Too many hearing parents used signed English system to communicate with their deaf children and many of the children did well in English skills. There is only one explanation for this phenomenon: The deaf children did acquire language from their hearing parents. Linguists, naturally, did not accept this phenomenon for it did not fit their paradigm.

Joseph Pietro Riolo
josephpietrojeungriolo@gmail.com

Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions in this post in the public domain.

I do not feel that anytime there is a communication system, it would necessarily mean language is in existence. Let’s take Manually Coded English systems for example. They could be a part of communication system but they have no significance linguistically wise. Linguists have proven that again and again.

Anyone?

Or was it more of a rant thing instead?

The same thing can be said with ASL. ASL is a set of rules along with a set of smallest units of symbols that are combined to form words and sentences. It just happened that ASL was first expressed through the visual system and therefore, the visual system is the only system that is considered part of ASL. Any other systems that are not visual are treated as communication tools and are separate from ASL.

That is the “gospel” preached by the linguists.

I don’t agree with them.

I see each communication system as equivalent to a language. The written English language is different from the spoken English language. The signed English language is different from the spoken English language in several ways. The cued English language is slightly different from the spoken English language. But, all of them do have a language inside their system. It is just impossible to separate a system from a language. But, that is what the linguists do.

I certainly can sympathize with the difficulty that you have in trying to convince others that the English language can be expressed through the cueing system, albeit in a slight different way from the aural system. I can imagine that I would have great difficulty in convincing people that the English language can be expressed through PSE in somewhat imperfect way. The difficulty will not disappear until the linguists start to rethink the definition of language.

Joseph Pietro Riolo
josephpietrojeungriolo@gmail.com

Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions in this post in the public domain.

1.) There are many good books/articles/trainings about recruiting, developing, and retaining talent instructors.

2.) Recruiting talent instructors, the chairperson will need to offer non-financial incentives when higher salaries not an option. The chairperson will need to find out what kind of incentives will keep good employees satisfied. I made a few reasonable requests such as classroom location, days and hours I want to teach, and etc. My requests were met with willingness.

3.) I am sure Gallaudet has tenure policies. At NTID, be granted a tenured position, I understand the faculty member will be given a specified period of time to meet the SCPI requirement.

4.) Is the employer documenting all actions given to each incompetent employee? The record should list all issues that require disciplinary actions. If so, then good! If not, then they should start documenting right away.

Success requires a team effort. Think positive.

=D

I’m not surprised Gallaudet’s willing to basically accept anyone because of financial issues. I’m not such an idealist to think money has nothing to do with it. ;)

But I am surprised how short-sighted the Gallaudet administration seemed to be. In the long-term, this kind of policy harms the university, and will have a financial impact, like it’s starting to right now. Even I, a college student with practically almost zero experience in business, can see that.

As for the VR situation, I think it’s a good idea for the VR to cut back for one semester, then if the student continues to do miserably in their second semester, to withdraw funding entirely. Sometimes people just have a horrible semester and screw up royally, so I think that’s reasonable.

As I see it, there’s no single underlying factor to Gallaudet’s problems. I was thinking about this whole thing, and one thing hit me.

It seems to me that the administration of Gallaudet still run it as a *college*, not as an university. There’s differences in how you adminstrate a college versus an university.

So if the administration tackle that problem, heighten the admission standards, getting rid of incompetent faculty, the faculty stop having such low expectations of the students, the VR keeping a better track of the students and holding them accountable for their grades, and the students starting to hold themselves accountable for their education, then I think Gallaudet will become more of an university that it’s supposed to be. Then not only financially but in many other areas, everyone wins.

You want to know why Gallaudet will simply accept anyone into their academic programs? Simple. Its $$$$. They need it badly. In fact, the tuition at Gallaudet isn’t cheap either, but many states’ Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) departments are quick to pay for it.

Do I think VR is getting a good return on their investment dollars? No, they could have done better by giving military vets these same dollars to go back to school, if they choose to. I see too many deaf students literally waste VRs time and money to really prove their worth. In fact, many of these same students usually blow their SSDI money on booze, drugs, and women. Several have bragged about it to me in an effort to impress me, which I am not. In fact, I think its a waste of taxpayer’s money.

I think VR should cut back or stop altogether if the students do poorly in their first semester/quarter. One parent told me that if the students paid for the tuition themselves, they generally will do better than if they had gotten the funds from VR/SSDI.

Sad, isn’t it? And as a taxpayer, I’m outraged that tax dollars aren’t being spent wisely.