Local man Lindsay Jones has a national reputation as a skilful storyteller.
Unless more people learn sign language, however, that recognition is likely to remain limited mainly to the deaf community.
Lindsay won first prize in a storytelling contest at a recent national forum for the deaf.
He used a mix of sign language and mime to create a comic piece which had his audience cracking up.
Lindsay is pleased that such gatherings draw hearing and deaf together.
He’d like to see more teaching of sign language among the hearing public.
Conscious of the two totally different worlds he says the deaf community would have a better chance at equality if the hearing world understood more about it.
His own experience — an education he calls “a write-off” — has taught him the value of signing and the need for deaf children to be together.
He is totally against the inclusion of deaf children in ordinary classrooms.
“The only way you learn is from deaf people,” he told the Guardian through a sign language interpreter.
“With mainstreaming the teaching goes over your head.”
Two schools for deaf children remain nationally but the policy is to use these for intensive bursts rather than long term.
The education service believes it must offer deaf children the opportunities other children have, via the ordinary school. Extra resources can be provided there.
Lindsay says this view is the answer and represents oppression of the deaf by the hearing.
It’s an issue he raises at meetings of the Manawatu Deaf Society.
Lindsay is a walking example of the effectiveness of sign language, facial expression and other non-verbal communication, using them daily in his job as a welding supervisor and in family life.
He is married to Dorothy, a textile worker, who is also deaf. They have three hearing children — one at secondary school, one at university and another preparing to train as an interpreter.
Lindsay has travelled to England and the United States to attend conventions celebrating deafness.
He’s overwhelmed by the amount of talent and activity in deaf education especially in drama.
His travels inspired him to help found Madedra, two years ago. This drama group has had two successful productions, one locally and one in Wellington.
A third opens at the Globe Theatre this week.
Photo caption: Lindsay Jones — the art of visual communication. Lindsay appears in a mime show in the city this week.
