House Visits Clear Up Communication Barriers
House Visit activity was included as part of MCCID’s program of bridging the gap between deaf students and their mostly hearing families.
MCCID has been doing this activity for the past nine years. This is part of the student’s Personality Development and Public Relations subject. It has renewed relationships among parents and deaf child as well as developed bonding between the school and the family. Most families don’t know how to communicate through sign language. This has become an opportunity for the parents to talk to their children spontaneously with the aid of a sign language interpreter.
However, house visits are only done once in the entire three years of the student’s school life. This is in order to minimize the family’s hassle in preparing for it.
House Visit Procedure
In this activity, the parents are the main characters. The school will first send a formal letter to the family asking if they have a time for the group to visit their house which is always on a Sunday afternoon so that their work and other schedules will not be affected. After which, the student’s classmates together with their instructor and sign language interpreter will visit their house and have an intimate talk with the parents.
Aside from introducing the present members of the family to the group, most pressing and important issues among the family were also discussed. Intimate and even sensitive issues were also discussed. Questions were asked like
“How did your child become deaf?
or
“What were you and your family’s reactions when all of you found out that he/she is deaf?
These questions were very important for the deaf since almost all of them don’t have any slight idea why they were born that way. Some of them even concocted their own version of how they became deaf like they saw some folk fairies during their childhood or they fell from their beds while they were asleep when they were still babies. These were clearly explained by their mothers who really knew the reasons first hand.
However, issues like adoption, being born out of wedlock, both parents were blood relatives or other sensitive family secrets were being shared with utmost caution. The parents were asked first if they would like to reveal these things. If they opted not to, then Sir Jojo together with the teacher-in-charge will just turn off the sign language interpretation and simply talk about it discreetly.
Some people from other schools question the integrity of this system. But feedback coming from the parents and other members of their family were very positive and favorable. They were able to ventilate their concerns to their child without any hesitation and sign language barrier. Most problems were solved due to clearer communication.
It Started with One House Visit
Among all schools for the deaf in Metro Manila, only MCCID has this kind of special program. It started when students decide to have an unannounced visit to the house of one of their classmates after having their educational tour back in 1999. When the group arrived at the house, they were warmly greeted by the deaf’s parents and was introduced to other family members. They even hurriedly prepared a special merienda to the group.
During that afternoon, the deaf’s mother started asking varied questions like about his son’s performance in school and the reasons why he always goes home late. That’s when Sir Jojo started the direct interview between the student and his parent. He also inquired about their son’s background like the school where he studied during his primary years and the true reason of his deafness. The family was so happy that we dropped by their house.
After that activity, the school decided to make this a yearly program and all students must participate.
