ABSTRACT
There is nothing magical about teaching deaf students, but it takes the collective expertise and grit of teachers, caregivers, educational audiologists, and researchers. Deaf teachers should play a major role in Deaf pedagogy, particularly BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) who make superb language and cultural role models, but often face exclusion, discrimination, and barriers to teacher certification. This chapter highlights how communication-driven programs with culturally affirmative curricula can reduce the risk of language deprivation and provide for the students’ healthy psychosocial development. Early access to spoken language, bimodal, or bilingual languages (or a combination) is vital in the process of forming a healthy, bicultural, and bilingual identity and learning language and academic content. Children vulnerable to lack of quality education include those from impoverished backgrounds, minoritized (including immigrants and refugees), those who are LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning), as well as DeafDisabled and DeafBlind. The challenges of incorporating multilingualism, multiculturalism, best practices, legal mandates, elements of Universal Design (UD), DeafSpace, and technology into school settings are highlighted. Information about the educational interpreter’s role, standards, curriculum, transition, postsecondary education and accommodations, and vocational programs are also elucidated.
