Prime
Spare a thought for all of society regardless of ability
Angella Nampewo
What you need to know:
- They instruct children who have hearing impairment. They teach at a school in Kampala; one I knew little about, until recently. From these two ladies, I learnt that teaching children with hearing impairment is fraught with challenges, some of which I had never imagined.
In my line of work, I have met many people but none quite as plain-speaking and honest as two special needs teachers I interacted with recently.
They instruct children who have hearing impairment. They teach at a school in Kampala; one I knew little about, until recently. From these two ladies, I learnt that teaching children with hearing impairment is fraught with challenges, some of which I had never imagined.
Chief of these is the fact that the families of these children treat them as second class citizens or outcasts. They don’t prioritise them, abandon them at school and many pay little in school fees or nothing at all. The schools must run, the children have many needs but we hardly know about them.
Years ago, the first story I ever wrote for the newspaper was about a church for people with hearing impairment. I walked into a school for the deaf on a random afternoon because I got tired of merely walking past the school as I had done for years. On this one afternoon, I walked in and in spite of my limitations in sign language, I communicated enough to impress my hosts so that I got invited to church the following day.
I learnt a lot in those days, including that the rest of us need to learn sign language because on that afternoon, I was the one at a disadvantage. I did not speak the language, could not follow and enjoy the conversation.
There were many things I missed that day, things I could have learnt but because I am illiterate in that sense, I missed a great chance. And I really love information, so not knowing what my new friends were saying or thinking and having to get it second hand through an interpreter, was painful. To this day, I still wonder if I could even have written a better story about the church for the deaf, if only I spoke sign language.
Even our education system, I learnt, does not prioritise children with hearing impairment. Once society has rejected them, the system adds insult to injury by providing little in the way of facilities or syllabus adjustments. We care not for the peculiar needs of these our children, brothers and neighbours.
If you look around you, you would hardly find adjustments in the way we plan infrastructure or arrange systems to accommodate people with disabilities. We pay lip service but hardly know what really goes on when a child with a hearing impairment goes to school. Since the hearing are the majority, we do not venture beyond our narrow world of the hearing to listen to our brothers who have hearing impairment. We probably think they have nothing to say.
Every day we look at the sign language they speak and are happy to ignore because it means nothing to us. That is the only way that we can think of sending teachers who have no knowledge of sign language to schools for children with special needs. Why don’t we train enough teachers who speak sign language? And why not require all teachers to learn sign language?
Think of it on the flip side. What if it were you or your child who had a hearing impairment and you could not find enough people who speak your language. Wouldn’t you be frustrated too? What if the entire system was rigged against you but you were still required to compete on an equal footing, one person running a smooth race and another with hurdles but all expected to cross the finish line at the same time.
Ms Nampewo is a writer, editor and communications consultant
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