[jeffwass]

My daughter is deaf and goes to a specialist deaf secondary school in the UK.

Five years ago ARISS-UK pre-arranged a connection between the school and astronaut Mark Vande Hei on one of the ISS flyovers. Various students got to ask questions directly to Mark in orbit. It was the first contact between ISS and a deaf school.

https://www.arrl.org/news/ariss-confirms-october-12-as-date-...

[rafram]

An “aural” deaf school? This seems like a fairly harmful approach. I know that approaches to deaf education are quite fraught, but pushing students to communicate orally and not allowing sign language in the classroom seems like it’ll set a lot of students back educationally. It essentially turns deafness into a learning disability, which it doesn’t need to be if you just allow sign language. (It also shuts the students out of mainstream Deaf culture, which I imagine a lot of them will resent later in life.) I am surprised that a school with this philosophy still exists, frankly.

[jeffwass]

They’ve been doing this for over a century, it’s probably the top deaf school in the UK, and has the support of nearly the entire deaf community.

Most of the students have either some degree of hearing or use cochlear implants. I think nearly all, if not all, students use either hearing aids or cochlear implants.

The classes are very small (eg 5-6 max usually), students are arranged in a U-shape around the teacher so they can read lips. And there’s a special wireless broadcast system so the teacher wears a microphone and sends the audio directly to hearing aids or cochlear implants.

Regarding deaf culture, most of the students use BSL on their own outside class, and my daughter learned BSL from her friends there that grew up with it. Coming from a mainstream primary, she found “her people” here, discovered deaf culture and a community that shares the same struggles she faces.

The idea is that by teaching in BSL the students are further restricted in their ability to function in a hearing society.

I’m curious if you are deaf yourself, or work with the deaf. All the teachers at the school are trained teachers of the deaf, some are even deaf themselves. And I haven’t heard any complaints about the aural nature of the learning (except from the reservations of a few parents before sending their kids there, and I don’t think any of these parents regrets this after their children started there.)

[nephihaha]

Donaldsons?