Despite potential challenges, many education students who choose the path of teaching children and young adults with disabilities, such as hearing impairments, find their jobs to be entirely rewarding and beneficial.
Amanda Ratliff is one such educator. She is employed by the South Central Education Service Center as a teacher of deaf students. Her position is housed in the Green Local School District in Franklin Furnace, Ohio, but currently serves schools in three different counties. Each school district pays into the unit and when/if a deaf student moves into one of the districts, she can then work with them. She teaches students ranging from kindergarten all the way to their senior year of high school.
Ratliff explained that her job offers both complexities and joys.
“It is a very rewarding job in that the students become like family due to the fact I have them their entire educational career,” she said.
Ratliff’s classroom is non-stop work, as she has to teach and plan lessons for varying grade levels while also focusing on each child’s individual needs. She has two wonderful aides in her classroom with her, and they are what make her hectic schedule work.
All of the students in her classroom are profoundly deaf, and they use sign language to communicate. Ratliff rotates students by age and academic levels to make sure each student’s personal needs are met in her classroom. While she works with one student or group, one of her aides will work with another. While the students spend a lot of time in Ratliff’s classroom, some students go to other classrooms for certain subjects or special instruction. Aides go with students to outside classrooms to interpret for them. She says that the students are very comfortable with their routine and rely on it daily.
Ratliff feels that there is a huge need for TOD, or teachers of the deaf in our area. She was inspired to pursue her career early in life and hopes her experiences can inspire others.
“As a child, I attended Green Local Schools, where the hearing-impaired unit is housed,” she said. “I have always been fascinated with sign language. It’s a beautiful language I wanted to learn as a teenager. I would volunteer in the hearing-impaired classroom and loved the people as much as I love the language. I wanted to teach to give back the joy and love deaf individuals have given to me.”
