Cherisse Moe

Stu­dents of the Cas­cade School for the Deaf and the Au­drey Jef­fers School for the Deaf will re­ceive a spe­cial de­liv­ery on Sep­tem­ber 9, just in time for the new aca­d­e­m­ic term. Renowned ed­u­ca­tor, au­thor, and pas­tor Frank M Porter will vis­it the Cas­cade in­sti­tu­tion to dis­trib­ute 15 copies of his Caribbean Rhythm In­te­grat­ed Lan­guage Arts Lit­er­a­cy and Nu­mer­a­cy Pro­gramme, which most of us may know as The Re­pub­lic Read­ers, with an ad­di­tion­al 15 des­ig­nat­ed for the sec­ond school.

The big dif­fer­ence this time: the books have been adapt­ed in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go Sign Lan­guage (TTSL).

The ini­tia­tive stems from a part­ner­ship with Ek­ka Mc Fee and Nicole Paul, both teach­ers of the Cas­cade School for the Deaf and co-founders of EN-able, a com­pa­ny that de­vel­ops in­clu­sive ed­u­ca­tion­al re­sources for deaf and hard-of-hear­ing chil­dren. Mc Fee — who spent Forms One to Three as a stu­dent un­der Porter at Mu­cu­rapo Ju­nior Sec­ondary School and lat­er won Tu­tor Teacher of the Year in 2018 — ap­proached him last No­vem­ber to col­lab­o­rate.

Asked why he agreed to be part of the project, Porter quot­ed one of his favourite Bible vers­es: “My peo­ple are de­stroyed for lack of knowl­edge.” He re­called that Ek­ka took part in his out­reach with vi­su­al­ly im­paired stu­dents at the La­dy Ho­choy Home, the St Vin­cent De Paul Home for the Aged, and chil­dren’s sum­mer camps back in her younger years. “Sev­er­al stu­dents par­tic­i­pat­ed in those pro­grammes, and she was a part of each,” he told We Life and Cul­ture. “It goes with­out say­ing that she was pre­pared for this leg of the jour­ney, and I am most hap­py as you may well imag­ine.”

We sat down with Mc Fee to hear more about the ini­tia­tive.

We Life and Cul­ture: Where did the idea of trans­lat­ing Frank Porter’s books in­to sign lan­guage first come from?

Ek­ka Mc Fee: In 2022, Nicole and I pro­duced an in­clu­sive sto­ry­book se­ries that was do­nat­ed to some schools through the gen­eros­i­ty of cor­po­rate T&T. How­ev­er, the process came to a halt, await­ing ap­proval to get them in­to more schools. We want­ed to adapt re­sources that were al­ready fa­mil­iar and wide­ly used through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go. Caribbean Rhythm has been a part of many chil­dren’s ed­u­ca­tion­al jour­neys, so rather than rein­vent the wheel, I thought, ‘Why not make these same books ac­ces­si­ble to deaf chil­dren?’ It was about giv­ing them equal ac­cess to the same qual­i­ty re­sources as their hear­ing peers.

Q: It’s a full-cir­cle mo­ment for you as a for­mer stu­dent of Frank Porter. What was his re­ac­tion when you shared your vi­sion with him, and what did that mo­ment mean to you per­son­al­ly?

A: It has been both sur­re­al and re­ward­ing. I knew the qual­i­ty of his work, and I al­so knew the kind of ed­u­ca­tor he was. I be­lieved he would un­der­stand the im­por­tance of in­clu­sion and ap­pre­ci­ate the im­pact this project could have. Thank­ful­ly, I was right. He em­braced the idea al­most im­me­di­ate­ly. Not on­ly did he per­mit us to adapt his books, but he al­so spon­sored the print­ing of the first set of books in May. That lev­el of gen­eros­i­ty and be­lief in our vi­sion was in­cred­i­bly hum­bling and emo­tion­al for me. It’s been a part­ner­ship built on mu­tu­al re­spect and com­mit­ment.

Q: Can you walk us through the process of adapt­ing a book in­to sign lan­guage? Any ma­jor chal­lenges you en­coun­tered?

A: It in­volves much more than sim­ply trans­lat­ing words in­to signs. We first de­cid­ed on the in­ter­preters who would best analyse the text and de­ter­mine the most ap­pro­pri­ate way to ex­press those con­cepts nat­u­ral­ly in TTSL. Dur­ing one of our meet­ings, Mr Porter of­fered us the use of his stu­dio for record­ing. We filmed each sto­ry in TTSL, then signed Eng­lish, syn­chro­nised it with the text, and added voice nar­ra­tion for in­clu­sive use. We hired a col­league to in­te­grate every­thing through QR codes that read­ers can scan. One of the biggest chal­lenges was en­sur­ing that the trans­la­tion re­mained true to both the au­thor’s in­tend­ed mean­ing and the lin­guis­tic struc­ture of TTSL. Sign lan­guages have their own gram­mar and syn­tax, so di­rect word-for-word trans­la­tion sim­ply doesn’t work. We al­so worked against a tight time­line to have the books ready be­fore the new school term.

Q: How do you think these re­sources could in­flu­ence lit­er­a­cy and con­fi­dence among deaf stu­dents?

A: Ac­cess changes every­thing. When chil­dren have ma­te­ri­als in their first lan­guage and learn in a way they ful­ly un­der­stand, they be­come more en­gaged and more will­ing to par­tic­i­pate. These books can strength­en lit­er­a­cy by con­nect­ing print­ed Eng­lish with TTSL, help­ing stu­dents make mean­ing­ful con­nec­tions be­tween both lan­guages. They al­so al­low them to feel in­clud­ed.

Q: Par­ents of deaf chil­dren of­ten strug­gle to find high-lev­el learn­ing ma­te­ri­als. What mes­sage do you hope this ini­tia­tive sends to them?

A: I want par­ents to know that their chil­dren are ca­pa­ble of achiev­ing just as much as any­one else when giv­en the right op­por­tu­ni­ties. This project says, “We see your chil­dren. We val­ue them, and they de­serve re­sources de­signed with them in mind.” I al­so hope it en­cour­ages par­ents to em­brace sign lan­guage ear­ly, as re­search has shown that lan­guage is the foun­da­tion for learn­ing, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and de­vel­op­ment in oth­er ar­eas.

Q: Are there fu­ture plans to adapt more ed­u­ca­tion­al con­tent in­to sign lan­guage?

A: Ab­solute­ly. This is on­ly the be­gin­ning. Our vi­sion is to con­tin­ue with oth­er lev­els of the Caribbean Rhythms. We al­so aim to ex­pand to in­clude ad­di­tion­al texts, ed­u­ca­tion­al re­sources, and even­tu­al­ly oth­er cur­ricu­lum ar­eas. We hope this project in­spires more au­thors, pub­lish­ers, ed­u­ca­tors, and or­gan­i­sa­tions to con­sid­er ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty from the very be­gin­ning rather than as an af­ter­thought.

Q: You have been teach­ing deaf and hard-of-hear­ing stu­dents for over two decades, tell us how this jour­ney be­gan?

A: When I ac­cept­ed a po­si­tion at the Cas­cade School for the Deaf, I had no pri­or ex­pe­ri­ence or knowl­edge of teach­ing the deaf. How­ev­er, I wel­comed the idea of work­ing with this spe­cial group of chil­dren. What I didn’t ex­pect was how much they would teach me. I learned a whole new lan­guage. I quick­ly re­alised that they pos­sess in­cred­i­ble po­ten­tial but are of­ten lim­it­ed by in­ac­ces­si­ble learn­ing tools rather than their abil­i­ties. That shaped my en­tire ca­reer and in­spired me to be­come an ad­vo­cate for in­clu­sive ed­u­ca­tion.