** Note: deaf with a lowercase d is often reference to people that cannot here properly

Transcription

1 ** Note: deaf with a lowercase d is often reference to people that cannot here properly while Deaf with a capital D refers to people that associate themselves with Deaf culture.** From the early 19 th century Deaf education has become an issue in the United States, Starting with the teaching of Alice Cogswell by Laurent Clerc and Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. The difficulties associated with educating deaf people were recognized along with the need and desire to offer an education to deaf people. Gallaudet had noticed young Alice s lack of a language and taught her the word hat. Convinced of her understanding and ability to learn, Gallaudet discussed Alice s education with her father, and together they decided that since there were more people that could benefit from deaf education they should start a school (Moore and Levitan 32). Deaf education was underway in America. However, English is an oral/aural language, and deaf people do not have the ability to hear. This gave many challenges to deaf education The school s goals were English literacy, industriousness, and Congregational style morality (35). In fact Sign Language was merely used as a medium for communication and speech training was seen as a waste of time (35). Deaf education has progressed greatly through the years while striving to provide an education equal to that of hearing people. A lot has changed from those early days of deaf education; Oralism has been introduced into the tool belt of deaf education. This tool is invaluable to deaf education giving the opportunities for speech and lip reading to the deaf so that they can communicate more freely throughout the community, thus making the deaf a more independent part of society. Amos G. Draper explained oralism well when he wrote The Attitude of the Deaf Adult towards Pure Oralism. In his essay he stated:

2 To the deaf, pure oralism means the method of teaching the deaf which has speech and the understanding of speech by vision as primary objects; and endeavors to teach all the deaf to speak, and to teach them all branches of knowledge by speech; and forbids, and by all means in its power prevents, the use of manual alphabet and of signs (Draper 175). Oralism claims to have many benefits for the deaf, one benefit is that oralism teaches the deaf to talk. The notion that all deaf will be successful in speech is ridiculous. In all aspects of education there are pupils who excel in various subjects and pupils that struggle greatly with their subjects. Speech training is no different. The book For Hearing People Only explains that not everyone can benefit from speech training. Good articulation is extremely hard to achieve, especially with minimal exposure to sound (Moore and Levitan 133). Speech is learned through copying the sounds we hear, yet the same learning is expected from the deaf even though they do not know how the words they learn are supposed to sound. In fact, the only way the deaf know if they are understood is through observing the looks and reactions of hearing people to their voice (133). Traditionally oral schools focus greatly on speech; however, their graduates do not necessarily have better articulation then signing or total communications schools (132). There is no benefit in teaching through an oral only program if the deaf finish the program with the same skills and abilities as other deaf. Some of the other benefits according to Doctor Patrick Stone, Director of the Tucker- Maxon school for the Deaf in Portland, Oregon and past president of the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and the Council on the Education of the Deaf, are, The primary benefit [to an oral program] is being able to communicate with a wide variety of individuals. This ability brings with it options in terms of education, vocation, and social life (Stone). Deaf

3 people who have gone through an oral program are able to communicate with a wide variety of people. That does not however, mean that deaf people who do not go through an oral program are less able to communicate. In an article on the total communication approach to deaf education, Doctor Larry Hawkins, an Associate Professor at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma s Deaf Education Department, and Judy Brawner, an instructor, at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma s Deaf Education Department cited that, Research studies have repeatedly demonstrated the beneficial effects of total communication in all areas of deaf children s development, whether psychosocial, linguistic, or academic (cited in Hawkins and Brawner). Oral programs tend to also focus heavily on the one thing deaf students cannot do, which is to hear. In Draper s essay he stated: The best lipreaders are those who can normally hear speech and can therefore match visible mouth movements with meaningful linguistic units by way of (imagined) sound. That no hearing person would willingly depend on lipreading for communication should bring us to ask why Deaf people are expected to do so. Yet lipreading and the artificial production of speech where the goals of American Deaf education for almost three generations and are still widely endorsed as educational goals today. (175) Draper wrote this essay in 1895, another generation has come and gone since then, yet oralism still has its strongholds in Deaf education. According to Fredrick C. Schreiber, What a deaf person needs most, both at school and at home, is free and easy communication, the ability to absorb cultural information by eavesdropping. Without it, a decent education is impossible (188). Schreiber paraphrased a poem quoted by Doctor Ray L. Jones when talking about

4 problems with the Deaf in Texas. The poem speaks of a town with a cliff and the town was faced with a decision of building a fence to keep people from falling or to place an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff in order to quickly rescue people who fell. The town voted for the ambulance and people continued to fall. Then the issue was brought up again about building a fence and people asked why? There was an ambulance there already and it was providing service to all those who fell. Schreiber, former Executive Director of the National Association of the Deaf, stated, We may not be preventing our children from falling over educational cliffs but we certainly have the best ambulance service in the world (188). The current solution to Deaf education is not working. Too many deaf children are being left behind there hearing counterparts in many aspects of education. They are struggling to keep up with academics and they struggle with exposure to culture. As hearing children grow they receive constant nourishment of social norms from their families, teachers, friends, and everyone else they come in contact with. Deaf children in an oral program are restricted from access to Deaf culture. For hearing people culture is easily passed from parents to children however, for the Deaf their culture is passed through sign language, Deaf theatre, Deaf art, and other Deaf since for most Deaf their parents do not share the same culture. All these things are frowned upon in oral education because it is believed that children cannot learn speech or lipreading if they are exposed to other forms of communication. Deaf culture or a sign language only approach may do little to benefit the Deaf as well. In a signing program the Deaf children receive a sense of identity. Sign Language programs can overcome many of the inadequacies of oralism. Many words are hard to read on the lips, for example, the words my and pie look exactly the same on the lips. Oralists may claim that this can be cleared up by using the context in which the word was used and for these words that

5 may be possible in most cases. The words fifteen and fifty also look the same and could cause serious confusion at a store. However, a quick sign or a fingerspelled word could clear confusion instantly. Through my study of Deaf culture, Sign Language and interpreting at San Antonio College, I have learned that a significant amount of speech is not visible on the lips. Depending on the teacher, book, or research study statistics claim that visible speech is limited to about 30 40% of a conversation. Some people claim as high as 60% of a conversation is visible on the lips. In combination with guessing at words and missing 40% or more of a conversation oral communication can quickly become a very daunting task. All this does not even account for a mustache that covers the lips are someone chewing a nice wad of gum. Nor does it account for the many people that exaggerate mouth movements and yell and scream in order to try and communicate with the Deaf. Sign language can easily clear up this confusion since it is in a form that is easily available to the deaf. So is Sign Language the answer? No, Sign Language has its downfalls too. Unfortunately everyone does not know sign language, and having an interpreter follow you around everywhere is not practical, nor desirable. Like most oralists suggest the world is mostly hearing and therefore it would be beneficial for the Deaf to talk, if possible and lipread. The total communication approach to Deaf education was one attempt at providing an education that involved the aspects of oralism that are beneficial with the benefits of Sign Language. This led to sim-com or simultaneous communication. Sim-Com sounds like a solution to the problem of which language to use with the Deaf, however, Hawkins and Brawner point out that this type of communication can lead to favoritism of one mode or another. Essentially sacrificing quality in a language in order to have two languages presented at the same time.

6 James Woodward expressed another solution to the issue of Deaf education in his book How You Gonna Get to Heaven if You Can t Talk with Jesus. Woodward emphasizes a bilingual approach to deaf education with two main differences from the total communication approach. One, the Deaf community needs to have equal control in all aspects of the bilingual program, and two, there should be free use of American Sign Language in the program (22). Through this bilingual and bicultural approach to Deaf education, Deaf people can become better citezens in society giving them access to the same knowledge that hearing people take for granted and allowing them to grow and progress just as anyone one else obtaining their own sense of identity, and gaining access to a culture that is unique in its language, social norms, and even the way it is passed from generation to generation. In a bilingual bicultural approach this is done without sacrificing the essential skills of lipreading and speech that help the Deaf associate in the hearing world.

7 Works Cited Draper, Amos G. The Attitude of the Adult Deaf towards Pure Oralism. Deaf World: a Historical Reader and Primary Sourcebook. Ed. Lois Bragg. New York: New York University Press, 2001, Hawkins, Larry and Judy Brawner. Educating Children Who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing: Total Communication July 2008 < Moore, Matthew S. and Linda Levitan. For Hearing People Only. Rochester, New York: Deaf Life Press, 1993 Schreiber, Frederick C. The Deaf Adult s Point of View. Deaf World: a Historical Reader and Primary Sourcebook. Ed. Lois Bragg. New York: New York University Press, 2001, Stone, Patrick. Educating Children Who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing: Auditory-Oral Approach July 2008 < Woodward, James. How you Gonna Get to Heaven if You Can t Talk with Jesus. Maryland: T. J. Publishers, INC., 1982