「私自身を通して伝えたい…」難聴の２３歳新任教諭の“挑戦”は障害がある子供たちの“成長”へ【岡山】 (25/02/11 09:30)

This is a section on welfare explained through sign language. There's a hearing-impaired teacher at a special needs school in Okayama Prefecture. What does he want to convey to students through his own experience? We followed this 23-year-old newly appointed teacher closely. ◇Morning Meeting "Attention, and thank you! Thank you!" "Good morning. How are you today?" Tanjoji Special Needs School is located in Kumenan Town, Okayama Prefecture. This is Chiyu Sato (23), the homeroom teacher for second-year students in the intellectual disability division. Sato was born with severe hearing loss and is practically deaf. She normally wears hearing aids and cochlear implants. ◇Staff Meeting "The bus was delayed, so I asked another teacher. I just went to the dormitory as usual..." (Chiyu Sato) "I just move to a position where I can hear easily and listen carefully. I try not to leave anything unintelligible." At special needs schools, teachers accompany students from the time they arrive at school until the time they leave school, and because classes are small, they can interact closely with the students. (Students say...) "She's a kind teacher who plays games with us." Ms. Sato teaches math. ◇Class scenes "How many apples are there? The apples are here. If you look at the scale vertically, you can read 8." This is her first year as a teacher. She continues to spend her days trying to get her students to fully understand. (To a child) "If you look at this part of the graph, you can tell the quantity without counting." (Sato Chihiro) "I want to cherish children's desire to communicate. I myself have had to give up on communicating because of my hearing loss, so I don't want children to lose their desire to communicate." On this day, a supervising teacher who will be supervising new teachers observed the class. (Teacher Kawada Tomomi, Base School Instructor, Okayama Support School) "I want students to be able to read the numbers on the vertical axis of the graph, but many of them still count the squares. We can devise teaching materials so that they can do this without having to be told not to count." (Sato Chihiro) "I see." (Teacher Kawada Tomomi, Base School Instructor, Okayama Support School) "He's become able to notice each student immediately. He has difficulty hearing, so he has to stay at the front, but he positions himself where he can see everyone and is in a position where he can act no matter how any student reacts. That's completely different from April (2024)." (Sato Chihiro) "At first, I didn't know where to be or what to do." In 2024, Sato graduated from university and became a teacher in her hometown of Okayama. She greeted April with a different kind of anxiety than other new teachers. (Sato Chiyu) "I wondered whether I, a hearing-impaired person, would be able to work here. To be honest, I spent my spring break relaxing, thinking that I would end up working at Okayama School for the Deaf, just like the other teachers before me." She began her teaching career among hearing people. She was desperate not to miss any important information. (Sato Chiyu) "I didn't know who was talking (even in the staff room), and I felt lonely because I had no one to turn to." In fact, Sato had a different dream when she was young. (Sato Chiyu) "From my kindergarten graduation anthology, I knew I wanted to work in the medical field from a young age." Her father's illness prompted her to pursue a career as a doctor. She pursued her dream by attending lectures by deaf doctors and hospital events. (Sato, who was in her third year of junior high school at the time) "I wanted to become a doctor, and hearing the story of a deaf person who became a doctor gave me confidence." From there, Sato studied hard and overcame the handicap of being hard of hearing to enter a general high school. However, something happened in her second year of high school. (Sato Chiyu) "I couldn't take the listening test, so I had been asking for a month to take it in a separate room. But on the day of the test, they said, 'We forgot to prepare the classroom. Sorry,' and I felt bad. I decided I wanted to become a teacher who could support people with disabilities from their perspective." It was a holiday, and Sato was at the track and field stadium. She had come to watch her younger brother practice. Sato's younger brother is a deaf athlete who aims to compete in the high jump at the 2025 Deaflympics to be held in Japan. (Sato Chiyu) "Sometimes when I feel down, I come to watch practice to cheer me up." As the only two members of the family who are hearing impaired, each other's presence is a great source of emotional support. (Brother, Sato Shusuke (20)) "He's reliable. He helps me when I'm in trouble. I don't want him to become a teacher who gets angry over strange things." (Sato Chiyu) "Yes, I'll be careful (laughs)." It's been almost a year since he started teaching, and he says that by co...