 My name is Robert Panera People call me Bob Panera. I come from Rochester, New York from the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and TID Before that I taught at Gallaudet College for 18 years teaching English and helping out with dramatics and And before that I taught for four years at the New York School for the Deaf Called Fanwood. I myself graduated from Gallaudet College in 1945 Now I work at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf TID Where I began in 1967 It was my good fortune to be chosen as the first deaf person to work on the staff there I helped develop the programs at NTID Which is on the campus of the Rochester Institute of Technology RIT It's a hearing college Founded a long time ago in 1829 NTID was chosen by a government committee To be sponsored by RIT. It was the first attempt to quote mainstream Deaf college students With hearing students we began with a small group of 70 students Way back in 1968 at that time our students could be compared To fish in a fishbowl 70 small fish and the eyes of the nation were on them Watching them carefully To see how those deaf students Could succeed On a campus of a hearing college. I'm happy to say that those those small fish Did thrive they multiplied and grew bigger and bigger and bigger We had to put them in a larger Fishbowl and later a larger fishbowl The enrollment kept increasing and the staff expanded so that now we have almost 1,000 deaf students Mainstreamed with about 8,000 hearing students my work involves many different things. I Help develop curriculum. I helped establish the English department at NTID and later on I established the theater department. I directed the theater program While still teaching courses in RIT in the college of liberal arts Liberal arts courses are required of all students They have to take 12 liberal arts courses With their majors in technology I have been teaching deaf and hearing students in the same class. I Enjoy that challenge It was my good fortune to be the first deaf teacher to teach both hearing and deaf students together I use signs fingerspelling talk act pantomime You name it. I think hearing students enjoy watching a ham like me Maybe my voice is a little different like it has an accent But after the first day or two Hearing students become used to me. I've worked a lot in theater also. I Helped to found the National Theater of the Deaf at that time I was associated with Gallaudet College in Washington, DC and we were trying to establish a professional theater program by and for the deaf We submitted our proposal To the National Foundation on Arts and Humanities They were interested but they thought Maybe we would have to wait a while because there were other groups perhaps more worthy hearing groups like the American Ballet Theater Group and Cornelia Otis Skinner and Her theater group while we were waiting We got in touch with David Hayes who was one of the leading stage designers of Plays on Broadway He also was vice president of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut So we got together with Dr. Boyce Williams of the vocational rehabilitation agency in Washington, DC who was deaf himself and with Mary Schweitzer Who was a leader in vocational rehabilitation? We all got together and met several times and Finally the government decided to grant $350,000 to help establish the National Theater of the Deaf Ever since then I've been closely associated with them as a faculty fellow. I go every summer and I teach some courses in theater and Work with young deaf students who come from different Places such as Gallaudet College NTID California State University at Northridge various communities in The United States that have deaf theater programs. We have even started to get foreign deaf students It's really marvelous to see them interact these deaf students some come from Finland some from Sweden Denmark That's their sign Japan and Australia it's a wonderful experience to see them interact and exchange ideas and Share their skills every summer. I have written myself and Collaborated with some others to translate plays into sign language Shakespeare's plays such as Hamlet Othello and others Greek plays like Oedipus and other plays We've translated them into signs to make it easier for deaf actors to read interpret and perform on the stage and I've also tried to pioneer a A movement in deaf studies. I've done research about deaf people who have succeeded in various careers in education and Government in industry in The arts the sciences in Sports and in theater. That's why the JCCC Johnson County Community College Was nice to invite me here For a series of workshops Today I visited KSD the Kansas School for the Deaf and I spoke before two different groups of young deaf students. I Enjoyed that experience talking about deaf heritage and about deaf pride about deaf Can do tomorrow on Saturday. I Will have workshops at JCCC Going through the deaf and literature novels short stories plays That have deaf characters in them. What is the image of the deaf characters in these stories and plays? What is the function of the deaf characters? In those stories and plays. Why are they there? What kind of impression? Does the reader get from them? At the same time I will present a lecture and show videotapes About deaf people who have succeeded in a variety of sports and in the theatrical world The arts and the sciences and so on and finally on Saturday morning We will have a workshop on quote creative Creative interpretation of literature in Signs that's one of the things we do both at NTID and At the National Theater of the Deaf We read things like poetry such as selections from the Spoon River anthology And Shakespeare so on and we interpret them and try to dramatize them in signs Making the poem come to life. Maybe I could demonstrate with some examples in Flanders fields The poppies blow between the crosses row on row That mark our place and in the sky The larks still bravely singing Fly Scares heard amid the guns below We are the dead short days ago We lived felt dawn Saw sunset glow Loved and were loved and now we lie in In Flanders fields Take up our quarrel With the foe to you from failing hands We throw The torch Be yours to hold it high If ye break faith With us who die we shall not sleep though poppies grow In Flanders fields whose woods these are I think I know His house is in the village though He will not see me stopping here to watch his woods Fill up With snow my little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake The only other sounds the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake The woods are lovely dark And deep but I have promises to keep and miles to go Before I sleep And miles to go Before I sleep my ears are deaf and yet I seem to hear sweet nature's music and the songs of man For I have learned from fancy's artisan How written words can thrill the inner ear Just as they move the heart And so for me They also seem to ring out loud and free in silent study I have learned to tell Each secret shade of meaning and to hear A magic harmony at once sincere That somehow notes the tinkle of a bell The cooing of a dove The swish of leaves The raindrops pitter-patter on the eaves The lover's sigh And thrumming of guitar And if I choose The rustle of a star