As mentioned in a previous blog entry, I faced struggles in my mock exams at the end of my first year in college. You would have thought after this that the college would have took notice of their mistake and tried to make sure things were correctly put in place – how wrong we were to think it!
It came to my final exams, end of year two at college. All students are feeling stressed, and the pressure of what feels like their whole future riding on these exams. As I was in a separate room, like all other students in separate room, we had to wait at reception and we never knew which room we would be taking our exams in until we walked down to them. Unfortunately, as I was greeted for my fourth exam, I was told there were not enough invigilators and so another student and I would be sharing one, from two separate rooms. I got down there, and the other student was shown a sound proofed room – one that I had used for all my exams up to that point, and myself? I was shown a table in a room – I wouldn’t even call it a room, it felt like a small corridor in which other rooms came off. I was also put next to a big, loud metal pipe. This would annoy/ be distracting to anyone but simple noises such as a pipe, can sound different to people who wear hearing aids, and how it sounds can be completely different to each person as no hearing loss, or sound is the same to each person. This can make it difficult to describe.
In that moment I didn’t know what to do, it had sunk in that this was where I was taking my exam. I was in shock (and crying a little because of it) for the first fifteen minutes of that exam, not once did the invigilator look up from her phone or ask if I was okay. I thought about my choices. It was a drama exam, and I had already done all my practical side of it, and so if I walked out, I would get nothing for that paper, and all my hard work would be for nothing, so I decided to stay, but turn my hearing aids off, which is quite disorientating. It is hard for someone who doesn’t wear hearing aids to understand what this is like. Just like how each sound can be different to each person, depending on the type of hearing loss you have, whether you have a cochlea implant, or hearing aids, taking out or switching off hearings affect each person differently. For some people it may not feel like a big deal but for me, unless I am in the safety of my own home, switching my hearing aids is really disorientating for me personally. Just think, you are switching off a sense, simple as that.
Halfway through I needed to use the bathroom, and so my invigilator called down the exams officer, the same one who had been unsupportive when my mock exams had gone wrong. She asked if I was okay, if my exam was going well, I nodded, afraid of what would happen if said no, thinking maybe my exam would be taken off me. I would later learn I should have spoken up then. We tried to explain to the college exactly what had gone wrong that very day, writing emails to not only the head of the college, but the exam board too. A response from the exam board came back a day or two after. They agreed that things had gone wrong, and not only should there not have been one invigilator for two students, and that I should have been shown where I was supposed to go before my exam, but as the exam was over, the college would have to submit a special consideration form with my paper. We immediately contacted the college with this information. They agreed to fill out a form, which I did with my form tutor. A few weeks later, once everything had been sent off, we were contacted by the college and were told they had reviewed my form, and had done an “investigation” into the conditions I was in. They denied that I was in the “room” I had describe and said, “there was no pipe in the room at all”, and so my special consideration form was not put forward. They not only denied that what I said was true, they said they just didn’t have enough rooms, so they had to work with what they had. That was it, I got no special consideration for that exam.
It was painful seeing my grade drop when I got my results after seeing I had got A’s and high B’s in my practical performances, and other written work. I never took this up with the college - despite everyone around me very willing to – for a few reasons. One being I knew that nothing could change the grade I now had; we had been fighting them for two years and I was tired of fighting back; I realised I could not change how I had been treated, but I could try change how someone else may be treated in the future, and that was something more important to me.
It’s a real battle in my head sometimes not knowing if it was my deafness or lack of knowledge that let me down in that exam. That is something I have been told I was “overreacting” or being “dramatic” for saying it; it is something not even my closest friends and family understand, but I also know that others who are hard of hearing or Deaf also struggle with. Finding out I wasn’t the only person who felt this way made me feel a lot better, as up until then, it had been something everyone I told would brush off, or not understand. I spoke to a friend of mine who also wears hearing aids and she assured me she had felt exactly how I had, with no one to understand her. The lack of sympathy, and comments made about how I felt, were not out of spite, they were simply a lack of understanding of how it feels to be hard of hearing or Deaf but is something I think needs to be highlighted about how those comments can make people like myself feel.
This could all have been easily avoided had there not been such a lack of understanding in not only this college, but the education system entirely. Not only was there a lack of knowledge and understanding, but the college did not want to try learning or understand. Neither my hearing loss, nor I, was important to them. We had to fight so hard throughout my school and college life o get the support and conditions I was entitled to.
People are not educated on “invisible disabilities”, and so what they think is perfectly acceptable to say and do, leave people like myself, constantly dealing with the consequences. I hope this helps just one person push for the support and conditions they’re entitled to or helps change just one person’s view or encourages them to educate themselves on invisible disabilities, such as deafness – but understand that every person you meet who are Deaf or hard of hearing will have/ want completely different needs and support. There are so many people with so many other various invisible disabilities or learning difficulties that cannot be “seen”, and so are pushed aside and do not receive the support they are entitled to. It’s time that people spoke out to help change and avoid this in the future.