Field Trip

Last Wednesday I went on a field trip with two classes. The trip was going to a museum in Washington D.C. The museum was called, "Space and Air Museum." Good thing it was free for everybody to go to the museum.

I couldn't believe how crowded it was inside of the museum. I was afraid for some of the students who did not like being in crowded places. I think it was too distracting for them to pay attention to what they wanted to see. I wondered how much they would enjoy the trip if there were few people in the museum.

The staff had divided in groups so we could go to different places without worrying that one students might escape while going through the crowd. I ended up being with one assistant, Courtney, and three students (real names withheld). I thought we could handle those three students. The three students were: William, Ron, and Ned. Oh boy, my thoughts went to a small ticking time bomb. Ned gave up after fifteen minutes, after looking around at one place where they explained how airplanes work.

Ned wanted to sit down, but it was a good time to sit down, with many people walking around us. Ned decided to sit down without asking, of course, and Courtney pulled him up and kept going. I decided to use the stairs to go up to the second floor and hoped to find a place that the students would enjoy. That caused the big bomb to be throw ahead of us, and we didn't see it. Ned started to revel his famous bad behavior.

Ned did not want to walk anymore. All he wanted was to sit down, babbling, pretending he was a shark in the water. Oh no, I hoped he would not make an embarrassing scene. We let him rest for a few minutes, then it was time to go to another room. It turned out I had to let Courtney and Ned sit down for a bit. I took the boys to see the first airplane. I noticed that William and Ron showed NO INTEREST in anything around them. I tried to explain how it worked or what it was. Their eyes looked like they were in a white room and saw nothing in front of them. My compassion has increased for them but I admit I was a little frustrated. We had to return to the place where Courtney and Ned sat.

It was time for us to go in a different room with different planets, space things, and a little theater room. My eyeballs almost popped out of my skull when I saw there were lots of people crowding the small area. In my mind, "Oh no, we are going to be in big trouble because of Ned!" My eyes turned to take a look at William and Ron (they have mild autism). True enough, they were extremely tense and trying to follow us. I spotted a little theater and thought they might need to rest and watch a short film. They like to watch movies.

In no time, the short film was over. It was time to get our legs working and move away from the theater. That was when the atomic bomb hit. Oh yeah, it was a huge mistake, because Ned refused to move or obey either of us. He just sat and said, "no, no, no, stop, stop, stop.." Courtney tried to coax him to get up and get moving. After five minutes, nothing had improved. Suddenly Courtney had to pull Ned to get up. Ned decided to not use his legs and crashed on the floor. Of course, Ned decided it was a good time to use his high pitched yells. To top that, he started to cry. I'm not kidding, his voice was louder than all the other sounds in the room combined.

People around us stopped and stared at us. I will give you a picture of how I felt about this situation. Being naked. No, maybe a naked person with a lot of piercings all over their body, standing on their head, juggling kittens. Ned is thirteen years old, but he is shorter than I am. People thought we were crazy people. Some of the people gasped at his screaming, and some of the people started and their mouths fell on the floor to see this unexpected theatrical presentation. Honestly, I felt like my head was going to explode any minute.

It turned out I took William and Ron out of the theater and told them to stay where I could see them through the door. I went back into see how Courtney was doing with Ned. She ended up having to use CPI (holding his body) to pull him up and walk. I could not help, because I am not CPI trained, but I wanted to make sure he did not get hurt. Ned's legs swung above the ground while Courtney held him, waddling penguin style.

We finally found a place to sit. I was fed up with Ned, because he continued screaming. He knew what he was doing. He did on purpose, but I'm pretty sure he didn't understand HOW embarrassed it was for us. I told Ned that his trip was over. It was time for him to go back to the bus. He had had enough warnings. Ned finally stopped and decided to be quiet.

Courtney grabbed Ned's hand to go downstairs to the lobby. I took the other two boys to go with me, following Courtney and Ned. I told Ron to follow them when they got on the escalator. I wanted William to be in front of me so I could see where they went. Suddenly I saw William's black pupils get wide. His body became frozen stiff. He was SCARED to get on that thing. In my prayer, he would not make the same scene as Ned did. I decided to tell William that I would hold his arm and explain where to put his legs, etc. When I got on the escalator, he didn't! My arm and his arm became Elastigirl on the "Incredibles" movie. I had to pull him to move, and finally, he moved. He started to shrink his body like a turtle. His head bowed like a sad dog tucking his tail. My heart got afraid, imagining that he would fall down after getting off the escalator. I quickly explained to him that he had to jump when I told him to. Good thing, he did listen to my advice and he jumped successfully. He walked away from the escalator quickly, looking back to make sure it was not chasing him.

We ended up having an experience in the museum for only thirty minutes, when it was supposed to be two and a half hours. Yup, we stayed in the bus and waited for the other class to come. We ate our lunch in the bus. We left the museum wondering why it had happened. I realized this trip was too much for them because of the crowds, feeling of pressure, too much stimulation, and difficultly focusing on one thing at a time, etc. I hope I do not have to handle this situation again. I do not mind handling William's situation, but not Ned. He needed a lot of support and better preparation for this trip. Whew, I had to pinch myself to make sure I was still breathing.

Regrets?

Yesterday was easy day at the school. The students were watching a movie and the movie was their reinforcement. My mentor asked me to go downstairs and make sure the students were behaving good while watching the movie, so I went. I sat down and play the game on my iPhone while other teacher trying to set up the movie for the students. (There were about four or three classes together to watch the movie.)

The movie was set and ready to start but the teacher was deaf and was not sure if the sounds from television were too loud or too quiet. She asked some of students who are hard of hearing if it was too loud. Unfortunately, the students were not paying attention to her because they were in a happy state and do not realized the teacher was trying to get their attention. My right arm goes in the air and said yes, the sounds were fine and it wasn't too loud. Teacher asked me if I'm hard of hearing and I said no but I do have cochlear implants.

That moment I felt the world stopped because the the teacher's mouth fell on the floor and stared me at few seconds. She was not sure if she believed me. I couldn't believe what she told me, "Proof." She walked toward me and told me that she wanted to see my cochlear implants. (Again, she was surprised I had two.) She touched my head to feel the magnets back of my head. She even touched the scars--both ears. I think it was weird for somebody touched my head and scars. She asked me if she can see my processors. She saw that I have two different colors: red and blue. I had to explained why I wanted to have two different colors. Her reactions were just blank but in shock and curious. Finally she asked me tons of questions related to cochlear implants. When did you get your cochlear implants? Both same time? Did you liked it? Any dizzy? Any headaches? Any problem with cochlear implants? Why two?

Oh boy! I had to explained why I wanted to have two and easier to balance and more loud than having one. If I wait longer to get second one, then my mind will takes long time to get both working together. Faster is better. Teacher's face showed that she was thinking hard.

My last sentence before the students got her attention was "I never had any regrets getting both cochlear implants, I loved it. Those are much better than hearing aids. I'm still learning and just developing enjoy for music. It was amazed to listen many sounds around me that I have never heard before with my hearing aids. Outside was not quiet as I thought!"

She stared me for a few seconds and left with lot things on her mind. I just realized what I have done in this room--there were several adults and I did not mind opening up my cochlear implants. It was a good move for me.

I told Annie what happened and she couldn't believe this because nobody noticed that I had cochlear implants during my first week of intern. On that week, I just got haircut and my hair was short. My cochlear implants were sort of obviously can see because of colors and coils bump on my head. Yes, both of us realized nobody knew about me having cochlear implants. I thought it was funny.

Feel idiot

I couldn't believe this week was my third week of internship. It was fun and exhausted. Speak of being exhausted, I had to do a bulletin in the classroom. The lesson was about the Civil War, I have to teach for two weeks. It required a LOT of my energy to teach those boys to understand what it was about even though they are in sixth grade. They do not have great cognitive--that means they couldn't remember what they learned from yesterday. Maybe lucky if the topic was their favorite--then it will become repetitive. You know repetitive can be annoying.

More visual, less words. No problem but need to pull my hair out of my skull to find something to provide those boys to LEARN, UNDERSTAND, or EXPRESSED something--such as I asked the students to guess what confederacy is.. Seriously--the students just sit and stared at me. Nothing! Perhaps one boy would say something but it would be a WAY OFF! Or they will copy me if I said which no or yes? Honestly, it's depend on what topic to teach because one boy know history more than other students. Another student know math more than others, etc.

Anyway--I tried to think something simple for the bulletin. YES! I got an idea and discussed with Annie for some more idea. I was thinking to split in two top for Union and bottom for Confederacy. I thought it was good idea. It took me a few days finally to start do the bulletin. It took me two days to finish it because on that day the teacher had an emergency and left me the responsible to take care of the class all day. Yikes!

I got through this day. The next day I finished up and the bulletin. I took a picture and email it to Annie to show off my bulletin. Guess what she told me? "Wow! It looked great. I noticed wrong spelling on Confederay. You forgot c. It's Confederacy." That made me MAD because I thought I did it perfect! But I haven't had my chance to fix the problem until last Monday.

A group of visitors came and look around in our classroom. One lady saw the bulletin and said she liked it lot but (what else..) she said that word is wrong. GRRRR! The teacher said I need to fix it right away, so I did. Sighs. I feel very IDIOT on that day.

Anyway, this bulletin is not really finished. I still need to add the word under the pictures. Add a bit more for Confederacy. Sighs.. but that's my bulletin. I did fix the word but haven't take the picture yet.

Loud Kids

That's middle school kids.

That's me.

I'm sure my parents will like this especially my dad. My dad always complained that I'm too loud when I was young. Today I went to middle school for practicum to earn some hours. I have been there a few times. The more I go there and the more I feel so sorry for their parents as well for my parents that they went through when I was young. Frankly, I'm sick of their loudness/noises.

The kids were yelling, screaming, and use loud voice. Even kick the table, pound the table, or something to get a person's attention, even more..drop the books on the floor, tapping with pencils, hit things, being angry, and more..but I'm sure you get the idea. Sometimes I had to tell them to walk to get their attention since they cannot hear you. Really, the kids did not know how loud they were. I remember I was young and I knew I can make noise but never understood how loud that can be annoying or pain. Anyway, one student has a cochlear implant and he often makes loud noises. He thinks it was funny, but for me it was very annoying. (I do not know how much he can comprehension things "noise" around him.) I had to tell him quiet down and focus on his work. He stared at me and ignored me. After a few attempts and realized it was worthless because his teacher was deaf.

Today has opened my eyes (ears) to understand how my parents went through with me. Suddenly I realized it is difficult to explain to a deaf child how loud he/she was. Because the concept of loudness is very abstract for them, deaf children. Yes, it's true that the children can understand the concept of loudness somewhat but different way--visuals. Visual like busy--sort of same idea with distract background. Or bright clothes can be loud. But deaf children might never realized that the loudness can hurtful. Annie gave me an excellent example. When you're in a dark room, suddenly there are several thick bright lights go wild. It will hits your eyes and your eyes will screaming and shut closed automatically because it hurts.

Wearing hearing aid was completely different with Cochlear Implants. I have two good examples for you.

1. Watching a television show or a movie:

With hearing aid, I had hard time to listen the show or movie because it was not loud enough but too loud for hearing people. Sometimes I was watching and turned the volume up because I was alone at that time. I forgot to turn the volume down after I'm done with it. One of roommates turned the television, it was very interesting to see them startled and danced same time to get the volume down very quickly. I don't feel it was too loud because it didn't bothered me at all.

With Cochlear Implants, we are on the right page to watch without feeling frustrated to listen or scared anyone when they turn the television on. Oh yeah, we used old imac to hook up our television in the living room. We do not have cables, so we rely on internet for television shows. (It's nice because it's free. But sometimes it sucks because of no closed caption. I recently learned that www.hulu.com have several shows that has closed caption! YAY! Still not many shows have that still...anyway you should check it out yourself..) Anyway we had to increase the volume up because it was too quiet and the quality came from internet not television. When I wanted to watch a movie, I inserted a DVD in Blu-Ray player and changed the plug from computer to television. I turned television on--of course--the television bursted loud and it caused me dance and rushed to turn the volume DOWN. Now I understood why they danced. If I wear my hearing aid, I won't dance for sure.

2. Listening a music in car:

I'm pretty sure that Missy, Heather, and Annie can related to that because it has happened to them. It's the same idea with number 1. I turned the volume all up! I liked the bass but didn't feel it was too loud for me. And yes, I was wearing my hearing aid. There were lot of overlap noises and I wanted to listen the music. Listening to it was worthless, so having bass and little other things were better than none. Of course, I forgot to turn it down or never thought they would use this car. When they turn the key, the music suddenly became a bomb of sonic! I could remember their facial reacts when it happened to them. You see, it didn't scared me.

With my Cochlear Implants, it's a big wow because I couldn't turn the volume all UP and it was TOO LOUD for me to handle it! I would go to volume 5-7 or 9-12 (it's depend on CD quality and ipod etc. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about!) on the highway. Wow. It's a big gap between a hearing aid and Cochlear Implants.

So everyday I thankful for my cochlear implants AND GRATEFUL that I was able to get both. Also everyday, well not everyday but often, I have learned something new with sounds. I can be quiet for my parents when I see them. Eh!

Is the career right for me?

This week I finally started my practicum at a school. I have been waiting for my teacher to get more information about the schedule and who I will work with for my practicum. This teacher is really suck. He never gets it done on time. I requested for practicum hours at end of August and hoping that I would start first or second week of quarter for school. Did I started on time? Nope. I just started last Tuesday and it's almost October. I was supposed to earn 150 hours by November 1st. I guess it's impossible since I only can do on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Lucky I earned 25 hours last spring. But still I need to worry about 125 hours to be completed by on time. Lucky I have a wonderful skill was to complain. I complained that it's not my fault etc. He said I can do my best even after the due. He was forced to be flexible with due etc. Still it's very stressful to make sure I can get it done by on time.

Okay, I'm not going to complain because it's not what I wanted to say in this blog. :D Last Tuesday I was very nervous going to that school. I ended up helping two teachers. Both teachers were very nice and liked them. Both have completed different personalities and how to teach the children. The morning was not that bad even one girl said I don't want you, I want my teacher. Ha! She showed with her big attitude.. Whoa.. Okay.. Too bad, your teacher is busy right now. Silly..

Anyway that afternoon I went to another teacher. There were four students. Teacher had to split in two groups because they were on different level. Teacher started to teach two students about basic circumference. Two students learned five names: Circumference, Radius, Centre, Diameter, and Chord. Teacher gave them the work sheet to identify which name for this picture. She told the students that they cannot able to use their notes for this assignment.

In my mind, how can the students able to identify in short time. They have not practiced enough to sink in their mind. True enough, one student got frustrated and just guessed all of the pictures and raised her hand. Teacher came to check her work but gave her a big disappoint facial expression. She shake her head at each picture when the student did not get it right. The student said I did not understand--REPEAT a several times. Teacher looked at me and said, "She knew this. She can do it." At that moment, I felt awkward and grr same time. Teacher continued said you knew the answer. You can do it. Still the student said I didn't understand. Of course, it made her cry over this assignment. Teacher gave up and left to help other students.

That stab my heart because teacher ignored the student in frustrated level. I learned from my school: if I see a student gets on the frustrated level then it's too hard. I need to find instruction level for the students. So I was curious why the student didn't understand this assignment. She was able to identify awhile ago before she do the work. I decided to take step and help this student.

I bent my knees to equal her eyes. I looked at her paper and explained to her how it works. I asked her what name for this? She said, "I don't know!" with tears. I was thinking how can I help her? Teacher said she can use her notes. I asked her where was your notes? Student took the notes and show it to me. There was a notes that has a picture that has all five names on it.

This notes look like this. Actually it has more words in it, and I didn't add to that. Anyway I made those pictures.. So you can get the idea...

I asked line AB where it fits to this notes? Student guessed wrong. Again I was thinking it's not working for her. What can I do? Suddenly I got an idea how to help her. I was hoping that my idea would help her to understand. I got up and walked to the whiteboard. I draw one picture (diameter on circle) and asked her what is it? She repeated the same phrase. I wrote the name on this picture. I explained why, then I draw another picture with radius. I asked her what name for this? I went through four names with individual pictures.

That's what I draw on the whiteboard. Simple.

She finally got the concept, so I walked back to her worksheet. I showed it to her line AB, which this fits to one of circle on the whiteboard? She looked at the whiteboard and back to worksheet. Her facial expression was unsure and said radius? WOW! She got it right answer! I was cheering and told her that she got it right! Suddenly her facial expression changed into a little smile instead crying. I encouraged to do next problem. She got it right again, well, she got WHOLE problems right. She was thrilled and raised her hand for teacher to check her worksheet.

Her worksheet has about 18 problems and it has different letters and places.

Teacher was surprised how I was able to get her to understand this worksheet. I simple told her that she got confused with this specific notes and too much information on one circle. She needs to see individual picture and it helps. That's why she was so frustrated. I found her problem and able to solved her problem.

I left school to go home and pondered about this situation. Is this career right for me? I know I am in graduate school for Deaf Education, but still have some doubts after learned about Deaf Education. I was unsure about myself to teach the children. This experience helped build my confident to teach the children. I still not 100% sure. I'm still scared about my internship coming up this spring.