I agree with it. I am trying to work on it in New Jersey!!!

yes, i agree we need to work together – open up discussion – and think about our Deaf children’s future. more and more are getting coclear implanted and not allowed to use sign language. how can we approach it better? how can we unite better?
Noni

True. I don’t know bigger picture for leadership from any national org. Need to be more vocal and promote aggressive agenda than passive in local centers. Wagging finger at myself, sorry I missed CAD mtg last Sat., busy with finals and projects.

Glad you brought this up! And looking forward to your next Vlog.

I have so many ideas and I am not a leader, but a seed of thought type of a person.

Let’s have more empowerment and ideas to have bilingual education for every deaf child in America.

Til later,
John

I agree with you. We need to reduce negative and more positive on v/blogs. Lately, it was happened but already resolved. That is good. We need to be balance negative and positive.

Yes, we need to discuss in positive way, not negitive way.

Glad you brought this up. Many people are really worrying about their identification as a leader but they do not have excellent communication system. I REALLY THANK YOU to bring this up.

Yes think of a big picture so we can win an Oscar for Best Picture!

I see you at the movie
Gary 😉

That is an impressive presentation. Like I always say, you are one of few vloggers that are leaders. Though I may vlog, I like to be a follower because being a leader is a scary job!
Looking forward to your subsequent posts!

Hi Joey,

Your vlog brings up interesting points, we have several different organizations with different types of leadership, I’m noticing that NAD is starting to perk up and listening to us more than before, and then we have Deafread where we can express our opinions, thoughts and ideas where it wouldn’t have been possible to do that few years ago. It is a new breakthrough for all of us, I think it is bringing us more closer as a group but at the same time, we have a lot of differing opinions, thoughts, ideas, experiences and many things which adds the flavor and pop into the brew of Deafread. I think we can be leaders in many different ways, contributing something in the pot and fighting for what we believe in especially in education for deaf children and ASL and as well as for our rights to full accessible communication which includes getting interpreters and improving technology that will help us communicate more effectively with the hearing world.

Joey,

Yes! We gotta look at the bigger picture. So… what I want-

1) ALL Deaf children grow up bilingual, starting at birth! ALL Deaf children in the U.S. fluent in both ASL and English, and more languages!

2) ALL 28 million Deaf Americans unite against the abusive AGBAD and shut down that organization for once and all. It’s the AGBAD that divides us, not ourselves. Fight the real enemy, not each other!

3) ALL Deaf people celebrate being Deaf! 🙂

Well outspoken!

That’s why many Deaf people aren’t interested in participating in any deaf organizations as leaders… Hopefully, they will be back to help our community grow better…

Thank Joey for this!

Interesting sign for “system”…I use “s” handshape…

Never saw that before…

Sure… I look at N.A.D. as an organization for the Deaf and it knows Deaf issues well. Somebody in the organization should clarify its role in a certain issue on ASL or Civic rights… You asked for better communication. Can N.A.D. lead the role in better communication? If somebody is not satisified with its role, you can form a coalition to run for a certain purpose or mission. As far I know the N.A.D. is supposed to be an organization leader for Deaf people.

Please feel free to express your feedbacks on it.
Don Ames

Joey ,

Yes you have been study about it in a way for deaf life try to see improve over the years. Yep me too what will be like five (5) years from now about Vlog or Blog as will be good or bad way. I believe it going to be take better each a time by they learning each other to improvement in communication with “VLOG”
over than “Blog”.

Also I like her Barb DiGi on her comment as the system of pattern in understand of education to grow out to go flow along. The Key is take time.

For me as see now is VLog is more helpful over than blog ……. why ….. because I have seen that Blog bring more confusing bounce each other.
Because the expression of face to make more clear on Vlog over than Blog.

I myself do not have Vlog …. I am sorry.

Hope it help you get the idea those two between Vlog and Blog. To me …. it is impossbility cause crash fighting over it. That all for now – wait and see where deaf people as branch go many
different direction way like a tree what they doing in group style of hobby, Education, Movie maker, family , church or you name it.

Ok Joey ……. bottom of my heart I love ASL with Vlog over Blog. The Expression of face and hands is the key to enjoy it. I trying get the key or figure it out about Blog in what is the problem and it very hard to solve it ……. nothing I can’t do with Blog.

Davy

Hey Joey!

I like Barb want to start up serious nation-wide Bi-Bi movement. I want to make it utterly impossible for schools to ignore it anymore. That means we have to get the very best research up and posted on an accessible website. The biggest obstacle we keep bumping into is that people say “Well where’s your research showing that Bi-Bi is better than such and such?” (implants, mainstreaming, whatnot). So we need to be able to address their questions.

And another thing we need to do is counter this increasing practice of mainstreaming. No matter what happens, even if a kid is all alone in his school, we need to guarantee that he has access to a good Bi-Bi program. I think there are several ways we can ensure this, but it’s gonna take a LOT of advocacy and serious political cooperation.

I wonder if we can’t solve the problem of having a website for Bi-Bi stats ASAP? Anyone willing to help build one?

hi, I understand your points about better leadership and better communication . I think that A Leader is a person who does not know he /she has the leadership ability.she /he needs to develop positive outlook on communication and listen skills . better teamwork together.. not Big I all the time.. work together with humble, open minded warmth,and caring system.. agree??? 🙂 KH

Glad you brought this topic up. There are several issues I want to address, but I’m terrified due to several trolls in the Deaf readers. I have checking out with my feelers (like an insect) around in my Deaf community – they quickly warned me that I will be in extreme hot seat – and some will (in ASL GLOSS = SHOOTING me down). It’s like a big pink flying elephant in the room where we all are in, and we ignore it.

We need to step back and view this sensitive topics into bigger and netural pictures. We need to be able to put our own bias, experiences, personal belief system, and assumptions behind in order to see the modern world where our deaf children are in now. *As of now, I understand that there’s only 15% deaf/hh children at the deaf schools in USA – the rest of the children are at other school systems. Is this acceptable fact? I would love to see the intelligent dialogue among us addressing this, and to get the ball rolling for our deaf children becoming bilinguals.

As I have been in a journey from totally 100% this ‘X’, lukewarm ‘Y’ and now good ‘Z’, I have the teaching experiences with about 150 deaf/hh children where I got into ‘Y’. Now as mom, I am at the ‘Z’. The X and Z are same in some ways, and opposite in few ways.. The ‘Y’ time has taught me the reality – the parents are the ones who can make differences in deaf children’s education.

In the conclusion, I hope to see ~healthy~ discussion of our burning questions in our deaf education, bilingual education, deaf children with HA, CI, speech abilities, and deaf children w/o speech abilities. ASL as the first language and English as second language ..in Reading and Writing ONLY??

Please don’t bash .. Peace out

It looks like the captions or the throwing credit-like sentences inserted mid-sentences were meant for certain audiences to get the gist of this ever present, ever-going concern. The other vLogs on the same concern probably didn’t do much merit. Let’s see if yours works.

We need Deaf leaders, If somebody interested in. How we can trust them? We do not have good investigate before vote her/him. Should we paid the investigate them then Make vote which the Deaf leader would better leadership.
Few Deaf leaders ripped deaf people off from their money and disappear. They should do something that make sure not happening again.

we need a leader to decide a system to prevent audism globally. There are lots of arguments for the defintion for audism, some deaf people in UK trying to reject audism. I have seen many forms of audisms, (outside the defintion) and have complex cases.

Joey,

I surely do wish I could keep my comments shortly as possible as I know it is very important to share my information here since I have my own Deaf families and I been traveled around a lot and I been visited in many areas for many years. I even been educate some Hearing professional people about what we need in many areas lately.

I agreed with Joey about what he just stated in this commnet. The small sized screen of videos are pretty hard to see when a person is/was trying to sign out some very important information due to the expressions of face and body language that most Deaf people are depending on for their best of understandable. Been wondering what reasons why most Hearing people have their own large sized screens instead of just always small sized screens for our comfortable views to understand more clear? I just been thinking why cannot Hearing allow us, Deaf people to have about 3/4 size of screen and Hearing have about 1/4 size of screen to combine since we all are living in this same world as we all are just humans as no matter Hearing or Deaf or whatever it called.

In another comments, I wanted the Hearing world to just let us, Deaf people do our own natural ASL communications as our understandable well in our own ASL easy to communication than any other invents from any Hearing people because they do not communicate as we do in our daily life, the major reasons I know Hearing people do have their different languages of speak from the North, from the South, from West and from the East. Same with us, Deaf people do have their own ASL from where they came from. I learned some several differently ASL sign languages while I been traveled out around. I believed it’s very important if we Deaf people keep our ASL very strongly and not allow any change as like these ESL, SEE, OSL, or whatever it calls.

I better limit myself now as I believe my comments are too long enough for now. Do you agree with my comments here or what?

Smile…. Lu Long

Joey,

Again here I am. I want to say something very important here since we people should allow some Deaf children who want to become an actor in any future. I been trying to go through several places and they been turned us down because one of my Deaf children is too young?? I am trying to do my best for one of my Deaf children’s sake as one of my Deaf children wants to become a young Deaf actor for many reasons that I understand in how one of my Deaf children who wants to do this for his own future which effected me to feel that it is very important for me and some of you people who can give one of my Deaf children and some other Deaf children more chances because I really do understand in any of these Deaf children since I was one of those drama leaderships in one of these Deaf schools during my high school years which effected me to feel a very good about myself. I also was a member board in some other places to help some areas to be successful.

We really need to start to encourage some Deaf children to become an actor to show this whole world that we all Deaf people can do to educate the others to understand our Deaf cultures better. Where can we start this together?

I hope there’s some real very good chances to start to give our very important encouragments for our Deaf children to reach their very good goals without any limitations in many areas as possible in their future because I know this is very important for our Deaf children to reach their goals to become whatever they wish to become of what?? Not just for us people do the discision for our Deaf children to become what we wanted for our Deaf children to become of…. because it is their own goals to reach their own better future sakes that we may not aware of. Just for us to follow and see what our Deaf children want out of their life by their own with some of our help.

If we do not give any of our encouragments for our Deaf children that may hurt their future and effect them to be failed from our faults. They will always remember who they can blame on for not allow them to have their own choices in their future life to look at their goals to be reached.

I do believe that our good encouragments and our good examples are very important for our Deaf children to have their better education to learn how they really can be able to reach their good goals as possible for their better future sakes and helping them to become successful in one of these days.

Please allow me know if there’s any good chances to start any of this in any nearby future.
Sorry, I had to be rush and hope I did not make any mess in this comments.

Thanks,

Lu Long

Hi Joey,
liked what you shared, about the bigger picture.

Hi Hi Hi Joey…
glad Everyone can pinch in and work together to get positive out.. Where all of us can enjoy the feedbacks & debates and all that.. To get the system in a good way… Keep it up..

Take care
Hillary

Good to see you back…was wondering about you when you’ll be back and do more vlogs. 🙂

Well point…we need to do that to make one strong Deaf community by working together and to look into positive rather than negative. Be open about it and discuss every one of our opinions into any type of issues. 🙂

Joey,

We can learn a lot through constructive criticism. Is constructive criticism negative is a good question. We cannot avoid negative comments. Negative comments can help us improve the betterment of Deaf lives. If we say positive all the time, will we improve anything. We have to be balanced positive and negative.

I come from a deaf family. In the past there were many leaders who were deaf and were willing to do anything as the volunteers. but nowadays Deaf people do not want to do anything for free. They want to get something in return.
Look at the officers of the organizations who get free combo tickets, travelling , and accomodation to attend any conference or meeting. They are now freebies ( negative word???) but it is a fact. Suppose if they do not receive free board and meals, will they be officers of the organizations????

If Deaf people have hearts of gold, we will have great leaders to promote the betterment of deaf lives.

We should not say any destructive criticism that put people down. Some of us want to keep negative comments to themselves and they are actually not helpful . They may be afraid to lose friends if they speak their own mind ( negative or positive). Look at some Deaf people who speak negatively about cochlear implants! Cochlear implants may help some deaf children. Those people who oppose cochlear implants should keep negative comments how they feel about cochlear implants. I think it is wrong. Our communication should be OPEN and HONEST ( negative or positive). One most important thing for us to do is RESPECT anyone’s opinion and we do not have to agree anyone’s opinion but respect it.

Joey,

Yeah, You are the right! I am looking forward to see your next vlog!

G’day Joey,

It’s interesting you mentioned about leadership, organizational, communication, and et cetera.

I could sing you the “leadership” song, but I am not going to do that here in this post.

I do not know if you may realize or not… there are so many state associations who are actively working on this kind of topics you just mentioned earlier in your vLog. I noticed someone mentioned about New Jersey. I found it really interesting.

Let me tell you why I found it interesting… I’ve been a president of New Jersey Association of the Deaf (NJAD) nearly 2 years now. My term is coming to an end this summer. I most definitely would like to continue serving my role as a president for this organization. It’s entirely up to our members in NJ.

I do have the similar “attitude” as you stated in your vlog, being positive, and all that. What I did was… I decided to be proactive and show my action/contribution to the community by participating in a state association. Good enough, my action have spoken loudly and the community actually reacted to my actions in positive way.

I am very, very, and very thankful to have these wonderful people who sacrificed their personal time and volunteered their services for NJAD. Some of them have served for NJAD over 20 plus years, some of them served much less. These people actually made NJAD look good. I am not here to talk about my role as a president, but I am talking here how they made NJAD look good. They worked hard to make things better for New Jersey. We have four SPECIFIC goals for last 2 years; I believe we actually did them all. Good enough, NJAD is one of four states who won most recognized advocacy services in the country credited by NAD. It was a nice surprise for us, we decided to continue being proactive in our community. I think it (our actions) is going to speak for us loudly.

I’m getting off the point here… let’s get back to the point, why not you and everyone else who “agreed” with your vlog message and stop talking about how to “change”, “develop”, “enhance”, “reconstruct”, “(endless thesaurus words for change)” and start to get involved with your home organizations. It has not to be the only state association, but it can be a city organization, or national organizations who are devoted to improve the quality of lives in the deaf community.

Hey, I am not here to tell you to STOP to talk about the change entirely, but I am here to say, please show me the action! Show me your actions. Your action speaks loudly more than your words. I am not here to question your loyalty, passion, and motivation with the deaf community. I am here to question, “Are you full of hot air?” I am getting tired of people who tend to criticize and do nothing to back up their rants.

I want you (not specifying Joey, but everyone else…) go out there and join your state association (hopefully) or any service-advocate organization and become a member, find a way to volunteer your time in any sort-of-kind project, and do them well!

Once you are actually doing them, you will be very surprised how quickly the “change” will happen.

Show us your true colors, be proactive for your community!

-Sean

P.S. If I didn’t win the second term, I most definitely will stay in and serve for the organization next 2 more years.

Good to see you back! 🙂

Yes, there is a lot of work to be done — developing several systems to help unite deaf people.

My suggestion …

Develop a weekend-long leadership program similar to YLC for deaf adults to help them gain or hone their leadership skills. That will certainly give them some confidence to become leaders. That will lead to building better systems for the deaf.

Good job, Joey!

Sean (#32)

Thanks for your comments. Rest assured, I have been VERY active with the California Association of the Deaf in looking into some areas on how we can improve. Not only that but I am also very active at my school as well.

The intention of my vlog is to discuss ideas on how we can “change” our leadership as you mentioned and as we can see, there are some constructive discussion on what we should do.

I can’t agree more with you – we need to join Deaf state associations and become more proactive. That’s what I have been doing.

Thanks.

Hi Joey,

Yes, I agree with you. It is a fact that we, Deaf people, who grow up in oppressed society. We, v/bloggers, still bring up the issues, thoughts, opinions, and experiences whether it is negative or positive. Some of them have been resolved and some of others are not resolved. We are involved in discussing how to solve it in positive way and help us to adjust our attitude. We do need a leader to lead us to work together as a team.

By the way, thanks for bringing it up

Joey,

Hey, I just popped to think after I been thinking and thinking all about our Deaf systems and Deaf future as how things can be work out together in many amazing things as possible…..

Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, I am waving my hands to get all of your attendations as possible…. Hey…. Why cannot we Deaf people have our own shows on the TV? I mean our own channels as hearing do…. Can we, Deaf?

I know there’s a lot of things we Deaf people need to think think think and think about having our own channels on tv to spread our words into this worldwide because really I feel it is very important to start with to help each other what if there’s bad weather or anything as we Deaf people know that we usually depending on our TV visions as our radars….

Hearing have a lot items to depend on such as radios, cell phones and etc….. but where abouts us, Deaf people? We depend on our visions then why cannot we have our screens work out?

Thanks for your time, hope to read from you again soon….. Smile…. Lu Long

Bonjour, Joey!
I seem to recall that in 1970s and 1980s, some deaf Gallaudetians went to the West to merely be immersed in courses on leadership skills. Upon the completion of the training, they returned to the East, being remarkably transformed from “shy individuals” into “leaders”, gaining self-esteem,
confidence, self-assertiveness, and ability in leadership. I asked them how they had changed.
They said they had developed from CSUN leadership skills. Come to think of it, taking
leadership training in 1970s-80s were quite in vogue. Perhaps those who are members of Generation X would consider taking the training at CSUN in this millennium. Brainstorming sessions
in an annual conference would do it, too.

I like Jean Boutcher’s idea of having an Annual Conference to brainstorm ideas… to enhance the deaf children’s education and language, which eventually will have domino effect to eliminate to most of our problems since 1880 Milian.

John

Hi, Joey and commenters…

To # 23, Mia,

Bottom line, a leadership means a representative of your interested group. So, you would have to know someone is very concerned and or caring for the group that he or she would do anything. That is how you can figure out easier. For ripping off situations, simply get at least two auditors to prevent this from happening. Better two auditors than one auditor, more proof…if you can get two instead of one.

I could not recall the name of the book, but the book consists the instruction of how to run the meetings. It is very good book that you can run the organization very well. This book will help prevent from distrusting situations. I am pretty sure someone else would know the name. Excuse me, been a mom for a loooong time, lol.

deafk

That book, “Roberts’ order something???”

Actually, a lot of deaf participants are not familiar with this book. Not even praciticing this… No workshop provided?? That is the problem. That gives some “villians” an opporunity to get by with money, etc…

The workshop to deaf population is great needed. The deaf needs to know how to protect the organizations. So, that is why I have to mention this.

deafdk: I understand your point, Please excuse me my english writing really bad and need to practice lot. You are about right that i don’t know about that book “Roberts” something. ( Interesting perspective.) Look at my second home: Nevada. They need good leader like others. No one wants it because of not trusting the leadership. I asked few friends, I found out that no leadership in Nevada since 1994-1995. See? I want every 50 states need Deaf Leader for Deaf community treat be fair and growing stronger.

Deaf Leaders come and go. Some left good impression, some bad impression, rest left in neutral.
To start a good system, we need to start up a good leadership training.

To #43.

Mia,

See, obviously you need a workshop, smile!

Thank you so much for responsing back.

I just checked the google for Rober’s something, smile.

It is called Robert’s rule of order. It also offers online information how to run meetings and others. Wow!! Maybe a fee included? Better a book from bookstore, anyway.

I loved your ideas about bigger pictures of leadership, communication, and system.
Every Deaf person and Deaf community from big cities to small town, wherever they are, visualize it differently.

Each of them viewed leadership as individual as leader in thier own way whether they think they are doing the right or wrong way while other agreed or disagreed. It is how they performed as leader. There are few good leaders and many good followers, while there are many not so good leaders and followers based on how they wanted it to be. It does not matter whether it is a postive or negative as we always learned from them to correct the mistake and improve our knowledge and skills.

Many of them prefer to be leaders in sports or social group instead of being in political, Deaf rights, human rights, educations, and few others vital to our life. There are few leaders involved the critical issues and ended up being burned out.

There were some workshop on leadership, however, few Deaf people attended. Where were the others?

I fully supported Bi-Bi in Deaf school. There are decine numbers of Deaf children at residential school, and more at mainstreamed — What happened to Bi-Bi? I noticed Indiana has the best Bi-Bi program, but I have not seen other residential school follow this program. What happened? There are too many Deaf students at the mainstreamed school and many of them are spreading out. I do not see Bi-Bi in that school.

Last, but not least, I wanted to see Joey Baer’s mission on the bigger pictures of better Leadership, communication and systems that all of us watched his ideas. Will we act upon this ideas and shared with younger generations? Where are they? I’ve tried so hard to motivate them to get involved but they prefer to be with thier peers on sports, social events, and the fun part instead of worry about the Deaf Human rights…. The bigger picture is how can we get them to motivate and work with older generation of Deaf.

Judy B

Well…

Can you at least tell me what is the bigger picture?

How do you expect to translate the “bigger picture” into a concrete reality? Workshops? More state associations for the Deaf? No offense, but in my humble opinion, what we need the most is not just leadership, but political skills needed to draw the Deaf to one common national goal. Somehow I doubt the Deaf could reach the level of political skill and leadership that some of hearing people have at local, state, and national levels.

Moreover, there is no true Deaf organization responsible for fundraising purposes as to enable other key Deaf organizations to accomplish their established goals or agendas. We need that before we can even start thinking about the bigger picture. I would strongly suggest you to establish a 501(c)3 tax-exempt foundation that is responsible for receiving grants in order to fund some Deaf movements or organizations nationally.

I think the biggest problem the Deaf is facing right now is what is known as tunnel vision, as to be totally focused on a single or local issue as to forget the bigger picture. Look at us, the Deaf is scattered all over America and most of the organizations established is limited to statewide or considered mostly social clubs. We don’t need more social clubs, we need REAL political organizations. NAD failed miserably precisely because it’s limited to focusing on state issues or simply acting as a medium where people come together to get to know each other better. Look at NAACP, it isn’t a social club, it’s a serious political machine with enough money to destroy or rally behind a politician. Can NAD do that? I don’t think so, and that’s what we need to change quickly.

I’m sorry, but I am skeptical of your vlog and usually cynical about the reality of this world and what the Deaf is facing right now.

Picard90

Picardo90,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and I am with you. I am not exactly sure where we are going thus the reason I am bringing this up to see where our viewers are coming from. And from the comments above and discussions across vlog/blogs, it is becoming very clear that we need a REAL political organization who will protect and fight for Deaf people\’s natural language, American Sign Language.

I do have some thoughts and I plan on sharing them individually. At the same time, we need to view/read other\’s thoughts as well. It takes time but the problem like you said, time is against us!

Let\’s see how this topic will move and we really need to get there ASAP. Working on next vlog now… be back shortly.

I would like to add something. NAD itself is only an enity and it is up to the members to make what NAD is. If you want NAD to become a powerhouse or something and it requires your participation. NAD is nothing without their members.

Leadership is a learned art and most of the styles are duplicated by former leaders. Anyone with training can lead. being a leader is a very challenging job. You have to learn the art of diplomacy. Leaders try to stay in the middle ground and get everyone to focus on the main issue.

Many video and bloggers have that potentional to make changes and focus on the vision that will pave way for all people to become one as a collective group. Some video-bloggers may have gone astray by using personal attacks but they learn by watching other video-bloggers. This behavior can become self-corrected by watching how other successful video-bloggers have done by bring people together.

People lead by example and that will create a ripple-effect-like style. Some things for most people are very hard to handle like someone’s success. We should praise and encourage people who succeed. Those who have succeed can put a seed in everyone to see how they did it. Putting down someone who had succeed will discourage others to come out and share their success stories.

I want to thank Joey Baer, Barb DiGi, Terri, and many others who are focused on success models for others to duplicate.

Why not establish a once a year or every two years a V-log/Bloggers Conference (DeafCon). This will help keep the medium going as it is becoming a popular venue for all kinds of people. I see a great potentional of this medium becoming a professional blogging or journalistic tool in the future.

Keep up the momentum and focus on the prize!

Picardo90,

Precisely! “Political skills” is THE base that one eeds to become a leader. Fred Schreibner,
executive director of the NAD for a number of years, was the forceful shaker and mover attributed to his political skills. What I know for a fact is that CSUN offers training in political skills.
Would that Gallaudet would offer the training, too.

Hi~
Nice to meet you.. I am happy to see who is Joey Baer is. I am looking forward to seeing more of this leadership thing and it is just the beginning of using Vlogs here. Yeah, I agree with you about the system, communication, and organization… We really need to put up more intersting aspects and have more leadership in this to make us more recongnize and bring some power. Alright, let’s make this happen!

Well, what about deaf centers? Should they provide workshop or training on leadership also???

Joey,

I am pleased to see your reply to my comment.

I have had some time thinking about this issue. Here is another problem the Deaf is also facing, and it has to do with Gallaudet.

For a very long time, Gallaudet is often considered the Mecca of Deaf world, and unfortunately, I think it inhibits our ability to expand politically and perhaps even financially. What do I mean by that? Currently, Gallaudet is the only organization for the Deaf that collects millions of dollars in grants and endownments, I don’t think other organizations have even come close to what Gallaudet achieved in the terms of fundraising capabilities and capacities. This needs to change.

We’ve been looking to Gallaudet as the political front for the Deaf, and what Gallaudet has been doing for us politically and financially? Do you see Gallaudet handing out like 5 or 10 million dollars to NAD or establishing a professional think tank that can strike out on its own? Do you see Gallaudet aggressively moving on political fronts across the states, blocking or promoting certain interests for the Deaf? Gallaudet achieved a lot in the last twenty years, but most of its achievements is largely educational and very few are political. I.J.K. had done very well in collecting $150 million dollars from fundraising efforts, and not only that, but Gallaudet also has additional funds from Congress. I don’t know what Gallaudet’s budget is like, but I can easily imagine it to be equal to a midsize or large university.

Do you know that Harvard has one of the largest endowments in America, totalling to $13 BILLION dollars? And in fact, it’s been in fundraising business since 1641! That is how Ivy league universities do business, by collecting huge amounts of dollars and making sure each is well known in specific areas, like Harvard is best known for its business school, Yale for its law school, Princeton for its political school, etc. The University of Chicago (is not a member of Ivy League) is also well known for its conservative economic school. The point is that, each university has a unique specialty that not only translates very well educationally but also politically. What is keeping those universities “honest” is numerous think tanks and foundations designed to challenge their concepts and ideas in the specialized fields. Gallaudet doesn’t have that.

Therefore, it’s quite prudent for the Deaf to establish a counterpart to Gallaudet, mind you, I’m not talking about another educational institution, I’m thinking more of along political lines. So far, Gallaudet is moving very slowly or quite different from what we wanted it to achieve in certain areas, and I think we have to change that as well. Let Gallaudet be the center of educational learning for the Deaf all over the world, but it’s time for her to hand over its political mantle to a different organization. Washington is the political center of America, but no one would dare to mistake it for the educational center of America. We’ve been giving Gallaudet way too much credit and power to do something for us.

I’d like to continue on more, but I think it’s enough, because posting my thoughts in a comment isn’t the best way. Maybe you can bring up that issue in your next vlog, after all, it is something we need to consider very carefully.

Picard90

Hi Joey. I just wrote a blog post called: “See How We Shine,” that mentioned your vlog above and the impact it has had on the deaf community already.

You might want to give it a look. at: http://www.earofmyheart.com/wordpress/?p=136

You’re simply amazing!

~ LaRonda

Hi Joey,

I agree wiv u. Please look at my video, there’s an one question for you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGIR02cZkVs