Book Review- Train Go Sorry: Inside a Deaf World

I have not always been a fan of nonfiction books. I find them to be boring and tedious and when I read I like to lose myself in the story and fiction does that better, IMHO. But I have recently gotten on a bit of a nonfiction binge, where I will read a nonfiction book or two and then go back to fiction for a while. And since I do not always like nonfiction, I am picky about what I read, so when I see a recommendation somewhere for a nonfiction book, I tend to like having these ideas from others. (I like fiction book recommendations as well, but nonfiction is where I struggle finding books most of the time.) I saw this recommendation, on a big blog that I read, about this nonfiction book, Train Go Sorry: Inside a Deaf World and I knew I wanted to read it. First, it sounded like an interesting and easy read and two, I have an interest in deaf culture and I thought this might be a good book to read to get an insiders view of the world of people who are deaf. I was right on both accounts. This is a fascinating story of life inside the Lexington School for the Deaf. The author, Leah Hager Cohen, spent much of her life living in and around the Lexington School. Although she is hearing, Cohen's father was the principal and then the superintendent of the Lexington School which means she was around the deaf community for much of her growing up years.. She mentions at the beginning of the book that for some of her early years she lived on the grounds of the Lexington School and so was, at least marginally, involved in the deaf culture from birth. Cohen goes back to the school as an adult and acts as an observer to be able to tell the story of this school and by extension a part of the deaf community. She highlights two students, James and Sofia, who are both seniors at the Lexington School, each of whom has their own personal struggles. Sofia immigrated with her family from the former Soviet Union to the United States. She had been to a school for the deaf in Russia and so had learned Russian and a form of sign language, so when she was attending the Lexington School she had to learn English and American Sign Language (ASL). She also became interested in having a Bat Mitzvah, even though she was about 5 years older than the traditional age for this coming of age ceremony. Since she was going to have to read from the Torah, Sofia also had to learn Hebrew in addition to ASL and English.

James is a African-American male who lives in a rougher part of New York City and initially struggled with tardiness and absenteeism when he first entered the Lexington School. The Lexington School finally realizes that the best solution to this problem is to allow James to stay in the residential dorms on the school campus that are now rarely used. James' bother was in jail while the book was being written and James said that if he had not been deaf and gone to the Lexington School he also might have ended up in a gang. James struggles with trying to find his way as an individual surrounded by an urban culture that does not value school and learning and also as someone who needs to learn in order for him to be able to make it in a hearing world. Both Sofia and James are success stories in the book, each of them finds their way on to the next chapter of life with both of them going to an institution of higher learning.

Cohen also intercedes with chapters about her paternal grandfather and grandmother, who were both deaf. She discusses what it was like for them to have traveled from the Old Country, both of them were from the former Soviet Union, and their own struggles as individuals who are deaf. She discusses her father and how he went from living in a household parented by two deaf individuals where he learned ASL to the point at which he kind of stumbled upon the job as an administrator at the Lexington School, where his father had attended. Cohen discusses some of the current issues in the deaf community, at least they were current in 1994 when the book was published and some of them still are very much issues, such as what she refers to as mainstreaming and is now called inclusion to cochlear implants to the rise of deaf pride and how these issues affect the deaf community and deaf culture.

Cohen provides the reader an insight into deaf culture that is rarely seen, or at least I have never really seen it before. She presents the issues that currently plague the deaf culture as it struggles to define itself in a hearing world. Although, Cohen is not always unbiased in her opinions about the larger issues, she does a magnificent job presenting the individual stories with no external opinions and allows each individual to present their own thoughts, feelings and ideas for themselves.

Although I got this book from the local library (yay local libraries), this is one book that I may have to buy at some point as it seems as though it would be a valuable book to read and re-read every so often.

People have too much time on their hands

So as an easy and always interesting post, I decided to see what keywords lead people to this wonderful little blog.

men education- Is this about educating men or men in education?
sexy boxer rebellion- Thats my dog alright, sexy.
how baboons look like- I am not sure what you are asking, are you wondering about the appearance of baboons or how they use their eyes to look at something.
very very sexy women- hmmmmmm, there are no sexy women here, just dogs.
slogan where men feel comfortable- what?!?
www.photos women with no shirts and with thongs.com- is this really a website? Cause it sure as hell not here.
were boxers made for masturbating- I don't know. I thought they were just underwear, but maybe I am wrong.
rachel dcup- is this a reference to Lisa's old blog or to my lesbian girlfriend, Rachel Maddow? i guess we will never know.
women sexy body photo- again, no sexy women here, just dogs

I'm back

I wondered if I would actually be able to stop blogging and the the answer is, NO. As soon as I stopped, I started to come up with ideas of what I should blog about. This blogging thing, it is addictive. I will be doing some renovations around here and so may not actually be blogging everyday this week if I ever do get back to everyday, which I would like to, but I will try to post at least 3-4 times a week if not more.

Bye (for now?)

I have not been doing a good job of doing the blogging thing lately, so I am putting this blog into semi-retirement. Maybe I will come back in a day, a week or a year, but for now I will not be blogging. I guess this blog has served its purpose, it was meant as a way for me to speak my thoughts to the world when I was living alone. Now that I am living with someone else, most of what I would post here, I just talk to my better half about. I will see y'all around as I will continue to read you and try to comment when I have something to say.

YouTube Fridays

Since last week was an '80s dance party, tonight is a bit more '90s hip hop. It was going to be more of a dance party, but it became ol' skool hip hop.

No Dioggity- Black Street with Dr. Dre


Regulate- Nate Dogg and Warren G.

And finally, because we were talking about his song at school on Thursday.

The Bad touch- Bloodhound Gang

Happy Birthday!!

Happy Birthday to the Gourmet Goddess. It was a year, basically today, since we met in person and now we are living together, wow.

Censoring books is a bad thing

I am glad to see that a school board and an English teacher were finally able to stand up to those conservative parents who are always trying to get rid of books that are being taught in the classroom. In a small town in Indiana, parents were trying to get rid of three books: Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eyes",Bobbie Ann Mason’s “In Country,” and Chris Crutcher’s “Chinese Handcuffs” which they said were too sexual and had too much inappropriate language to be taught in school. Now, I have only read the Morrison book and it is still one of my favorite books I have ever read. It is a great look at the expected stereotypes of girls and how they are supposed to look. It also leads nicely, IMHO, into the unreasonable beauty expectations that many young women are currently exposed. I believe there is a rape scene in the book, if I remember correctly and I know that the main character is friends with three prostitutes , but by 11th grade young people should be able to handle a book with this material. When we expect our children to not be able to handle books that deal with tough issues, than they are not able to deal with the tough issues in real life. Young people are exposed to a lot of sex, violence and rough language on a daily basis in the media and in their environment, so why can't we also expose them to these same types of things in ways where an adult can discuss with the young adults the circumstances in the books. I firmly believe that if we tried to censor every book that had some questionable material according to one person's definition, than there would be nothing left to read.

I also guess that parents who want to censor books, are also probably not readers themselves. I am not sure exactly why I think this, maybe it is that my parents loved to read when my brother and I were growing up and still do and my brother and I were allowed to read whatever we wanted and I have heard similar stories from other people I know. I understand if you are worried about your child and what they are reading especially if you are not familiar with the book, but as one parent I know does, why not read the books that your children are assigned at the same time as your child so that you can interact with them and discuss the book if you are that worried about it. Banning books does not solve the problem, it only creates young adults who do not like to read which is not a good thing, IMHO.