Of course I would almost certainly be overruled in all of this by a school principal worried about the potential publicity, one who might even believe they should be protesting. My fellow teachers would be equally and possibly vehemently opposed to my proposed actions. I would perhaps even be accused of supporting the far right. After all if you do not support the far left you must surely support the far right? That there might be a much more reasonable and balanced position somewhere between them is not to be contemplated.

I am grateful I am not the school principal who will have to handle this. I also wonder how the student organising all this is doing in their studies. 

  

"When did you retire?"

is a question which may not be asked quite so often in the future.  The idea of continuing to work beyond the "usual" retirement age - now sixty-seven - was apparently being explored on a television program last night. 

I did not watch the program. I was working. I have not "retired". 

That said, I do not do the excessively long hours I once did. I am more willing than I once was to hand on work to younger people. 

"But you have time to do it!" I am told. Perhaps I do, although I have less time than many people realise. Time is not the issue. The issue is making sure that people younger than I am are ready and able to take over. 

I worked hard all through the Covid pandemic. There were not nearly so many people going out into the crisis and disaster zones for the sort of purpose which might need a communication device. There was an opportunity to train up other people, encourage them to take over where I was leaving off. In a way Covid did me a service.

But I saw the advertisements for the program aired last night. There was someone in their nineties "still working". Someone else said they could not afford to retire or they would be homeless. Someone else said liked working so much he saw no need to retire. 

I was taught Leaving (approximately old style "O" level) mathematics by a man who was seventy-seven at the time. This was in a church boarding school. He was not the only older member of staff and, like at least one other, he should not have been there. He was not a good teacher. If it had not been for a mathematically brilliant student the rest of us would have been lost. I am forever grateful to that boy. He was aware of how poor the teaching was and he would give anyone who wanted it another quick but much better explanation in five or ten minutes at lunch time.  I knitted him a football beanie in return because he gave the rest of us so much help.

The Senior Cat "retired" in name only. He went on teaching until two days before his death. He did it differently though. Instead of restoring order to problem schools he taught individual pupils. One of them stopped me only yesterday and said, "I wish your father was still around. I'd so like to him I've been promoted." It would have delighted the Senior Cat. His idea of retirement was to take it a little more slowly and enjoy the challenge of helping someone who found learning difficult.

I wonder about other people though. A real estate agent Middle Cat and I both know has just retired at eighty. Her house selling record was extraordinary but the firm she worked for was taken over by another company. They do things differently and she was not comfortable with the idea of a "hot desk". When we met in the supermarket she told me, "I suppose I am old fashioned but I liked the idea of knowing I had my own space organised the way I like it." 

Perhaps then this is one of those things which will cause people to retire. The nature of work will change. It will change to a degree where older people no longer feel comfortable with the way things are done. I have long since adapted to computer based work - but can I adapt to AI?

Like the Senior Cat though I have other things I want to do. I want to write other things. I want to make things. I want to go on helping some of the much younger students with their essays - and give the occasional able but unmotivated student some encouragement. There is a huge gap in my life left by the Whirlwind but there is another young one who needs support...and the Senior Cat would encourage it. 

I hear people say they will do "this" or "that" in retirement. Sometimes I wonder whether they will do anything at all. Is it why they sit for hours over a "coffee" in the local shopping centre? Is it why they "go for a walk" but it is really just a bored stroll around the block? Do they have hobbies or are they really spending hours watching sport and scrolling on their screens?

Today I have a friend coming. She will turn ninety at the end of the month - and looks ten years younger. She takes a lively interest in the world. If I suggested she was "retired" she would smile and say something like, "Not really. I just don't get paid the way I once did." 

  

Identifying a body is not

a pleasant thing to do. It was something Middle Cat had to do yesterday. As a retired physiotherapist and because it was someone we both knew rather than a family member it was less disturbing than it might have been. Still, despite all the problems he represented, we both felt saddened by the death of this person. 

S...was morbidly obese. His death at the age of sixty-four will not surprise anyone. Middle Cat and I are actually surprised he did not go at least ten years ago.

My association with his family stretches back to my time in teacher training college. I knew his sister there. She was one of those students "everyone" knows. Her lovely Greek name would have been enough but she also had (and still has) a lively personality to go with it.

I met her father later, one of the many "old" Greek men in the district. He was the sort of man I greeted in Greek, not English. He spoke English but a sort of politeness dictated I use the Greek "kalimera" in the mornings. 

And then, still later, I met S...  Middle Cat sent him over one day because I was having computer problems. 

"S... should be able to fix it. He's very, very good at fixing that sort of thing. I will just one warn you though, he's very overweight." That was an understatement. How Middle Cat managed to get him to visit us is something of a mystery. He avoided strangers. He shopped at the very beginning or the very end of the day. There had to be as few people around as possible. The rest of the time, apart from visits to the doctor or his "computer mate", he hibernated at home. He did on line courses to keep up his Centrelink payments but the reality was that nobody would consider employing him. He was on and off "sickness" benefits and alternated them with "unemployment" and occasional "disability" benefits.  He would do a bit of remote work from time to time...and he would come to visit me and the Senior Cat. 

We all tried to get him to diet but nothing worked. He had no will power at all. His eating habits were wild and unpredictable. His sleeping patterns were equally unpredictable. Knowing I would be up (and almost certainly working) he would phone me at six in the morning. He would eat breakfast with us. I would restrict him to just two slices of homemade bread.  He would accept this, do whatever he had come to do or wait for me to read the seemingly endless forms he had to fill in.  Those things done he would hoist himself in to his beat up old car and go again until the next time. In between he would phone me with questions about things which were worrying him.  Yes, he was distinctly odd. 

Last year and the year before he spent time in hospital but it did nothing for his weight. He phoned me from there one day as the afternoon tea trolley was going around and complained there were no biscuits and no bananas. Once home again he was back to old eating habits.

His clothing had to be made for him. His sister, who lives in another country, would order it for him. 

The house was, and still is, full of things he would order on line. I am not tidy but Middle Cat says are homes look sterile compared with his. You had to negotiate your way through. 

Yesterday my BIL was on his way out when he saw the police cars there and an ambulance just arriving. Knowing the other neighbour who has done so much to help was not home Middle Cat went over to say she was one of the people S... used. She was asked to identify the body lying on the floor. Hopefully it was a quick death but there has to be an autopsy. At least his sister did not see him like that. 

I thought back to the last time we talked. He had, as always, phoned me at a very early hour. I had told him what he needed to do and left it at that. Now of course I wish I had spent a little longer listening to him. He was a lonely man, a very lonely man.  

There was another death on the party strip

on Saturday night. It was not the first and it will not be the last.

The "party strip" I am referring to is a street in the CBD which is famous - or infamous - for the "night clubs" along it. It also has the alcohol, drugs, sexual abuse and violence which go along with those things. 

It is all magnified by the fact there is not just one of these night clubs - there are at least least six - but there are also other "late night cocktail bars" and "live music" venues there and just off the same street. A policeman of my acquaintance tells me that policing it all is a nightmare. It is not a popular shift.

Several years ago we were out for some family occasion on a Saturday night. Brother Cat was driving through the city to get us home. It was after eleven in the evening, probably closer to midnight. My brother has had years of experience driving in one of the biggest cities in the world. He has dealt with all sorts of traffic conditions. There was no choice but to pass the end of the party strip. He was waiting at the red lights and we were watching many of the young people, most of them in their teens and some in their early twenties. They were "all over the place". There is no other way to describe it. They had apparently left the strip. More than one of them was severely intoxicated. At least one of them was on a drug induced high. 

Some of them had waited for the light to change in their favour. Others were simply weaving in and out of the traffic. The traffic had slowed dramatically - to accommodate these pedestrians. The light changed in our favour. Brother Cat moved forward cautiously and then braked sharply. He came within perhaps twenty centimetres of hitting someone who ran out without looking left or right. There was a mouthful of abuse from the person my brother almost hit. My brother swore but swore quietly. We moved on and several blocks away when it was safe to pull over for a moment my brother stopped and said, "That was too close. Haven't they got anything better to do on a Saturday night?"

I thought back to Saturday nights when we were that age. I was mostly trying to catch up on study because the day would have been spent at a residential school for the deaf.  What did my brother do?  He spent more time out but it was almost always spent with a small group of friends. They would gather at someone's home with their guitars and, occasionally, a set of drums. If they had the money they would go to see the latest film. To drink alcohol you were supposed to be twenty-one and, for most, it was too expensive to even consider getting it illegally. A few of them smoked but most of them could not afford it. There was the occasional "dance" or "disco" but most of the people we knew did not attend them. No, they were not "wowsers"  as the non-goers were sometimes called. They simply had other things to do.

I know nothing about the incident on Saturday night. The lad who was hit may have been sober and doing nothing wrong. Was his attention simply distracted? Was the driver of the car sober? Was he distracted? What about the driver of the second car? 

We have to leave all that to the police and the statements given to them by those unfortunate to witness the incident. It would have been the sort of thing police going on duty would dread happening. 

I just wish the lad in question was getting out his guitar and playing with a group of mates next Saturday night.   

Hamas will not disarm

in Gaza. They have no intention of doing so. Anyone who really believes this is a fool. 

Hamas is a military style terrorist group. Their stated purpose is the annihilation of the state of Israel. Nothing less will do. 

I have been listening to what is being said in the media. I have heard some of those involved in the "negotiations" talking about the "progress" being made. 

I am also reading the sub-text and it does not make happy reading. How many people read "Hamas" and "disarm" and went no further? 

This is of course exactly what some of those speaking about the issues and some of those reporting their words want people to do. Oh yes, there are "warnings" about the "complexity" and the "long road ahead" and "the other side agreeing" and much more.  

It is all a bit like fighting all the little spot fires around a major wild fire and not fighting the fire itself. To fight a major fire you need major resources, resources which are not forthcoming as yet, if ever.

The "pro-Palestinian" groups which like to claim how much death and destruction has been done by the opposing army are not being honest with themselves or with the rest of us. Let's be clear about something very rarely mentioned. Hamas has been siphoning off resources for many years. The Hamas leadership has been controlling not just the flow of aid into Gaza but the way in which it has been used. Food is a weapon used to control people. Access to education is a weapon used to indoctrinate the young. If you believe the stories in the media it is the opposing army which has destroyed the access to water, to medical services, to employment and just about everything else. Nothing is said about the way Hamas has ripped out the pipes to make weapons. Nothing is said about the way in which the consequent lack of clean water has caused so much illness. Nobody mentions how Hamas controls the markets that the lucky few buy their food from and, inside Gaza, you do not mention the way in which Hamas controls how external aid which enters is so rigidly controlled by them. There is nothing said about the "labour" used to dig the complex network of tunnels or what happens to the "labourers" when they cease to be useful.

I will not say anything else except this...do not believe what you are presently being told. There is no "agreement to disarm".  When this "agreement" fails who will be held responsible?