Mocking Hearing Inpaired

[ShockMe]

To be quite shocked that after a member of the public had posted that they had found a hearing aid and hoped to re-unite it with it's owner.. Our local school's SEN teacher commented 'Pardon?'

I'm deaf myself and this sort of 'joke' is both offensive and abusive. It seems to be considered acceptable to bully people who've got a hearing loss in ways that people with other disabilities would never be bullied and to make puerile jokes about deafness. I've seen comments on MN criticising deaf people and they fucking piss me off. I had just this 'joke' made to me by a complete stranger on a bus the other week. It was humiliating and belittling. People who think this is a joke need to have a look at their own attitudes.

It seems to be considered acceptable to bully people who've got a hearing loss in ways that people with other disabilities would never be bullied and to make puerile jokes about deafness

This^

It's inappropriate for a SEN teacher to say something like that and it really isn't funny. At best, it's lame.

I couldn't agree more Sabine and thank you for posting. I apologise on behalf of the utter twat on the bus. It's hard to believe this is 2016 sometimes. It seems attitudes towards hearing impaired people haven't changed at all - and that is something I have only realised today! For that if nothing else I am grateful to the SEN teacher for bringing to my attention.

I get just where you are coming from yorkie and generally agree. However in this instance the lady really? In question seems to be quite comfortable in the fact that it was just a harmless and funny joke.

MN has a long and dishonourable tradition of disabilism and there are always twattish disabilists rearing their ugly heads on threads like this. Fortunately there are the others as this thread also demonstrates

Do any of us know if the teacher has a hearing impairment by the way?

She doesn't brand

As a student nurse (which I was for 2 years), every time I filled in the form to admit a patient and asked them 'Do you have any hearing problems?' as necessary, 99.99% of them answered 'Pardon'. It is a weak joke, but a joke nonetheless!

Not terribly offensive, unless you are desperately looking for offence.

Shock I have no idea why people think it is ok. I suspect that many people just have no idea what being deaf is like and don't know anyone who is deaf so just think they're saying something funny without connecting it to a real person and a real disability.

Hmmm. A 'hidden disability' as someone up thread said. Maybe we need a campaign to raise awareness of just what it feels like! Having said that you would hope that an experienced SEN primary teacher would be very mindful of anyone's feelings with a disability. I would have thought her role in the school was to promote acceptance and support to the other children and parents rather than piss taking.

I'm assuming you have some kind of hearing impairment mammaTJ ? If not how could you judge if the 'jokes' were offensive?

How is this acceptable? It isn't. Would you joke about autism? There are loads of cracks you could make about that, but everyone would be up in arms about it. DF became very deaf in later life and found it humiliating that people thought his wearing a hearing aid was an open invitation to mock him. I am horrified that the SEN teacher thought that was funny. Crass enough to say it in the privacy of your own home, but not on a public forum. I would not want her teaching my child, that's for sure and certain! And as for the employers making that joke - why would you want to work for a dick like that?

I'm hearing impaired and it's v old joke. Not particularly funny or original but i dont find it offensive - more just irritating

It is an old joke jazz and I would hope outdated. Shouldn't we be spelling out to our children just how outdated it is?

I'm deaf in one ear, I admit I laughed out loud when I read the OP.

Then I thought about it properly and I'm slightly annoyed, I hope if this person teaches anyone with a hearing impairment that the kids parents don't see that comment, that could be quite upsetting

I thought that gosh. We do have hearing impaired children in our community whose parents may well have seen her comment. My heart sinks when I think how that could have made them feel.

If it is as offensive, and abusive , to have responded with 'pardon' as pp have said, then why does it matter what her job is?

Not terribly offensive, unless you are desperately looking for offence

I hope you didn't ever work with parents who find out their child is deaf Mamma because if you're that ignorant to not even show any understanding of why it is offensive, you're clearly lacking in any understanding of what being deaf truly means.

Report from the Guardian, "showing that 58.9% of deaf students failing to get five good GCSEs compared with 35.8% of hearing children".

Why is it acceptable to "joke" about deafness, when it has such huge implications for childrens' education and social progress?

www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jan/21/deaf-children-lagging-behind-hearing-peers-in-gcses

I Have hearing problems, i found it funny.
My dh makes these jokes, i do the same to him ( convincedhe has some hearing loss from heavy music!)
Teachers are real people too.

I have hearing loss for which I wear digital hearing aids. I found the joke mildly amusing certainly not offensive.
What really yanks my chain is the number of TV programs / DVDs with no or poor subtitles. Add to this pointless background music.
I also hate being treated like a twit if I need to have things repeated.

I stopped making that joke when a deaf friend told me very clearly that it as offensive, overused and really bloody annoying.

Even if some people aren't offended, enough are that its not cool and an SEN teacher should know that.