One of my passions as a deaf educator is to train hearing allies to work with the deaf community.  I also teach deaf students who are acculturated into the hearing world and who have no exposure to deaf culture not to interrupt deaf speakers who are signing.  I insist that they wait until the deaf […]

Like a felled beast, the Deaf community has laid nearly dormant in Saskatchewan for nearly thirty years. A war was fought and lost.  The provincial school for the deaf in Saskatchewan was closed in order to cut costs for the entire province. Those opposed to American Sign Language and the Deaf community,  washed their hands […]

For days now, I’ve been stumbling around within myself as to how to respond to Dr. Kristin Snoddon’s blogpost from last week. When an academic makes you stumble around inside her words, you know she is doing her job as an organic intellectual. She wrote in her last blogpost about her ordeal of having to […]

I wish these words from a long standing advocate in the deaf community could have influenced Deaf lobbyists in 1989 when the Deaf Education Advisory Forum recommended the closure of the R.J.D. Williams Provincial School for the Deaf.  We Deaf stumbled about nearly 27 years ago, in the disbelief that this could not be happening […]

I’ve been mesmerized by the interviews with Paddy Ladd on BSL Zone.  Paddy Ladd is a deaf academic, who coined the word, “Deafhood” and is known for his advocacy for deaf education and deaf culture throughout the world.  He wrote a 500 page book called, In Search of Deafhood, a weighty tome presenting research on […]

It’s been a memorable day.  Dawn Jani Birley visited our classroom and participated in our theatre class preparing for Apple Time and Other Stories to be showcased at the Launch Festival of Youth Performance in March and fully performed again on June 2 and 3rd at the Artesian Theatre in Regina.  Dawn is a world […]

Let’s go and look at that one more time.  Decide if we really need it or want it.  Murray and I are probably the most exasperating tire kickers.  Any car salesperson would cringe at the sight of Murray and I because they can’t cinch the deal with us in an hour or two.  We might […]

During this Thanksgiving, I realize that I am about the old ways.  Old ways that are tried and true.  In case you think I return to nostalgia concerning the ways things were, let me be clear.  The more I stay the same in my convictions, beliefs, and values, the more I yearn for change.  But […]