December 26, 2019 - Chelsea Paulson is a Minnesota transplant from South Dakota. She is a teacher, a friend, and a mother to three kids. Chelsea grew up as a solitaire Deaf student in rural South Dakota. She went on to graduate from Augustana University with her teaching degree, double majoring in deaf education and elementary education. She has taught at the Idaho School for the Deaf and Metro Deaf School, and was the first coordinator for the Minnesota Deaf/Hard of Hearing Role Model Program.
Currently, Chelsea teaches deaf and deafblind students at Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf (MSAD). She is involved on multiple levels as a teacher. Chelsea works with students and their families to help them coordinate school life with home, including assisting with language acquisition, bridging school with home and developing and using tools they have to be able to develop relationships with their families and developing their identities. As a teacher, Chelsea helps families with being able to feel comfortable bringing their children to a Deaf school. She teaches reading, writing and math along with everything else in the elementary school.
Chelsea enjoys that MSA caters to Deaf, Blind and DeafBlind students. She also appreciates that MSA provides resources to students and families via free library resources.
At MSAD, all staff meetings are conducted in ASL. When she is working at MSAB with DeafBlind students, MSAD provides ASL interpreters for her. MSAB and MSAD work together to provide different accommodations and communication access for her and other staff, as well as for the students. Fortunately, the communication access is flexible.
Chelsea’s advice to young Deaf students is “Be self-determined. Do a personal inventory of yourself to figure out what you really enjoy doing. It’s ok to change ideas and to change your path. Being flexible about communication modalities which will enable you to go farther in life. You will meet many people on different paths, so you must be open-minded. Your attitude makes a big difference. Have gratitude, be thankful for where you are and what you have.”
The #CanDoAnything campaign showcases people who are deaf, deafblind, or hard of hearing at work, giving them an opportunity to share what they do at their jobs and explain how communication access works for them. This campaign shows what our community can do, which is anything!
