What Do Deaf Teens Want?

What do deaf and hard of hearing students want in their education? Teens at the Model Secondary School for the Deaf, in Washington, D.C., decided to find out.
Led by teachers Leslie Page and Venita Gragg, the teens devised a questionnaire to ask students: "What is your vision for deaf and hard of hearing students and their families?" Last January, they sent out 35,000 questionnaires to classes and schools with deaf students. Their goal: to survey all deaf and hard of hearing students between eight and 18 years old.
"We had 700 replies in two weeks," said Page. "And they just kept coming."
By June, 2400 cards had been received. The students sorted the responses by subject. "We set up eight empty boxes in the room," said Page. "As responses arrived, we put them in."
Curious about the difference between responses in students in mainstream schools and schools for the deaf, the students coded the questionnaires. Mainstream students received green response cards; students from schools for the deaf received yellow response cards.
To everyone's surprise, there seemed to be no difference in the responses. "They were virtually the same," said Page.
Here are the results of the students' survey.

What We Want in our Future:
The National Vision Project

• I wish someone could make a hearing aid you could sleep with. The reason is because if someone is screaming or your sister or brother has to go to the bathroom, you would be able to get up and take them without them having to hit you or something.
  Bloom School, Rockford, Ill.
• I want deaf and hearing education to be equal,
  Model Secondary School for the Deaf, Washington, D.C.
• We need more Deaf role models... more deaf staff... because they know what we're feeling being Deaf!
  California School for the Deaf Riverside
• Students must learn speech.
  Bell School
• More advanced and affordable technology so that families and schools... can see each other and talk face to face in ASL, English, or any
  language.
  East High School, Anchorage, Alaska
• More TTYs and flashing alarms/bells at school... stronger and smaller hearing aids... more computers.
  Lombardi Middle School
• Education would be better if all the world signed.
  Tennesse School for the Deaf