Janet Weinstock
Takes Her Teaching Seriously
Janet, whose husband Mike was profiled in a past JDCC News as a successful girls’ basketball coach, is also a success in her own right. She is a lead team teacher at the Gallaudet Pre-College programs.
She signs so fluently that an immediate impression is made of her as a graduate of a residential school for the deaf. Wrong! She attended P.S. 47 in New York, at that time a day oral program. “I often got punished for signing too much in class,” Janet quipped.
Because of her family’s several relocations while Janet was growing up, she attended different schools in different cities. These cultural exposures in New York, Cincinnati, New Orleans and then Hartford – has given Janet an invaluable background that cannot be taught in text books. This is why she is able to relate to the problems and difficulties that her students face, both in and out of the classrooms.
Janet recalls her scariest moment that took place as a 5th grader on the last day of the school year at P.S. 47. The assistant principal called her to the office and told her “because you are very smart, you will go to a hearing school next fall.”
Janet had visions of bringing of home work per night from after watching older sister June having to do all these work. “To my relief, it was totally untrue,” Janet laughed.
Janet graduated from Gallaudet in 1978 with a BA in English and then picked up her Masters in Deaf Education three years later. Not stopping at Masters, and while not inclined to go for her doctorate, she continues to take classes, especially in linguistics. “Masters plus thirty,” Janet quips.
She has never left the Gallaudet campus, but has never remained too long in one teaching position -spending eight years as English teacher to students of diverse backgrounds; teaching Deaf Studies for 4 years; helping with the development of the ASL/Deaf Culture courses; working with the Gallaudet Research Institute on language and literary research classes with the pre school children.
Versatility and adaptability has since become her trademark and her biggest strength. It is probably difficult, if not impossible to find another teacher replicating Janet’s accomplishments as a teacher at ALL levels, from pre-school up to collegiate level. Collegiate level? Yes she has taught classes at Gallaudet and at Western Maryland College. And her classes have been varied – ranging from ASL to children’s literature to reading.
Why did she remain on the Gallaudet campus? “I believe in stability and in being loyal to a place that helped me develop into a master educator over the years,” Janet explains.
Janet holds ten beliefs so dear, ever so necessary to educate a deaf child. These beliefs are: be empowered; understand why we are educators; consider the visual needs of all deaf students; be persistent; nothing is impossible; empower myself and others; deaf students can and will be literate; language equals power – embrace both ASL and English; be an excellent literary model; and never give up on any child.
Like with husband Mike who has many hobbies, Janet enjoys reading, writing poems, sketching, cooking and traveling. “I collect children’s books and quotable quotes,” Janet said.
Everyone is entitled to a vice, and Janet has one! “I am a chocolic who would go crazy if I don’t have any milk chocolates for more than one day,” she giggled.
Looking back at her background and her family, she said “I was born and raised in New York and very proud of it. I am also proud to be a Jewish Deaf Woman, enjoying quality time with Mike and two sons, Jamie, 13 and Joshua, 11, both middle school students at Kendall. The sons are avid readers like mommy and have already inherited the love of sports from daddy. What a nice combination.”
