Please welcome Rose Godfrey, columnist of “Learning at Home” in the Appeal-Democrat newspaper. She joins our blogs at the www.appeal-democrat.com in her Learning at Home Blog.

She is a homeschooling mother to 9 children with her husband who is also a teacher. Her blog is about homeschooling children and parents who homeschool their children, with all of the support, resources, and tips that couldn’t be fit into a weekly column!

She is also a speech-language pathologist at private practice The Speech Works. The Speech Works is for all ages from infant to adults. She has a lengthy resume of being published in several national magazines, newspapers and online publications.

She has already jumped into blogging although her blog just became public today. Read her posts on learning, educating, and homeschooling. By the way, homeschooling isn’t just about teaching your kid(s) at home. It’s also about enriching you and your child(ren) by learning something new and doing something fun together.

It’s all about Life-Long Learning!

I had a brief explanation about my blog’s name on my very first post, but it bears repeating. It has been added to my “About” page too under It’s all in the name. I thought the name was pretty self-explanatory. At least it was to my local Deaf and Hard of Hearing friends.

The blog’s name came from my own frustrations, also shared by many others, trying to understand what my hearing counterparts are speaking to me. I’ll go “Say what?” I try to always smile to help defuse the awkward situation. The sign I chose, is directly related to the problematics of the spoken language. Now, if I was signing to a Deaf person or ASL interpreter, I would use the ASL version which looks like a one-hand version of the sign for “magic” then “what” because I’m asking them to sign what I missed.

I chose the word “deafness” because I felt it was general enough to include the medical definition of deaf and across the spectrum to Deafhood. I don’t feel that I’m qualified as a representative of Deafhood since I’m still learning about it. Deafhood is a life-long journey for me as we discuss, debate, and analyze being Deaf with a capital D. I will be writing about lowercase deaf in a medical view at times, and going in depth on Deafhood topics at other times. I will bring to your attention certain individuals that can empower fellow deaf people to embrace Deafhood and to promote understanding of what being Deaf is. People who identify themselves as Hard of Hearing are welcome here too.

I used to have the word “hearing impairment” because this blog is linked to a newspaper and they use that word in journalism. I was digging around and discovered that our style sheet allows us to use the word deaf, therefore I was able to update my blog after discussing it with my boss. I am not a journalist by trade; I am a webmaster. I make my living creating, developing and maintaining web sites.

The nice thing about blogs is that you can shape it as you go. I would hope this blog will reflect a growth.

Say what?

It’s a phrase I frequently think and say. You see, I’m profoundly deaf since 14 months old when spinal meningitis left me with nerve deafness. I have lived in a world of silence for the last 31 years now and let me tell you, while it was full of struggles, it is not impossible!

While sign language is my primary language, I also depend on lipreading. Sometimes I miss a word or a whole phrase and I must say, “Say what?” Hence the name of the blog.

Alittle about myself: I’m the Webmaster for the Appeal-Democrat, and boy, have we been doing many changes! The Internet is always evolving, and so must the Appeal-Democrat’s presence online. One of these improvements is the addition of blogs. From the day we launched Editor Len La Barth’s blog, blogs have completely changed the demography of our site and it’s very exciting.

Not only can we interact better with the public, we can also reach out to specific groups within the community. In my case, those living with hearing loss. We live in such a great country and age; rapidly developing technology is in our favor, America is a land of learning. Learning is also one of the Appeal-Democrat’s core values.

With these words in mind, I want to do the following with this blog:

1. Highlight local events for the deaf and hard of hearing, such as events by the NorCal Center on Deafness coming up and explain why those events are important.
2. Engage in an ongoing dialogue with YOU about living and interacting with community members who are deaf/hard of hearing, with some anecdotes about my own experiences blended with humor. Perhaps some our “conversations” will lead to stories and editorials by the Appeal-Democrat.
3. Focus on news both locally and nationally that are related to the hedeaf/hard of hearing community, such as Gallaudet in the news and laws passed for the deaf and hard of hearing.
4. Bring to your attention the new technology advances that are currently being used or coming up that will assist communication, such as VRS (Video Relay Service), IRS (Internet Relay Service), and the TYY/TDDs (Telecommunication Devices for the Deaf). I will elaborate on how to use these services if you’re not familiar with them.
5. Spotlight local deaf/hard of hearing residents, similar to our US community profiles on page A2 in the paper.

Welcome and speak up.