The Reality of Inclusion

Hi Everyone,

Since the start of University this past September, one of the things I wanted most was to go to a class alone. When I say alone, I mean without interpreters. I was curious to see the reaction from students when I appeared to be "normal" and I was also curious to see how I could hold up alone.

Last night there was some scheduling confusion and I ended up being without an interpreter for an hour. I sat in the classroom with a bunch of students from my Linguistics class and I felt like I was one of them for the first time. I looked around the room and watched my peers. They had all pulled out their books, so I did the same. A few moments later a teaching assistant arrived to lead the extra help session. As I watched the class around me begin I felt left behind. I was fine sliding in with my peers, acting hearing, until the class started but then I realized that I was only able to understand the odd word from speech reading and certainly not enough to make a sentence.

As the hour progressed I wanted nothing more than for my interpreter to arrive. I finally had come to value the access to communication that they offer for me. By the time she did arrive I was already exhausted from trying to catch any part of the class discussion up to that point. As she jumped in and started interpreting I was able to relax and I was understanding everything.

All semester I have thought that the interpreters make me stand out and I blamed them for the exclusion I was feeling at school. Then, when I didn't have an interpreter, I felt even more excluded and left out. I can't blame it on the interpreters anymore, it is very much me. I realized yesterday that I can't resent interpreters for it and I need to really analyze the way I am doing things.

My approach to University has changed a lot since the start of the semester, in a communication sense anyway. In the beginning I had decided to voice for myself some times. I told everyone I was fine in most 1-1 situations and I was willing to try to speech read if the need arose. For next semester I have already started to change that. I have told my new profs that if we need to communicate without an interpreter it will have to be through note-writing or gesturing. Aside from with a few people in Toronto, I have turned off my voice.

Jenny