The Sound of Silence

By Jaryd Brady

It was a cold morning when I walked through what seemed to be a typical pre-school in Lexington, Kentucky. The cutout caterpillars on the walls greeted me with a hello, while the finger-painted lady bugs on the white boards taught me ABCs.

Young students walked single-file into their respective classrooms. A little boy, no younger than 10, tripped over his shoelace and spilled his crayons over the hallway. As other students giggled and smirked, I knelt and picked up the rolling crayons one-by-one and handed them to him. His panicked expression and rosy cheeks made it clear that he was embarrassed.

“Here you go little dude,” I said as I handed him his crayons.

Smiling back at me, he stepped forward, meaning that he wanted me to tie his shoe. As I was tying the boy’s shoe, he put two fingers up, meaning that he wanted a double knot. I laughed and played along. After I was done, he put his hand up to his mouth as if he was about to vomit, and moved it away, like a castle drawbridge covering a moat. I stood up and noticed that he had headphone buds in his ears. I looked around and saw that every student in line had the same pair of headphones.

I had come to the Kentucky School for the Deaf, an institution based in Lexington, Kentucky and founded in 1823, to observe. I wanted to see what life was like without sound and how students and faculty faced that adversity. They were more than happy to accommodate.

“That’s Max,” a voice called out to me. “He just wanted to thank you.”

As I stood up I saw a woman walking out of the administrator’s office.

“He’s a good kid,” she said. “Just a tad shy around strangers.”

She had short hair, resembling Carol Brady from the Brady Bunch, and a domineering voice that sounded more like a drill instructor than an administrator.

“You can call me Mrs. Greene,” she said. “I’ll be walking you through the school today.”

Mrs. Greene was very proper and by-the-book, yet understanding and very easy to talk to. She had a motherly presence that put me at ease, so I introduced myself and accompanied her down the hall.

I followed Mrs. Greene into an empty classroom filled with a mixture of mashed Crayola crayons and Lego blocks ridden with bite marks. I sat down in the seat and looked around. The cold plastic sent shivers up my spine as I admired the class hamster running on his wheel in the corner next to the pencil sharpener.

“I want to take you through what I call, ‘The Experience,’” Mrs. Greene said as she walked out of the door.

She returned with a pair of industrial looking headphones and a speaker. She handed them to me as I noticed a little girl standing in the doorway.

“This is little Suzie,” Mrs. Greene said. “She suffers from hearing loss like Max and the rest of the students here. She simply wants to listen to music with you.”

She had on jeans and a shirt with a cute monkey on the front, sparkly shoes and a rainbow headband holding her blonde hair back behind her ears. I couldn’t help but realize she had the same headphones as Max did.

“Are all students required to wear headphones like hers,” I asked.

“No,” Mrs. Greene replied. “The headphones you see students wearing are actually hearing aids. Without them, students hear little to nothing.”

Listening to music seemed simple enough, until I put the headphones on. I was surprised to find that I couldn’t hear anything. I had lost my entire sense of hearing. At the same time, Suzie had taken her hearing aids out.

I couldn’t help but feel sad. Here I was, trying to experience what this little girl goes through every day, knowing that when I took my headphones off, I could hear, but when she did, she couldn’t.

Suzie gently raised her hand and placed it on the table, I watched, and followed suit. The vibrations resonated through the wooden table and Suzie’s eyes lit up. Her smile grew, and her feet started tapping. She was listening to music. The vibrations faded out, meaning the song was over, and as Suzie put her hearing aids back in, I took my headphones off. I could hear again, and so could Suzie. Suzie stood up, smiled and carried on with her day.

I guess that’s why Mrs. Greene calls it “The Experience.” I could connect and, in turn, could see what it is like to be affected by hearing loss.

“What were we listening to?” I asked.

“Believe it or not, Suzie loves heavy metal.” she replied. “I believe it has something to do with the excessive amount of bass. It causes more vibrations and allows her to get a greater feel for what it’s like to actually listen to music.”

The high school and elementary school were apart of the same campus. a lot like the elementary school, the high school looked normal. High school students would meet up in the hallway and greet each other like normal students, but what was so intriguing, was the way that they signed to each other. In class, I watched as the trouble-makers in the back would make sarcastic comments via signing, with funny facial expressions and quick signs to communicate back and forth. The students who sat in the front would be very precise and transparent with their emotions and signs, showing that they were listening and alert. Each student had seemed to overcome their own adversity, and develop a personality for themselves. Carrying on with life, despite their loss of hearing.

Mrs. Greene had left me to shadow with Stephen Brown, a senior planning on going to Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. next fall. Although Stephen had a translator for the duration of our time together, I wanted to use a whiteboard to ensure nothing got lost in translation. I would write, and he would have the translator respond.

“Is it OK if I ask you a lot of questions?” I wrote. He nodded.

Every student I met was always so open. I would write that I was here for them, and that they could talk to me for however long they wanted. Girls, guys, children and teenagers all had the same reaction. A simple sigh of relief followed by a smile. Stephen wasn’t any different. In fact, he happened to be the most excited given his giddy attitude and elaborate responses. “I want to hear your voice,” I would write.

“Would you say that being deaf has changed who you are as a person?”

For the first time, it took Stephen a while to respond. He looked down at his white converse and began to pant. As he looked up, with the sun shimmering across his tears as they fell, he began to sign.

“I am unique,” Stephen signed. “I have always found the strength to carry on despite my condition.”

We continued to exchange stories back and forth as we walked the campus grounds, but the time for me to go had come. Mrs. Greene found me and gave me a minute to thank Stephen for his time.

“It’s time for me to go,” I wrote. “Never get down on yourself, because you will do great things in your life.”

Stephen read my message and took out his hearing aids. As his lips began to bubble, he hugged me and faintly uttered the words “thank you.”

His voice was rough, and undeveloped, but strong. You could hear his effort, and the weight his words carried. Holding back tears, I thanked Mrs. Greene for her generosity and walked out the front doors. As I sat in the parking lot, head in hands, I came to realize that no student spoke to me, except Stephen.

The thought of never hearing music, the giggle of a pretty girl or the crackling of firewood made me wonder, “How can someone truly enjoy life to the fullest without all their senses?” As I was driving away, the image of cutout caterpillars on the walls and little Suzie tapping her sparkling shoes resonated in my mind. I thought of Max with his rosy cheeks and the pet hamster running on its wheel in the corner of the classroom. There was no reason for me to wonder, the facts were there. The students didn’t suffer from hearing loss, they were stronger because of it.

“We really have something special here,” Mrs. Greene told me that morning.

I couldn’t agree more.