I love to listen to podcasts in my personal life and when I found out there was a site that hosted kid-friendly podcasts I knew I wanted to involve it in my class. I discovered this site, kidslisten.org , in 2019. It was excellent for my bellringers each day because the kids could listen and then answer questions after the podcast.
"Headset and mobile phone with podcast app on the screen" by Marco Verch is licensed under CC BY 2.0
However, a situation arose one day that I was not prepared for. I taught a student who was deaf. She had cochlear implants so usually she could hear the podcast each day through them.
One day her implants were not working correctly. She couldn't participate in the bellwork like the other children did that day. It broke my heart and her heart because she loved to hear the stories.
We were very blessed that it was just a dead battery and was an easy fix but I realized then that many podcasts are not inclusive of the deaf community.
By nature of design, you have to be able to hear to listen to a podcast. As I was researching this post I went to kidslisten.org again to poke around and discovered that they are now creating transcripts for many of their shows!
This is an excellent tool to help children who are hearing impaired to follow along and be involved in the stories. This is a very necessary and overdue inclusion because 2 to 3 out of every 1,000 children in the United States are born with a detectable level of hearing loss in one or both ears (1).
Many podcasts not in the educational sphere are now including sign language videos that go with their podcast.
If I would have had these tools in my classroom that day I would have been able to include all of my students in my lesson.
Before that day I had never felt or seen what it was like to be left out. Luckily my student had technology with her cochlear implants to help her most of the time but what if she had not had access to them?
I can see that things have changed in the last 3 years since I taught a student with a hearing impairment and that the podcast field has recognized that they are leaving out a group of individuals who would enjoy their content too.
With the use of technology, they can now have transcripts to use with the podcast and some have sign language as well. I am thankful now that we as a society have identified this injustice and have taken steps to provide inclusion.
I would be honored if you would complete this Google form and give me more ideas on how to be equitable in my classroom. The form is complete anonymous so feel free to be honest.
Sources:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Identifying infants with hearing loss - United States, 1999-2007. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 59(8): 220-223.
Vohr B. Overview: infants and children with hearing loss—part I. Ment Retard Dev Disabil Res Rev. 2003;9:62–64.