Stepping into the learner’s shoes
It is not always easy to imagine life from another’s perspective, yet success in our relationships with colleagues and pupils requires us to do just that. Since March 2020, the Lockdown situations and online learning have provided practitioners and learners with opportunities and challenges as we strive to meet learner needs with platforms and circumstances that are new to us both.
Whilst a set of ‘how to’ guidance is helpful, they can be applied without real understanding and we risk labelling or losing sight of the person. A chance to view life through another’s lens can sensitize us, enhancing our ability to respond to individual pupils, or indeed colleagues. Having personally lived with hearing loss since early childhood and taught modern languages in primary and secondary contexts for some 25 years, I set out some of my own experience in this HOW TO contribution along with questions to help us reflect on ways of living and working with hearing loss in school, taking account of .the impact of Lockdown and beyond.
Hearing loss and disadvantage
Public Health England gives the number of people across the UK with hearing loss as 11 million, 50,000 of whom are children. Anxiety and depression are more common in people with hearing loss than those without, and issues with hearing are linked with lower levels of attainment. Even mild hearing loss is linked with educational and cognitive disadvantage, probably a result of difficulties keeping up at school. In addition, children’s speech and language development may be affected. They have to work harder to keep up and risk becoming withdrawn and/or isolated, all of which have social and emotional impact. Since populations impacted by hearing loss are already more affected by stress, anxiety and depression, they have been harder hit by the in general increase in mental health issues linked to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
In terms of my own background, my first language is English and I grew up in a white, middle class family in South East UK. After a routine primary school hearing test sparked a referral, I was told my level of hearing was ‘bottom of the normal range’ and there was no further action. I have worn two hearing aids since, at age 40, I asked my husband to turn off a car alarm outside and subsequently realised it was inside my head. Tinnitus took me to the GP and tests diagnosed moderate to severe bilateral hearing loss. Looking back, gradual decline in levels of hearing makes best sense to me of many issues I encountered over the years.
So, it is with the aim of helping practitioners optimize the learning experience for pupils with mild to severe hearing loss that I wish to convey how it can feel to live with hearing loss in a majority hearing world. In addition to describing personal experience this HOW TO piece sets out some implications for classroom and online practice, working with the impact of Lockdown and returning to school. Finally a range of strategies for working with pupils with hearing loss in the classroom are provided.
Primary Education
I began school able to read, having learnt at home with my mum, and without speech delay or impairment. I was an enthusiastic pupil and enjoyed school, though found the playground difficult. I preferred games with known rules (hopscotch, skipping) and found playground ‘free play’ confusing. While freer games were going on, I tended to play alone, which I alternately enjoyed (I loved to find my own ‘quiet space’, away from confusing noise) and found lonely, (sometimes I’d have liked a friend to join me in my quiet space, or would rather have been a part of the game).