I lost my job. Rather wonderfully it has led, apparently, to a ground-swell of objection from the rest of the staff. They want to discuss it as a group and so I have written the following as, I suppose, a sort of leaving speech. I am reproducing it here because it quite clearly sums up my position on it.
I have been working here since January 2008 and it has never
been easy for me. I trained for and worked my first qualified job in a truly
Deaf environment with actively policed policies that we sign for ourselves at
all times, and that we strive for at least 50% Deaf staff across the
entire staff cohort. I have struggled enormously with the extent to which the
Academy has been unable to move, even incrementally, towards such an
environment.
However I must be honest with myself that such an
environment is my ideal from my experience and not something that
the Academy, to my knowledge, has ever clearly striven for. I cannot criticise
the place for not meeting my particular ideals.
The pressure from fundholders who are necessarily highly
naïve about Deaf education and wellbeing is and has always been increasingly
severe, and the curriculum and exam systems are established from the outset
from a Hearing perspective that is highly detrimental to Deaf students. Within
this context of institutionalised audism it needs to be a very special school
that can resource itself, and manage itself, effectively enough to push back,
politely but informedly, against those oppressions. To do that, the oppressive factors
need to be recognised and it is only Deaf people – people who daily live those
oppressions – who can identify them. To expect a school with a highly
culturally Hearing leadership to identify, prioritise, plan for, and act
against such institutional audism – and to lead by example - is as naïve
as expecting change from a feminist organisation run by dusty old men.
Being asked to leave came as an enormous shock to me.
However, I have been similarly shocked by the sudden and comprehensive wave of
relief that I felt within just a couple of hours of receiving my letter. I have
been agonizingly conflicted for years between my passion for the wellbeing of
the students and my frustrations with the Academy – and being asked to leave,
and my emotional reaction to it, has provided me with the unexpected insight
that I want to leave now. I guess also that I do not want to work for an
organization that does not see value in me, and the letter crystallized that
for me.
I am very grateful, and to be honest a little bit teary, for
the concerns of the staff and I am sorry that my departure only emphasises
those feelings and stresses.
I remain as committed as ever to the futures of our students
and hopefully I will be able to continue to support them, perhaps more effectively,
as an outsider.
With more warmth than I am bloody used to,
Jim