Story of the Day 11/15/2010

Sarah and I attended a cultural event, yesterday.

It was a wedding shower. It was a cultural event for us because it wasn’t Jewish.

I mentioned this to my friend, whose wedding shower it was, and I think I confused him. It wasn’t just because it was a wedding shower, which is very unusual except among very assimilated Jews, but because of all the other details.

Several things made this immediately apparent. We arrived on time, and we were among the last people to arrive. It was organized. After we were told to get food (part way through the 1 ½ shower), and we and the others got our food, the food was put away, well, except for the cake.

It was supposed to end at 3:30, and a few minutes before 3:30 someone said how it would be ending in a few minutes- which it did. That alone was like visiting Mars.
I reminded Sarah of that facet which I learned only a couple of years ago, that Christians actually are in their seats on time for services, and this must be connected to that.

If this had been a Jewish wedding shower it would have started at least 10 minutes late. A few people would have arrived on time and that would only be because Jews have a number of MOTs (members of the Tribe) who are OCD. That cancels out some of the other Jewish genes. Most people would arrive 20-30 minutes late. Nothing would happen before food was thrust on you. “You haven’t got a plate? What is wrong with you? Get a plate and I will introduce you to some people?”

No one would ever put any food away. God forbid! If one of the trays got to be 90% decimated, someone would pick it up and walk around thrusting it under people’s noses and saying, “Come on, you have to eat a little more! God forbid this should go to waste!” If it is the very last piece, they would sound very desperate and probably promise you a backrub if you would only eat it!

If, God forbid, there was a lot of food left over- and there would be, because no self respecting Jew could ever risk there not being enough food,( and the only way to ensure that is to make 3 times what you think you might need,) then you would have it shoved upon you, and could not leave unless you had promised to take some.

Sarah and I went, yesterday. Larry did not go with us because he was on call. In that sort of a situation, at least 8 people would have asked us where Larry was and was he feeling all right. That was assuming that only 2 people had already met him. You can multiply this out on your own, in case there were more. Then, I would have to take at least a 6 day supply of food home for him because , God forbid, he wouldn’t get to try some of everything and , of course “He works so hard!”

And if the party was supposed to end at 3:30, someone, at about 4 PM, might say something like, “Oh, I suppose I should start saying goodbye to people.” And then they would start, which would make everyone else aware that it was a good half hour after the party was slated to end; but the goodbyes would probably take at least 45 minutes, for the people who were in a hurry. And the other people would be saying about them, as they walked out the door, “I don’t’ know why they were in such a hurry to leave?”

Let me get back to the program. We sat in a circle. This was really ideal, since Sarah is deaf and she could see what was happening. I think it is also friendlier, and easier on old farts like me who get tired of standing up. And we went around and introduced ourselves and said how we had met the engaged couple. Most of us had met Darren first, so it was a little lopsided, but, on the other hand, it also meant that Darren got the brunt of the jokes and the teasing.

One friend introduced himself as Nick. Then he added, “And don’t say, ‘Hi Nick!’”
There was a lot of laughter at this remark, although I wasn’t quite sure why. Since I am totally devoid of any knowledge of pop culture, I assumed it was a line from a current TV show or some such.

This evening over dinner, my daughter explained to me that this is how you respond to people when they introduce themselves at AA meetings.

I looked stunned. I think Sarah realized that I’d had no idea, no clue as to this cultural phenomenon. None. And I was the Hearing person who is supposed to be so much worldlier than the deaf kid.

And I am wondering how come my 16 year old daughter knows about this…….and she can’t believe that I don’t. Maybe we are having our own kind of home-based culture shock.
Oh yeah, and I think we created a cultural faux pas by hugging Darren’s fiancé, Frank, before we left….I mean, isn’t that what you do with people you have just met? My multi-cultural manners must have gotten rusty.

Story of the Day 11/12/2010

Yesterday didn’t end at midnight.
Sarah realized that soon after her first class started, this morning.

Again, there was a substitute teacher- fortunately, not the same one as yesterday, but still an unfamiliar face at the front of the room.

And, again, Sarah sat and waited and the interpreter did not show up.

The sub took attendance.
He said something to Sarah. He paused and then he said it again. It was something like “Are you Sarah Margolis-Greenbaum?”

Of course, since Sarah is deaf, he could have whispered it or screamed it and it would have remained equally unheard by her. And nowhere in her IEP does it say that she can read lips- or that speaking to her is a disability accommodation for her. But at least this was coming from someone who seemed friendly and not in severe need of psychiatric medications.

Sarah nodded her head in acknowledgement, and the sub gave her some papers to work on.

Five minutes passed. No interpreter.

Ten minutes passed. No interpreter.

Finally, the interpreter arrives along with another student.

Since Sarah had finished her paperwork, the interpreter started in on her story.

As the interpreter was on her way to the classroom, this morning, she waylaid by this other student who had to share with her what had happened in the class, yesterday morning. When the sub took the attendance, some of the other students pointed to Sarah, when her name was called, and said “That is her. She is deaf”.

The sub then looked at Sarah and loudly called her name. She did this three or four times. The students again pointed to Sarah and told the sub that she was deaf.
At this, the sub became angry that Sarah had not responded to her.

Much of what followed is exactly as Sarah described it, but apparently, in addition the sub said a few very insulting things about Sarah being deaf that Sarah, being deaf, didn’t hear. And when Sarah had her head down while she was writing, the sub loudly ranted “Why doesn’t she respond to me?!”

Again, the other students told her, “Because she is deaf.”

Then when Sarah gave her the message she had written out, the one that said, “I cannot hear anything. I am deaf. My name is Sarah Margolis-Greenbaum.” The sub screamed to the classroom in a sarcastic voice, “Oh, she is deaf?!” And she continued yelling at Sarah when she gave her the papers to distribute to the other students.

And after Sarah left the room to go find the resource teacher, the sub, in a rage, slammed the door making a loud noise that, of course, Sarah never heard.

Then the sub proceeded to pick on this other student, who was an advanced student dong independent study, and made her do the beginning students’ worksheets. This was accompanied by some loud statements about how she (the sub) was in control. Even though, it was really rather obvious to everyone else that she was actually out of control.

I think I mentioned that Sarah knew the names of a grand total of two of the students. One of these is a boy with whom she has been friendly for many years. Yesterday evening, his mother asked him if anything happened in class and he said no. This was an expected response. He has autism and is often somewhat oblivious to things in the classroom. He is especially oblivious to things concerning people and their interactions. I believe he has been described as needing to work on his communication and social interaction skills.

However, this morning, during class, before the interpreter arrived, but after Sarah had been given her worksheets and was working on them, she felt a tapping on her desk.

Sarah looked up, and there this young man stood, with his notebook held up against his chest for her to see.

On it he had written, “Are you okay, today?”

Sarah nodded and gave him a thumb’s up signal, and he smiled at her and went back to his desk.

Not only could yesterday’s sub learn a lot from him about social skills and communication, so could a lot of other people.

Story of the Day 11/11/2010

A Series of Unfortunate Events is a fairly good series of children’s books, and the title of a really delightful and somewhat wacky movie. Unfortunately, when it is the message that you receive on your cell phone , at 10:30 in the morning, from your daughter’s high school Resource teacher, with the added imperative to call her, soon, preferably before 11:30, it is not delightful.

When my cell phone rang, at 10:30, I was driving a friend
I had just picked up at her doctor’s office, to Meijer’s to get her new prescriptions filled. Since I do not talk on the phone, the teacher left me a message, the one described above, which I promptly listened to, right after parking the car outside the store.
And, then like any good and very worried parent, I called her back.

The story started before school, in Carmel.
Carmel, incidentally, is not the same town as the high school is in.
There was a fire at the Dunkin Donuts, and a distracted driver bumped his car into Sarah’s interpreter’s car. Thankfully, there was no real damage to the interpreter, or her car, but the other driver insisted on stopped, pulling over and calling the police. That was the first unfortunate event .

The second event was that Sarah’s Hebrew teacher was absent, so there was a sub- a substitute teacher. This was not unexpected. Mr. Cohen had announced to the class a few days earlier, but it was …unfortunate.

So, when Sarah walked into her first period class, Hebrew, and took her seat expecting the interpreter to show up….the interpreter didn’t. And because it was s sub , the person in charge of eth class was left alone in charge of a class with a Deaf student.

As Sarah sat there, the teacher took attendance. At least, it appeared to Sarah that she did. Her mouth moved, and it appeared that the other students were responding. At some point, having run through whatever it was, the teacher looks very pointedly at Sarah and says several things. Sarah assumed it was her name and a stream of other words. Sarah responded by writing a note for the teacher. She wrote” I cannot hear anything. I am deaf. My name is Sarah Margolis-Greenbaum.”

A couple of minutes after this, the sub walked over to Sarah’s desk, put a stack of papers down in front of her, and preceded to tell her what to do – using Spoken English.
Apparently, this sub was not an especially bright person.

Sarah looked at the papers, and saw there were various student’s names on them and assumed she was supposed ot hand them out. Unfortunately, Sarah has been in this class for most of the semester with an interpreter who was totally incompetent, so Sarah knows the names of exactly two other students. One is a boy she has known for many years, and the other is a girl whose name is Mahlah, or Malah, or Milah , or Mihal- depending on what the interpreter decided to sign that day. The interpreter didn’t’ bother with any of the other names.

So, Sarah , realizing there was no way to complete this task, tried to give the stack of papers back to the sub. The sub responded by getting angry at Sarah, pressing the papers right back on her desk and saying some things with a rather nasty look on her face.

Fortunately, and this was the one fortunate event in the series, another student decided to take it upon herself to take the stack and hand out the papers.

At this point, Sarah was worried about the absence of the interpreter, and rather stressed by being ill-treated by the sub. So, she wrote a note explaining that she wanted to go see the Resource teacher and find out where the interpreter was.
To this, the sub responded “You don’t’ really require an interpreter for my class.”

This was unfortunate event…four…five? Who knows. But it was very unfortunate- for Sarah- but also for the school- since this sub was representing them.

Sarah, of course being substantially more intelligent than the sub responded, “No, my IEP requires having an interpreter for my communication (accessible).”

The sub wrote that she thought Sarah would be fine for this period and could hold her questions for when Mr. Cohen returned….next week.

At this point Sarah realized the sub might have a cognitive disability and thought that using the word please and sorry might help the sub to think more clearly.
This approach, however, met with the sub grabbing the paper away from Sarah while she was writing.
Apparently, Sarah knows a great deal more about polite behavior than the sub.

Again, Sarah tried to explain to the sub that she didn’t just need the interpreter for this one class, but it was an issue for the rest of her classes.
I think I can adequately paraphrase the sub's response as , “Too bad!”

Finally, Sarah wrote a note to the sub saying “ But this is an emergency. So please can I go to her ( the resource teacher’s) room?” To this, the sub rudely turned and walked away.

Sarah’s response was to pick up her backpack and leave.

Now. I lied a little at the beginning of this story.
You see, the very first in the series of unfortunate events actually occurred 8 years ago, to Sarah’s brother.

Sarah’s brother was a student at the middle school, when he was rather poorly treated by a substitute teacher who punished him for being deaf. It was actually a worse situation than what happened to Sarah , today.
As a result, the school developed a policy of attaching a sheet explaining which students in a class needed accommodations to the sub folders ( the folders given to the substitute teachers for each class.)
When it was time for him to move on to the high school, I asked if we needed to readdress this- and I was told that it was a policy in the high school to do this ( following the first unfortunate event/ incident).
So, the very first of the series of unfortunate events occurred 8 years ago, and the second was when, today, no paper was attached to the sub folder- in violation of what I was told was the school’s policy.
And, yes, I asked, so I know that no paper was given to the sub.

The charming detail that is embedded in this is that the school was previously aware that this was an issue and had informed me that they had a policy in place to ensure these things would not happen. But, obviously, they didn’t do what they were supposed to do, so they were the ones who caused that first domino to fall. And it is really and truly an odd thing, in this series, that this happened to the one student whose mother would know there was supposed to be a policy in place and why, and that the school had ample precedent to know this could happen……..

As I drove my husband home, this evening, from the airport, and told him about the day’s events, his response was they really owe her an apology.”

Story of the Day 11/01/2010

Sarah had a look of disgust on her face.

She held up her piece of bar-b-q ed meat and said, “This is raw!”

Of course, I am a bad cook, and unskilled in the art of microwaving , and it was undercooked , but , as I said to her, “Sarah, this is Morningstar, some raw soybean will not kill you!”