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perspectives in Education and Deafness Practical Ideas for the Classroom and Community Volume 16, Number 5, May/June 1998 b r i g h t    i d e a Eyes for the City: Learning in Community by Douglas Jackson, Virginia Garcia, Joann Hansen, and Lorie Lail The community classroom—students give their own clothes a personal stretch test outside a clothing factory. Once a month, the students of Hillside's Deaf Education Upper Elementary Department leave the school—and enter their classroom. Their classroom is our hometown. As participants in a program called "Eyes for Independence," students ride metro buses, visit landmarks, and learn about El Paso's history, resources, and vocational opportunities. In destinations that are rewarding and diverse, students have visited a Levi jeans factory, a small awning-making shop, and the kitchen of an Italian restaurant, where they used the restaurant's computerized system to act as waiters and waitresses and practiced communication skills by ordering food. They have met zoo keepers, contractors, dry cleaners, TV weathermen, boot repairmen, and postal workers. They visited the Deaf Service Center, where they experimented with a new video relay system, and traveled to the courthouse for a mock trial to learn about our system of justice. They called on the University of Texas El Paso to learned about services required for all disabled students and careers in robotics, and they stayed to make clay bowls on a potter's wheel. Our forays into the community have had a positive effect on the students' academic program. English teachers appreciate the journals that students keep of their adventures; social studies teachers are grateful for the chance to study hands-on history and geography, and work on map skills; and the speech therapist makes the most of the real life situations to work on communication skills. We were surprised to find out how much these trips seemed to benefit the community as well. In fact, our second year funding came from the El Paso Community Foundation—along with a lot of support and encouragement. Community members seemed to enjoy our visits, welcoming us to their worksites. Some even came back to our school to team up on projects with us here. With an artist from the university, students painted a school mural. Putting together our upcoming job fair is easy. It seems increasingly natural that we think of the world as the students' classroom. After all, that is where their final exams will be. Douglas Jackson, MS, Virginia Garcia, MS, and Joann Hansen, BS, are teachers the Upper Elementary Department and Lorie Lail, MA-CCP-SLP, is speech therapist at Hillside Elementary School, in El Paso, Texas.

Last modified July 9, 1998
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