Deaf Education 'Nonexistent' In First Nations

Deaf teen leaves rural community for fresh start in Regina school due to sign language boost socialization in the capital of Saskatchewan.

REGINA, SK -- For those in remote and rural Sask., a hearing impairment can present major challenges. Seventeen-year-old Shayla Tanner, who is Deaf, has faced challenges academically and socially in her home community but has seen tremendous growth in the past three years.

She recalls that with few in her community of Cowessess First Nation knowing sign language, she fell behind in school and socializing. 'I just felt horrible'

"With my work I really felt like I just wanted to give up with it," she said through her interpreter as she signed. "I couldn't communicate with my friends and I felt like I was just having a breakdown.

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"With reading, when I used my voice while at my old school there were four kids and they said they couldn't understand me, and I just felt horrible about that."

Tanner says she would try to read lips and write notes to speak to others in her community.

"They would talk slow to me, but I still didn't understand. They would talk and I just didn't really get it."

Making friends was more difficult than it is now.

New beginning at Regina high school. It was her special education teacher who suggested she go to school at Thom Collegiate in Regina, Saskatchewan.

Thom teacher Joanne Weber, who is Deaf herself, runs a class that has been highly praised for the way it focuses on visual learning and sign language.

Art could be the next big breakthrough in Deaf education.

And so, three years ago, Tanner left Cowessess and moved in with her brother in Regina so that she could join the program.

It's was a challenge, she says. She learned a more in-depth version of American Sign Language and gained a better grasp of English grammar...

Read more on CBC News.

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Living In Between The Deaf And Hearing Worlds
A Hearing Son In Deaf Family 'I'd Rather Be Deaf'
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Related Documentary:
Deaf Awareness: Alone In A Deaf World
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A Hearing Son In Deaf Family 'I'd Rather Be Deaf'
Life and Deaf - BBC4 Documentary
Through Deaf Eyes - Documentary Film
Living In Between The Deaf And Hearing Worlds
Deaf Awareness 'Voiceless' Short Film
VICE News: Deaf Culture 'Signs of Change'
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Winnipeg Most Racist City In Canada: Maclean's

Welcome to Winnipeg, where Canada's racism problem is at its worst.

WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- Maclean's magazine has labelled Winnipeg the most racist city in Canada.

How the death of Tina Fontaine has finally forced it to face its festering race problem, by associate editor Nancy Macdonald published the magazine, "Welcome to Winnipeg, Canada: Where Canada's racism problem is at its worst" into public and the Canadians and Winnipeggers find out quite shocked that Winnipeg is Canada's most racist city.

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The Aboriginal community of Deaf and Hard of Hearing does feel the same manner as aboriginal people as well. There appears "Deaf" on the article which Tina Fountine's former boyfriend, who is Deaf, quote: "Her boyfriend was Deaf; the pair communicated by texting." Maclean's.

Winnipeg's racism problem is at its worst - Nancy Macdonald:

“Oh Goddd how long are aboriginal people going to use what happened as a crutch to suck more money out of Canadians?” Winnipeg teacher Brad Badiuk wrote on Facebook last month. “They have contributed NOTHING to the development of Canada. Just standing with their hand out. Get to work, tear the treaties and shut the FK up already. Why am I on the hook for their cultural support?”

Another day in Winnipeg, another hateful screed against the city’s growing indigenous population. This one from a teacher (now on paid administrative leave) at Kelvin High School, long considered among the city’s progressive schools - alma mater to just about every Winipegger of note, from Marshall McLuhan to Izzy Asper, Fred Penner and Neil Young.

Badiuk’s comments came to light the day Rinelle Harper - the shy 16-year-old indigenous girl left for dead in the city’s Assiniboine River after a brutal sexual assault - spoke publicly for the first time after her recovery. She called for an inquiry to help explain why so many indigenous girls and women are being murdered in Winnipeg, and elsewhere in Canada.

Badiuk’s comments came while the city was still reeling from the murder of Tina Fontaine, a 15-year-old child from the Sagkeeng First Nation who was wrapped in plastic and tossed into the Red River after being sexually exploited in the city’s core.

They came after Nunavummiuq musician Tanya Tagaq, last year’s Polaris Music Prize winner, who complained that while out to lunch in downtown Winnipeg where she was performing with the city’s ballet this fall, “a man started following me calling me a ‘sexy little Indian’ and asking to fuck.”

They came the very week an inquest issued its findings in the death of Brian Sinclair, an indigenous 45-year-old who died from an entirely treatable infection after being ignored for 34 hours in a city ER.

They came in the wake of a civic election dominated by race relations after a racist rant by a frontrunner’s wife went viral: “I’m really tired of getting harassed by the drunken native guys” downtown, Gord Steeves’s wife, Lori, wrote on Facebook. “We all donate enough money to keep their sorry asses on welfare, so shut the fuck up and don’t ask me for another handout!” The former city councillor and long-serving, centrist politician didn’t bother apologizing. He lost, but not because of this.

For decades, the friendly Prairie city has been known for its smiling, lefty premiers, pacifist, Mennonite writers and a love affair with the Jets. Licence plates here bear the tag “Friendly Manitoba.” But events of last fall served to expose a darker reality. The Manitoba capital is deeply divided along ethnic lines. It manifestly does not provide equal opportunity for Aboriginals. And it is quickly becoming known for the subhuman treatment of its First Nations citizens, who suffer daily indignities and appalling violence. Winnipeg is arguably becoming Canada’s most racist city...

Read The Full Story.

There is the shadow of racism will rightly continue to hang over Winnipeg.

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First Nations Sign Language Council of 1930

Documentary: Indian Sign Language: First Nations Council of 1930.

The following clips are from a gathering of Native American chiefs, medicine men, and elders representing more than a dozen different nations.

The films were produced by General Hugh L. Scott and the U.S. Department of the Interior by an Act of Congress, for the purpose of preserving and recording Indian Sign Language in a variety of discourse styles.

The meeting took place in September of 1930 in Browning, Montana, and is the largest known gathering of high-ranking representatives from Indian Nations to be filmed up until then.

This footage comes courtesy of the National Archives, and was digitized with support from the Office of the Chancellor at the University of Tennessee.

SOURCE