Dr Kelly Fleming

I was born Deaf. My Mum realized I was Deaf before I was two years old.

She taught herself about speech therapy for Deaf children using resources from the library.

My speech therapy began before I was three years old. It was exhausting and frustrating. I had some residual hearing but not enough to be considered useable.

My parents fought the Board of Education from the time I was four years old to attend the local hearing school. I never wanted to go to a hearing school. I wanted to go to the School for the Deaf that was 20 minutes from my home.

For reasons unexplained to me, that did not seem to be an option.

After starting school, my first grade teacher strongly recommended that I be sent to the School for the Deaf. I simply could not understand enough of spoken conversation in class.

My parents had agreed before they had children, that any decision that was related to the children would be a joint decision.

At the age of six, my Mum received a phone call from the School for the Deaf to say they had an opening for me. I remember standing right in front of her when that call came. She promptly said “no thank you.”

That was a turning point in my relationship with my Mum. It also caused a lot of tension between my parents. She had made a very important decision alone, without asking me what I wanted and without discussing it with my Dad.

Repeatedly over the years, apparently that school option was raised by teachers and doctors and my Mum refused to budge on her decision.

Sure, she could sign and I understood her when she spoke. She was the only person I could lip read.

I would go to school everyday and sit in class without understanding anything that was taught. At the end of class or in elementary school, I was given a paper from the teacher to take home that outlined everything that had been taught that day.

Then I would sit down everyday and Mum would teach me everything the other kids had learnt in class.

When I had to miss school because I was not well, it didn’t make any difference because I was learning my school work in the evenings.

I could not follow anything in class. I made friends but I was never an active participant in conversations with them because I had no idea what they were saying. I would pick up a word here and there, but nothing significant enough for me to actually be able to clue in to the conversation. My hearing aids didn’t help me understand, they just made things excruciatingly loud in my head and caused sores in my ears. Some of my friends learnt to fingerspell (which is the alphabet), others learnt some basic signs that helped me a bit more as I got older.

I was bullied by teachers who did not want a Deaf kid in their class and had no interest in learning new methods to teach me. Many teachers had the misconception that my hearing aids made me hear and I was just too lazy to pay attention.

This changed when I was 12 years old. The concept of mainstreaming children with disabilities has was in its beginning stages. A grade 8 English teacher from the School for the Deaf became an itinerant teacher and travelled to different towns where Deaf kids were in hearing schools. Most of these kids were in elementary school, I was the oldest student he had and the only one who used sign language.

I thought the world of him and he stayed with me and fought teachers for me until I graduated grade 13 when I was 18 years old.

I was a very bright kid. I read almost every book in the junior library in town. By the time I was 10, they permitted me to access the adult library. Something that was reserved for kids after the finished 8th grade. I hated novels but I read everything I could that was non-fiction.

I learnt to pronounce words clear enough to pass oral exams.

I started learning French in the 4th grade instead of 6th grade like the other students. By the time I arrived in high school, my French skills were close to those of the kids in the French immersion program.

I was blessed with two amazing French teachers. The first teacher was determined to find ways to teach me since I could not learn using her regular method. I finished all of 9th grade French within the first three months and she designed a program for me to continue my studies which took me far beyond my classmates.

My second French teacher became a very good friend of mine. She used French to teach me English grammar. A gift from heaven or I would never have passed English.

I was in the advanced program starting in elementary school. And by having Mum teach me my classes every evening, I was able to succeed in staying in the advanced program from grades 1-13. I even skipped 12th grade, only taking the mandatory English class. I completed grade 13, primarily in French.

I graduated with the award and bursary for students of French who were pursuing a university degree.

My last few years of high school were split between my hearing school and the School for the Deaf so that I could prepare for university.

My anger towards my Mum still remained for years to come. Why did she not allow my to go to a school where I could communicate with both teachers and students?

It has taken me a long time to understand and unfortunately my understanding came to late to tell her and make amends for the past conflicts we had about this issue.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve had time to look back on my life. The hospital was my home away from home. Had Mum agreed to send me to a school in another town, she would have put my health at risk.

She often received a phone call from school to say that I needed to come home. I was too sick to stay. My SJIA was a serious matter.

Mum didn’t have a car. The only car we owned was used by my Dad to go to work. If I had been at school in another town, she would not have been able to come to get me if she received a phone call.

Reflecting on this, I have to acknowledge that despite the less than perfect education I received at school and the extra work I had to do, Mum made the right decision.

Her insight into SJIA and the dangers it presented to me were more important to her than where I went to school.

I am a stronger person for having faced such adversity going to a hearing school and facing discrimination from my very first day.

But… I’m alive. Had I attended an out of town school, I may have become a statistic of SJIA of kids who passed away too young.

My Mum’s decision caused so much heartbreak for me, so much anger and a large rift in our relationship. Yet, it was a decision that as an adult, if I had to make the same decision for one of my kids, I would have made the same choice.

My happiness came later in life than some of my classmates who did not struggle with boredom in class because they couldn’t hear or understand anything. My childhood friends were able to experience normal childhood conversations while I was an outsider.

I had a lot of friends and they accepted me without a question. Everyone knew me and I got along with almost everyone I met.

Mum isn’t here now for me to thank her the decision she made about my schooling.

In my late 20s and up to my 40s, I started to better understand what SJIA was and how fragile life is.

Mum and I made amends in other ways when I was an adult and I’m grateful to have become her best friend as an adult. My best friend just happened to be named Mum.