I have been doing many things besides posting on blogs over the last six months, the most prominent of which is a sort of massive and disorganized and multivalent project about deaf advocacy in Montana, educational materials for deaf kids, and some books. I keep thinking of one more thing to add and one more way to improve something else. Finally I decided to stop waiting until the whole thing is finished and just start sharing it (and soliciting support) now.
So I made a Patreon. I have barely figured out how to use it but I'm making progress. The overall goal is to support my efforts in deaf advocacy and language access, in Montana. Here's what I said in my description of the project over at the moneymaker:
Montana is high, wide, handsome, but we have some deeply entrenched institutionalized problems going on behind the scenes. Language access for deaf children and communication access for deaf adults are limited in quality and quanity. There are not enough interpreters in the state, and many of them are dismally underqualified. The problems are exacerbated by the size of the state and the distance between cities. I am working to slowly improve these things. It's a big job, and I would be very grateful for your support.
What I'm Currently Working On:
I have 3 main projects in various states of progress.
Lead-K MT
This project is a committee trying to get a bill passed. The goals of the bill (one of many in a nationwide operation) will improve Early Intervention for deaf children in Montana.
ASL School
I'm working on activities and plans for families to use at home with young deaf children. I'm working on ages 3-5 currently, with robust testing on the children in my Covid bubble.
Book
I am making a picture book. It is Animalia but for ASL, with things on the page that have signs with a particular handshape. A related coloring page gives you the idea: the signs for gorilla, girl, turtle, game, crackers and more all involve one handshape: a closed fist with the thumb sticking out.
So that's what I'M up to these days (I am also working on a quilt for someone who should not worry; I promise progress is being made). I'm doing language assessments and providing IEP support and running (in-bubble) classes and making up worksheets and activities and materials to help people learn ASL. It is fun and interesting. The patreon support goes to more better products, more (free-at-point-of-service) advocacy, instruction, early intervention, remediation, explanation, advice, testimony, and assorted other types of help. Hopefully someday in the future, it will be able to support more classes and more traveling to other parts of Montana and more training and facilitating other deaf people to become teachers.
The lack of available services in Montana is a little overwhelming. It's partly due to funding issues, but even if the funding issues were resolved, the resources just don't exist. There aren't enough interpreters, and there isn't an interpreting program in the state. There aren't enough (any) SLPs with LSL certification. ASL classes are only available in a few towns, and they tend to be overbooked, and they don't go beyond ASL 2. There are almost no (I think 1?) deaf TODs and the hearing TODs are overworked and the programs they work in are understaffed and Total Communication. What a mess! Obviously I am not going to fix the whole thing by myself. But I can (and am) provide expertise and services that are desperately needed, in an overall system that does a really dismal job of educating deaf children and including deaf people in the community. Baby steps, butterfly effect, you have to crawl before you can walk, and so on.
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All the advice and manuals about setting up Patreon talk a lot about how important self promotion and networking and social media are. I assume they are right, but I don't like being told what to do and I also don't want to bother people too much. I'm hoping that families with deaf kids, and teachers who teach in bilingual/bicultural programs*, will eventually find me and begin a happy relationship where they support my project and I send them materials and activities and ideas that they can use. I'm counting on the American deaf communities' interconnectedness and dedication to improving deaf ed, not on the general public. I'm not really offering anything that the general public would care bout. Do people actually want "early access" to things, or having me tweet "thank you!" or having posts that only patrons can read? None of those things has any appeal to me, but then I'm frequently an outlier in preferences (among other things). It would be lovely to be proved wrong, but I decline to make a concerted effort at self-promotion, at least for now. I put posts on Facebook and Twitter and now I'm working on other things for a while.
That being said, here's the link if you are curious:
I am going to use this blog for some connected ideas/resources, which might end up seeming like a kind of promotion? Explanations and instructions and images etc that don't fit neatly into Patreon's weirdo setup. I think at this point I have about 3 followers left**; if you are among them, get ready to be swamped by a lot of posts about ASL and deaf education. I will probably figure out how to put the Patreon button somewhere, too.
*meaning, programs for children who already know ASL, that teach other subjects (reading, writing, math, science, art) IN ASL. Hearing people generally don't understand the difference between this kind of program and one that "teaches deaf kids ASL". I'm sure I'll write a blog post about this at some point.
**I wonder why? I've been posting so regularly and fascinatingly and frequently recently.
