Alone In The Mainstream Summary

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The book, ‘Alone in the Mainstream,’ is a collection of interviews spliced together thematically with parallels to the author 's life. It covers everything from Teachers, good and bad, to friends, bullies, classes and all other parts of growing up. The common theme gluing them all together is not solitude as the book states, but difference felt by the interviewee or the author. Several of the sections, namely the ones about great teachers and great friends, show that deaf people are not alone, but that their experience is vastly different. The childhood of the subjects of the interviews, and the authors, lives differed drastically from mine, yet somehow managed to be the same in ways I did not expect. Having to set up a radio listening …show more content…

The hard of hearing student that went out for the debate team being chief among them. I was on the debate team when I was in high school and I always assumed that that was simply an activity that deaf// hard of hearing people could not do. So that story was of particular interest to me and I would have loved to hear more. There were also several concerns expressed in the book that I could easily relate to. Several times the idea of being uncomfortable with parents calling the school administration was brought up and I can easily identify with that. I too reached a point in my childhood where I stopped telling my parents what was going on at school entirely for fear that they may …show more content…

When it comes to deaf people it is easy to put them in the category of some great ‘other’ and not worry about them. Helping deaf people is not pity, but understanding. In the same way that installing wheelchair accessible ramps on public buildings is not pity towards those who are unable to walk, making a world more understanding and accessible to deaf people is the byproduct of understanding. Stories like this can help in fostering that understanding. My personal understanding of this subject has changed drastically since I entered the sign language curriculum. I am going to cheat here a little, as I took sign in high school and I believe the spirit of the question has to do more with my overall learning about deaf culture overall rather than just my learning since entering CSUMB. When I first entered the sign language curriculum I would have encouraged the use of a mainstream education curriculum and forced auditory lessons. This would not have been because of any disdain I had for deaf people but instead because of a want to see deaf people succeed and a lack of understand of how to best facilitate

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