Deaf people don’t talk to hearing people. They don’t communicate in English face-to-face with hearing people about anything. Can you understand what this does to the psyche of people who do not have the one essential communication experience in their lives which all hearing people take for granted but which deaf people have never known? Deaf people are so isolated that they do not even know what this hearing experience is all about – communicating face-to-face with hearing people in English without assistance from anyone.

Good, cheap communication technology is available to enable deaf people to communicate face-to-face in the language of the land with hearing people. So enabled, deaf people can then begin contributing and sharing their lives, skills, hopes, vision and talents directly with the larger hearing society. By so doing, deaf people can establish their rightful place in society as First Class Citizens. Modern Deaf Communication will endeavor to place this technology in the hands of deaf people and encourage them to use it so that they can free themselves of the isolation and poverty they do suffer and begin building the lives and future they want and deserve

There are problems which greatly affect the deaf condition, but, for the most part, these are people problems, not problems of technology, finance or equipment availability. These are problems concerning dependency, security, a sense of belonging, and essential human expression of what’s on a person’s mind and in his heart from one person to another. Modern Deaf Communication maintains that triumph over the worst problems of the deaf is achievable now.

We believe in confronting the worst problems of the deaf head-on. We believe that the problems of the deaf can be corrected with an improved English instruction in schools for deaf children, a more productive way of helping qualified deaf people get superior English-active employment, and the acceptance and recognition by administrators serving the deaf of the crucial need for their clients to communicate face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball, elbow-to-elbow with hearing people in English, because this is the essential communication environment for life which deaf people need. For reasons of history, culture and the inertia of doing things the “old way,” this needed environment is denied to deaf people by schools for the deaf, U.S. Government Offices, and agencies serving the deaf.

As such, with our Outreach Programs we propose and are prepared to install a new method of English instruction for deaf children in schools for the deaf which will enable teachers to produce deaf children with strong communicative English skills at an early age. The essential idea of this instruction has been in use the world over since the beginning of time teaching hearing children the languages of their lands: parents and teachers speak to the children and encourage the children to speak back. This sure-fire method works every time. Our proposed English instruction applies this idea by teaching deaf children to communicate in English face-to-face with others. The children accomplish this by using readily available face-to-face keyboard communication equipment in the classroom..

Our goal, which we believe is entirely achievable, is to replace deaf illiteracy with a strong communicative command of English. Teaching deaf children to communicate in English is the way this will be accomplished. This is not now happening in schools for the deaf.

We also propose and are prepared to install a proven job-placement service for qualified deaf job-seekers which will help move these unemployed deaf people into superior jobs paying superior salaries and offering superior benefits not found in the jobs which deaf people traditionally hold or have gotten in the past.

We believe that face-to-face communication in English between deaf and hearing people, in particular with hearing co-workers, is vitally necessary in order to establish deaf people as First Class Citizens who can enjoy all employment and financial benefits which can only come about by productively sharing, contributing and communicating face-to-face, hand-in-hand with the larger hearing society in English. This is not now happening, but it can.

Modern Deaf Communication believes that deaf society can achieve the affluence, influence and political power common to hearing society. Sharing face-to-face in English with society is how these things will be achieved. Right now, this is an unknown experience for the deaf, but all knowledge and sensibility say this can become a common, productive everyday experience for the deaf – sharing face-to-face with society in English.

For the most part, deaf people remain isolated and removed from mainstream society in the most vital area affecting deaf people: employment. Qualified deaf people are not getting the good jobs they should and can be getting. Job Placement and Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors are not helping their deaf clients get the best possible jobs. Their efforts are focused only on a handful of “Deaf Friendly” employers who usually have interpreters on the payroll, or these are employers who might be encouraged to hire deaf people “out of the goodness of their hearts,” and this is wrong. Deaf people don’t need handouts. They need jobs in which they can prove their worth. Thousands of these jobs are available to be gotten now, but no one is going after them.

Job Placement and Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors should be using all possible employment avenues for their deaf clients, but they are not doing this. The result is that deaf employment in the United States remains terrible.
Of similar consequence, Job Placement and Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors only target jobs where sign language is used in the workplace. None of the employers they approach require deaf employees to use English face-to-face in the workplace.

Employment counselors ignore literally thousands of good employers offering better jobs with greater benefits and paying bigger salaries, but who do not hire deaf people not only because employment counselors do not knock on these employers’ doors, but because no one is encouraging or teaching deaf job-seekers how to use English face-to-face in the workplace which these employers require. This is something employment counselors should correct.

Job Placement and Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors completely ignore these employers who, if given the smallest incentive, will hire qualified deaf people for good English-Active jobs.

Importantly, when these new employers who never before hired deaf people for any jobs learn for the first time that qualified deaf job applicants are prepared to use English face-to-face in the workplace, the employers become immediately receptive to the communication equipment because this equipment enables them to hire qualified deaf job applicants for job openings.

These employers want to help the deaf, and they will help if we give them qualified deaf employees who use English face-to-face in the workplace. American employers generally will not hire anyone – hearing or deaf – who does not communicate face-to-face in English.

Job Placement and Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors are making a terrible mistake by not going after these employers. These employers can be encouraged to consider qualified deaf job-seekers for good jobs. They can and they will open their doors to deaf people. All it takes is preparing deaf job applicants to use appropriate communication equipment in order to communicate face-to-face in English with hearing employers in job interviews and with hearing co-workers in the workplace. All it takes is some good old fashioned American salesmanship. This method has already opened up new employers’ doors and generated meaningful job interviews. This method has proven its worth! (See The Story of Carrie, Main Menu.)

Job Placement and Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors should start targeting this huge, rich, untapped, unused market of employers and start putting their clients to work in the thousands of challenging, new superior jobs their clients deserve. By so doing, the Counselors will help wipe out deaf unemployment-underemployment in the United States.

The Directors of Modern Deaf Communication believe that an affluent, educated, thoroughly literate and thoroughly employed deaf society is achievable in our time. We believe that everything that’s needed -- ideas, equipment, dedicated people of hope, energy and promise, et al. – are all available to help deaf people free themselves of their historic isolation from society in order to become independent and self-sufficient as fully participating, contributing, sharing citizens of society pursuing all opportunities to enjoy and benefit from every experience and reward which life can offer where hearing ability is not a mandatory requirement for life’s enjoyment.

We are an agency unlike any other with outreach programs and policy serving our prime purpose: absolute triumph over illiteracy, unemployment and isolation in the deaf community. To this end, we will expose those who harbor or allow these conditions to persist as we will pursue programs which will eliminate illiteracy, unemployment and the isolation which the deaf do suffer. Pending available resources, we will go anywhere to assist deaf people in need in order to fulfill our mission.

Modern Deaf Communication shall encourage and help deaf people to discover and explore new ideas, people, experiences and challenges which will expand their vision, hopes, skills and initiative for life so that they may build a better, more rewarding and satisfying future. The activities of Modern Deaf
Communication shall extend to deaf people throughout the United States
and in other countries.

Modern Deaf Communication is committed to meeting the essential communication, employment and lingual needs of deaf people in the 21st Century.