Rachel Zemach's author page

Fantastic video!!! Absolutely accurate. Beautiful signing, and powerful, true points.

Phonocentrism

https://boldjourney.com/meet-rachel-zemach/

Just a moment...

Friends, it's time to introduce you to Will Fertman and his upcoming book. He is a great friend to me, yes. However, this review of his book is heartfelt and sincere; not a "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" but more: "Whoa. This book is wild!"

I have read a lot of it over the past two years or so, and each time, the words hit me so viscerally that it was an emotional rollercoaster for me, one that had physical ramifications. Most readers won't feel impacted this way; they will have their own intense reactions, to be sure. But my reaction were based in 10 years of teaching Deaf and HOH kids in a mainstream school setting, and then participating in various FB groups and seeing the messages and dilemmas of parents of Deaf kids daily.

I saw how the advice these wonderful, confused, loving parents got from "specialists" they took their child to— and from school staff— caused them harm. I saw how extraordinarily often the children were language-deprived and how this caused thinking and psychological problems that were often long lasting. I saw the knee-jerk, unwittingly audist (discriminatory) assumptions and attitudes of staff, administration, speech therapists and ultimately, parents made about Deaf and HOH children and what they did or didn't need. In a nutshell, parents are directed towards hearing aids, cochlear implants, speech therapy, mainstream (public) schools and "fitting into the hearing world."

It's not working, however. Overall, our children are not okay. Parents are not okay. When they need help, it's easier to find these days thanks to the internet. But when they go to libraries or bookstores for help, their choices are still limited, will be overwhelmed with the mindset I described above, and even if they do find a different POV, it will be stampeded by the sheer numbers of people saying that the assimilation mode is better.

As I saw so often in IEP meetings, when parents are in the position of 9-1 people of the same mindset, they can easily assume the 1 person who is promoting ASL/a Deaf class and cultural pride, is in the wrong.

The harm done to kids is painful to watch. It's like a runaway train. There is little to stop it and little traction to gain even when the well-being of young people is being permanently derailed.
For years, I struggled watching this and feeling powerless to it, and then. wrote my own book, to do my part, because I deeply loved and cared about the students I'd met, and their families. But I didn't have much hope; I saw kids in Deaf schools, with full access to language, role models, direct communication with their teachers and a rich culture, and I saw the far bigger numbers of mainstreamed kids, often the only deaf one in their school, with teachers who only spoke or used SEE, with no focus on language acquisition or Deaf learning styles. Their parents were often deeply confused, and so were the kids.

Then I became aware of Will Fertman and his family; they had chosen CI's for their Deaf son, but ALSO ASL, and education at the Deaf school (despite a long-ass daily commute there.) And both he and his wife Minda took ASL seriously, and were already at a level of decent fluency when I met them, when their boy was still little.

Through them, I met a bunch of other families who have taken he same path; Will and Minda have organized events in parks and other places (movies, fire stations) for families with Deaf kids to meet each other and have fun outside of school. I was astonished to see the parents there code-switching from speech to ASL easily and fluently, and many of the kids doing so as well. It was like meeting a new breed of animal, for me, and very uplifting. My sense of hope began to change.

Then Will began writing his book. When I read it, there were times it made me gasp and times it made me cry and many times it made me laugh. Jesus, I thought. This is powerful stuff! He writes with humor, and a lot of compassion for parents but absolute, unambiguous, anti-bullsh*t advice for them as well. For example, theres a chapter on "How to fire your child's speech therapist or other professional" (the title here is mine. His is probably funnier.)

For many parents, here is what I think will happen with this book. These parents are the masses who are NOT involved with Deaf schools, but just fumbling along doing the best they can with a deaf child, going to specialists and trying as best they can to navigate the confusing communication obstacles at home.

They will find this book, and buy it, and read some of it, and be shocked. Many will put it down, at that point, bewildered by the advice and power in it. They will keep going on their path, with some lines from Will harassing them, nagging at them mentally as they go about their business. But they will resist, thinking "He is too radical."

Then they will see things happening, statements from their pediatrician, their kid not thriving, disconnect in the family between how the hearing and how the Deaf kids are doing educationally, negative messages about their child at schools IEP's, and they will remember the book. They will go searching for it, with a bit of frenzy, remembering the power in it and desperate to find it and get that power inside of them, to help understand the predicament they are in.

When they find it, they will devour it, and make some major life changes. I hope this happens earlier rather than later, for the children's sakes. But at least it is possible now, thanks to this gem of a book.

You can find Will on social media, given long, kind comments packed with heart and advice to struggling parents. Or you can find him in a park, with blankets and a wagon-full of books for his two avid little reader sons. You will see him signing when his kid feels like going sound-off and driving him to the Deaf school daily, and I will find him on Zoom, often near tears along with me as we talk about the kids we care about so much.

Or you can buy this book and TRULY get to know him, and have an actual manual to raising a Deaf child who, with a little luck and a lot of hard work and fun, will be as brilliant, confident, ridiculously language-rich and literate as Will and Minda's Deaf son is.

See the comment below to find link.

UPDATE: looks like we are back ON starting May 21!

Will put details here soon.

Friends, I am deeply sorry to say the book club, planned to start tonight, has been cancelled, for reasons beyond my control. I will try to figure out an alternative; and am leaning towards those who signed up having a private meeting with me on Zoom, where we can discuss the book and meet each-other, and that way you can build a support system and group of people to talk with about the book.

But for tonight, it is cancelled. I will keep you posted here for more news about it and again, I deeply apologize for this.