New school--off and running

The new school began on Monday of this week. Okay, technically it is not a new school. What we actually have is a new self-contained deaf class in an already existing (hearing) school. Most of the hearing children attend school in the morning, which leaves us classroom space for the afternoon. Some older hearing children are attending in the afternoon, but their classes are upstairs. Translation: We can be noisy! :)

I expected to start with about half a dozen children and two teacher trainees. Instead, we have 11 children currently, and four trainees. It's quite a handful.

The children are from 4 to 14. All of them, of course, are deaf. In addition to deafness we have: one child who cannot walk unaided and is probably autistic, one deaf-blind child who has not yet learned communication skills, one child who is mentally challenged (retarded), another who seems to be have some pretty strong learning disabilities. About half of the children can sign. These are our teens, in their second year. The other half know little to no Sign Language.

We are in far from an ideal situation. If we wait for ideal conditions, however, these children will end up without any schooling whatsoever. Unfortunately it comes down to "better than nothing" sometimes. This is not to say they will not learn, just that we aren't starting out in a fully equipped school with well trained teachers. This is a developing country, and we are a developing school.

The teacher-trainees are learning Sign Language too. What distinguishes our schools, is that we require teachers to be Christians and fluent in Sign Language. Sign Language classes abound in the US, but here, they are very rare. Basically, if you want teachers to sign, you have to teach them.

While training the teachers, I must also be training myself! I have worked with deaf-blind students before, but only at college level. This is quite different. I'm scouring the internet for info, and praying for ideas on how to teach our young deaf-blind student to communicate.

Meanwhile, the Ozama school is doing well. The new teacher is adjusting well.

Alexi, who recently underwent surgery to correct a malformation of his ears is recovering well, and the surgery was a success. He is expected to be able to hear much better than previously--perhaps even 100%.

As for me, I've had a few glitches in hearing myself! I have noticed recently that I was needing things to be repeated much more frequently than before. It seemed like my understanding of Spanish was degenerating, when it should continue to improve. So I had a hearing test to see if that is where the problem lies. Sure enough, I showed a mild hearing loss.

The audiologist said that it is noticeable in Spanish, rather than English conversations, because Spanish isn't my native language. That means it is a language that I must hear in more ideal conditions, and perhaps at a slightly higher volume.

Please pray for me as I continue getting the new classes organized and functioning. Pray that our teachers will love and understand these special children. Pray also that everyone's communication skills will be adequate to the task, and develop into fluency quickly.