A sign of achievement

From: Chicago Tribune - Chicago,IL,USA - Jan 28, 2005

Near West Side Catholic school helps deaf pupils succeed

By Jaime Levy Pessin
Special to the Tribune
Published January 28, 2005

As her confirmation class began at Children of Peace school, Phyllis Winter bubbled with sound and motion.

Four of the 8th-grade students in the class preparing to receive the sacrament are deaf or hard of hearing, so she used both her voice and her hands to communicate while she waited for an interpreter to arrive.

Winter has worked at Children of Peace since 1957, when the school first started its deaf education program. Today the Near West Side school is the only Catholic school in the state with a program for deaf and hard-of-hearing students.

To teach children the abstract ideas embodied in religion is already tough. To transfer those ideas to kids with a different grasp of language requires a great deal of creativity. The school's teachers say conquering that creative challenge is the best part of their jobs.

"Just to speak about God to a child who doesn't hear and who has to sense it in terms of awe and wonder as they look at and experience the growth of a tree and the change of the seasons--how many different ideas can you use to get your faith across to them?" said Winter. "That's been my greatest happiness, to bring them the love of God and neighbor."

On Sunday, the school's students will be singing and signing at a mass at Notre Dame de Chicago Parish to kick off celebrations of national Catholic Schools Week, which runs through Feb. 5. Similar events will take place around the area with the goal of recruiting students and promoting Catholic schools.

The week is arriving as the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago prepares to close or reconfigure as many as 40 of its schools, which are suffering from declining enrollment and deteriorating finances. But Supt. Nick Wolsonovich pointed to Children of Peace and schools like it as examples of what's right with the school system.

"We do extremely well in educating young people, and schools like Children of Peace have contributed to that wonderful accomplishment," he said. "We are successful in terms of academic education, as well as the fact that we're touching the spiritual side of the child. We have hundreds of schools, and there's an awful lot of good work going on."

The services offered by Children of Peace are a welcome option to parents who want their hearing-impaired children to thrive in society and to feel a deep connection to God.

"We really wanted a school that could teach him religion in sign. That's his language," said Nancy Perez, whose 4th-grade son Christopher has a cochlear implant. She became a teacher's assistant four years ago in the school's preschool program for deaf children, partly so she could learn to better communicate with her son.

"Before going to that school, I wouldn't even be able to sign him 'Jesus' or 'pray.' There was no way for me to make him understand what I meant. Now he's learned so much about it. He's teaching us, too."

Winter considers her work a calling. She was working as a teacher in the 1950s when Catholic Charities sent out a plea for teachers for disabled children. Looking for a challenge, Winter trained to become a deaf education instructor and became the first teacher of deaf children at Children of Peace, then known as Holy Trinity.

She served as principal from 1980 until last year. Now she remains as president, mostly in charge of fundraising, but she also teaches some religion classes.

Of the 240 kids enrolled at the school, from preschool to 8th grade, 27 are deaf or hard of hearing. Students in the deaf education program are placed in hearing classrooms, and vice versa. Seven students who are siblings of hearing-impaired children participate in the deaf education program so they can learn to sign with their brothers and sisters.

Many of the teachers have personal connections to the field, and some are deaf. Principal Arlene Redmond said her parents are deaf.

Teaching a single deaf child in an all-hearing school could run the risk of making that child feel isolated, said Katherine Jankowski, dean of the Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. But when mainstreaming is done correctly, Jankowski said through an interpreter, "the expectations of their performance will be higher."

Jankowski and Redmond pointed out that deaf children will grow up to live in a hearing world. Exposing them to it early may make it easier for them to function as adults.

"I think it would be an injustice not to mainstream them," Redmond said. "When you open that door to mainstream, they have choices. A student's got both worlds to live in."

Although some students at Children of Peace have strong enough hearing and lip-reading skills to follow what's happening in a hearing classroom, others need an interpreter.

During Monday morning's 4th-grade class on organizational skills, three deaf students sat in the back of the classroom, with a second teacher interpreting a lesson on to-do lists and prioritizing. Later, Redmond sat at the front of a 5th-grade math classroom, signing for the benefit of a lone student in the front row.

In Winter's confirmation class, Jalissa Sanchez, 13, answered questions aloud and chatted with other students. Only the blue plastic pieces behind her ears hinted at her hearing loss. A student at Children of Peace since she was a toddler, Jalissa started out in self-contained deaf education classrooms. Now she takes all her classes with hearing kids.

"As I got to a higher grade, my mom and principal decided maybe they could challenge me in a class with all hearing," she said. "I'm glad for myself."

In confirmation class, Winter spoke in a clear, slow voice as Redmond stood beside her fluttering her hands. As Winter spoke of stirring the flame of faith, Redmond wiggled her fingers upward in the signed translation.

The class discussed the notion of faith through action, and Jalissa suggested a way their confirmation class could share their faith as a group: by organizing and leading one of the school's Tuesday morning masses. The class agreed.

When the students stand before the rest of the school, some of the children will lead their hearing peers in song. The rest will sign.

Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune