For Immediate Release
Contact: Ron Kirksey
Director of Media Relations
Kent State University
330-672-2727
[email protected]
Harold Johnson
330-672-2294 [email protected]
NOTE: Photos available
An End to Isolation: Kent State University Professor Builds a Unique Cyber-City for The Deaf
"I tell my students from the very beginning that today you are my students, tomorrow my colleagues. I do not need weak colleagues." Nor does the rest of the planet, in the eyes of Dr. Harold Johnson, professor of Special Education in the Educational Foundations and Special Services Department of Kent State University.
So Johnson has embarked on building a worldwide Internet community for the deaf, their parents, and their current and future teachers. In the process, he is creating a revolution in deaf/hard of hearing (d/hh) education, all from his cramped office in Kent State's White Hall.
"The primary problem of deafness is not a lack of hearing, but an abundance of isolation, both personal and informational," he said. "The website is designed to address that problem."
Johnson speaks rapidly in conversation sprinkled with sign language and genuine excitement about the international community that is developing around his website, http://www.educ.kent.edu/deafed. His vision to build an informed community of the deaf, their parents, and their current and future teachers is getting 7,000-8,000 "hits" a day from around the world, and another 3,500 hits each weekend day on at least 6,000 files online. This is indeed a big community.
He has recently been awarded a federal grant to link the 72 deaf education teacher preparation programs in the nation into this community, all sharing what they learn - and ushering in a new era in web-based deaf education, including education for gifted d/hh children.
Johnson also is teaching his students that research that is worth doing is research that is worth sharing - no more great ideas tossed aside with last semester's papers. Great ideas become part of the community website.
"For the first time, we can collaboratively share case studies and teaching methods, as well as provide faculty with the technological skills to do it," Johnson said. "This website and Kent State University are leading the way."
In addition to linking the nation's deaf education programs, the website also includes the six member organizations of the Council for the Education of the Deaf (CED), in order to share knowledge and efforts to improve the skills of teachers and the lives of the deaf.
For instance parents, learning that their baby is deaf, feel tremendous isolation. "The shock and emotion is horrendous," Johnson said. Most parents can hear, and do not know what to do for their baby who cannot. And, in turn, most deaf children grow up not knowing deaf adults and so do not know what deaf people do once they reach adulthood and leave school.
"Faculty teach the way that they were taught," Johnson said. They draw on their own instructional experiences, but most completed their doctoral studies before the personal computer revolution or the advent of the Internet, he said. Their experiences were in schools for the deaf or self-contained classrooms, rather than the inclusive classrooms where most deaf students now are educated.
Under Johnson's recently funded proposal, the faculty of all the deaf education programs across the nation are joining the community to share course syllabi, case studies, faculty skills, funding opportunities, recruitment strategies, implementation plans, and evaluation activities.
A revolution is brewing here.
"This will serve to establish a framework for the comprehensive restructuring of d/hh teacher preparation," Johnson said. Part of that restructuring involves faculty learning the technology to become a part of this community. Another element involves teaching methods. "Change the work of students and you will change the teaching of teachers," Johnson says in his grant proposal.
"If research is important enough to do, it is important enough to share," he tells his students. "Your research should be useful to you and to the teachers who will be your colleagues." Johnson puts the best research projects on the website.
Through the website, he has also established a mentoring program, whereby teachers-in-training are matched with one or more cyber-mentors - d/hh adults, parents, teachers, or administrators. Through e-mail, the students share and discuss what they are learning and serve as information "gophers" for their mentors.
The mentors, in turn, share their knowledge of deaf education and deaf culture, identify other resources they would like their teacher-in-training to gather, and give the students a sense of the day-to-day realities and potential of deaf education. The students submit the best mentor-directed research to the website where it is annually reviewed by a CED panel.
Johnson's fundamental goal in building this community is to enable all deaf children to achieve high standards of academic excellence, regardless of their degree of hearing loss or their educational setting. And while he and his colleagues are making large strides in that direction, he is not through building. He is currently setting up a network that will allow his students to work with gifted d/hh children as on-line tutors. Like other gifted students, d/hh children can get bored in regular classrooms.
While Johnson's education students are learning the realities of deaf education, professionals in the field learn from the students' research. As his students graduate, they move into their field as stronger colleagues of their former mentors. And their own students can rid themselves of that feeling of isolation.
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(12/17/99)
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