Benefits of Mainstreaming

Another area of trouble D/HH students come across while being mainstreamed in education is that teachers are often unaccommodating. Not all teachers are willing to go the extra mile to make their D/HH students feel welcome in the classroom. One reason that this could be is because able bodied people often feel that people with a disability, such as deafness, are seen a lesser human beings, thus that some people do not believe that they should be mainstreamed. Some people believe that by creating a D/HH inclusive classroom, students will not get as good of an education, but “the ‘problem’ is not the person with disabilities; the problem is the way that normalcy is constructed to create the ‘problem’ of the disabled person” (Davis 1). The idea that D/HH students are lesser people because they are not “normal” is absurd. D/HH students can learn just as well as a student that is hearing, the only difference is that negative attitudes that surround disability.

In a study done by Gina Oliva, most of the D/HH students’ worst teacher interactions were with teachers who were unaccommodating, and unwilling to get to know the student: “These teachers explicitly indicated that they did not want the student in their class, or that they thought the student was not intellectually capable” (Ostrove, Oliva, and Katowitz). For any student, it would be tremendously challenging to get though a class where the teacher thought he/she was dumb or incapable to do school work. Not only do teachers think D/HH students are not as smart as hearing students, but they often punish D/HH students for not being able to hear. “More than half of the responses in [the negative teacher experience] category related incidents in which the deaf or hard-of-hearing stude...

... middle of paper ...

...ing students refrained from using stigmas and norms to define others, they could actually learn a lot from D/HH students about ASL and Deaf Culture. The teachers at these schools could also benefit from learning about deafness, because this incite could make their classrooms a more inviting place for all students to learn. School systems which work hard towards creating the best mainstreaming programs would also benefit, by having a program that parents want to send their children to. But above all, D/HH students would benefit from being part of a well-planned mainstream program. Being mainstreamed in school gives D/HH students a way to interact with their peers, which can help for when they go out into the real world of finding a job and being active in the community. With changes in procedures, many people would profit from being part of a D/HH mainstream program.