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Julie Olson with her granddaughters Colleen (far left) and Kelly.
Out of My Shell Initially given no options to treat her hearing loss, a teacher quits her job prematurely but eventually finds the support, and technology, to help her return to a rewarding career. By Julie Olson Hearing loss came into my life when I was a college junior. I rushed to classes to get a seat in the front row, and I noticed that when listening to records with my ukulele folk music group, I heard lyrics differently. I would not have recognized these issues had I not been taking a class in speech education that included a unit on communication disorders. After talking to my parents and seeking medical advice, I sought testing and learned I had a progressive bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. The physicians told me I had the ears of a 60-year-old and that I’d be deaf by age 40. At 20, that seemed light years away to me, so I wasn’t too concerned. The doctors—who were reputable, and based at a wellknown clinic in the Midwest—also said nothing could ever be done to help me. They discouraged hearing aids because they were just a waste of money, and told me emphatically I’d just have to learn to live with it. Problem was, nobody told me how. The doctors just reiterated that there would never be a cure or any kind of treatment that could ever help me. This was in the early 16
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1960s when perhaps not enough was understood about hearing loss and treating it to help me.
Misunderstandings at Work
My hearing loss had minimal impact on the early years of my teaching career in physical education. I was fortunate to be able to work in just about any school. Women in P.E. in the 1960s were scarce as those in my field were still fighting for the enactment of Title IX, which eliminated gender discrimination in the academic system in 1972. A few years later, my hearing difficulties became more apparent. Proud of my fair and inclusive P.E. teaching style, I was disheartened to learn there were gaps in communication due to my hearing loss. A student who’d been assigned to be my teacher’s assistant very politely told me I’d misunderstood some questions from the class. I told her about my hearing loss and realized I had a problem. I did not have hearing aids or any way to help my hearing. Recalling my doctors’ dire predictions, I decided it was time to retire. So I did. I was in my early 30s.
