GABISAN (ENG)
AKP/nov-6-2014
Volunteer teacher Michelle Gabisan silently teaches her class at the Bulacao Community SPED Center in Cebu.
Inside her classroom, all 15 multi-grade students speak using only their hands.
Like her students, Gabisan is deaf and was the only Deaf who passed the Licensure Examination for Teachers in 2012.
Gabisan was not born deaf. She lost her sense of hearing at the age of four as a result of an antibiotics overdose when she contracted meningitis.
Thinking that she was mute, Gabisan’s parents sent her to a mainstream private school where she coped by lip reading. It was in high school that she enrolled in a special school in Cebu City and learned sign language.
Gabisan finished her degree in Elementary Education, major in English, at the University of Southern Philippines in 2006. Since then she has always wanted to help Deaf students.
She does not draw any salary for her work at a SPED Center, but she is happy with what she is doing — teaching Deaf students.
The Philippines recognizes the right of the Deaf by observing Deaf Awareness Week every second week of November.
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