Everyone's a Deficit Thinker. Period. Every since the term was coined and disseminated throughout the blogsphere--I have seen nothing short of a witchhunt against each other--as though we are eating our own selves to death. AGBell would be laughing if he could see all of our discussions and the finger-pointing and the begging for censorship. What the hell, guys? Sure, "deficit thinking" is a viable term, but it warrants further clarification and discussion. Its apparent that with the introduction of this new term, that it has hit a raw nerve amongst us all--that we are our own deficit thinking machines and now we're gettin' all pissy about it!! From Egbert to Paotie to Ella Mae to Kalalau to Mishkazena to DE and even myself. Maybe the simple matter is, that merely by engaging in the discussion of Deficit Thinking, that we are actually DOING it. Perhaps then we ought ban that term? It's really becoming a hot potato that nobody wants to touch anymore. And the sad thing is, I can actually see some folks truly thriving on the negativity as though it's an ego game where one wants to get the last word and the last laugh. Egos and personalities are becoming bruised and hurt. I do not see how Deficit Thinking can be a positive integer in our philosophical efforts. Its just bringing us more pain, although I'm pretty positive that it was not the intent at all of the Deaf Bilingual Coalition.
Lets try something different here--how about "Forward Thinking"? Think Forward, think of the future, think of what we can do from this point on? Deficit thinking automatically makes us think of the negatives and the past. Automatically!!. If we can simply make a transition to the other side, where the grass is greener, and think about how we can transform ourselves to thinking about the future, we can think forward. We can let loose our creativity and come up with many ways of how our Deaf Nation can create a better future for ourselves.
I challenge you to think of one thing we can be doing in the future that is wholly beneficial to our Deaf Nation 10 years from now. It can be technology, it can be an educational approach, it can be anything! What would you love to see happening 10 years from now in our Deaf Nation! Be creative!! Let your imagination tickle you and be sure to pay attention to what your heart tells you. Does it feel good? Does it feel exciting? What is that feeling??
And please do share!
BF
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6 comments:
I find deficit thinking - dys-anything - deficit-anything relative. Culture is relative. To all, "yes and no" to deficit thinking.
Touche' here, you.
I agree, let's take the term, "Deficit Thinking" and air-drop it over the real area 51! Lol!
DT
Exactly! We need to create a Deafhood vision of what is POSSIBLE about being Deaf...linking all Deaf people of earth to our future Deaf generations....
However, even though I was caught up in midst of the crazy deficit thinking debate...I think we need to also figure out WHY we are (and were) not able to DREAM, to CREATE, to BE CONFIDENT as a whole community (despite the huge huge pool of talents, genius, and dollars that Deaf people currently have)...
Simple answer....
deficit thinking....in our education, in our families, inside ourselves, in how we talk to each other, in how we make decisions, in how we evaluate each other (especially fellow Deaf people)...
And it's not same as "negative thinking" where we judge other people because we simply do not agree.... but deficit thinking is a mostly subconscious reaction and judgement on others in the Deaf world because of belief that we are missing "hearing"...
We need to keep deficit thinking in check... we need to challenge ourselves...
BUT never never never at the expense of DREAMING, CREATING, and BEING CONFIDENT in our people and language...
Thank you.
Hi Bently,
I like your post and how we should work together for the betterment in the Deaf community.
Yes, the recent hot debates on certain issues was like a good card deck shuffle. We needed to have a clean deck so we can feel good about the next "game" and strategize the next round and hope no one will disrupt the big picture.
And sure hope no one will have to shuffle the card deck again.
We should do more positive thinking posts, so that the cancer of negative thinkings, poking fun at people, calling deaf culture a cult, etc will not go wild into the blogsphere.
Bilingually yours,
John Egbert
Deafhood has been very new to most in our Deaf community, Deficit thinking is our very very deep root in our mentality. Many of us learned the way Education of the Deaf has been accepted in very negative way! Deficit thinking is not only in our Deaf community that they have, but also at work I mean hearing people have that same problem of deficit thinking because they resist changing as same as our Deaf community resist changing in ourselves! Changing the way we do, how do we think about ourselves, how do we behave that way in ourselves, Deafhood is only good way to educate us to see in ourselves at same time we all face the big battle through transformation which is not easy to understand in positive! Be a realistic! To start with metaphysics,epistemology, politics, and ethics that would benefit Deafhood!!!
I read some articles about this.
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