Legacy of deaf education

[Grummer]

do you agree with this? how might we achieve translatability of English and Sign language in the pre-lingual-barrier removed era of the future , in order to mature the social progress into a fully multi-lingual society in which many hearing people will be conversant with speaking in sign language with deaf people?

look at the quote below;

Hearing users of sign as a second or foreign language, rather than Deaf native users of sign language, are more likely to be fully bilingual because of the legacy of deaf education.

also tell me your opinions of what is the legacy? how it might be transformed in the future?

 

[jillio]

do you agree with this? how might we achieve translatability of English and Sign language in the pre-lingual-barrier removed era of the future , in order to mature the social progress into a fully multi-lingual society in which many hearing people will be conversant with speaking in sign language with deaf people?

look at the quote below;

Hearing users of sign as a second or foreign language, rather than Deaf native users of sign language, are more likely to be fully bilingual because of the legacy of deaf education.

also tell me your opinions of what is the legacy? how it might be transformed in the future?

I will agree to a certain extent with the legacy. Deaf education has been dominated by oralism for over 100 years. As a result of deaf children being restricted to oral educational placement, as well as an oral environment in the home, they have not been provided the opportunity to develop a strong L1 language in sign. They, because of the failure in the oral methods, also have not been able to develop a fluency in English. Hearing signers, on the other hand, have not suffered through a liguistically deprived childhood and early education. They have strong L1 language skills, which in turn, fosters developing fluency in a second language.

The transformation needed is a shift to a bi-bi environment in not just the school, but the deaf child's home environment, as well.

 

[Tousi]

I will agree to a certain extent with the legacy. Deaf education has been dominated by oralism for over 100 years. As a result of deaf children being restricted to oral educational placement, as well as an oral environment in the home, they have not been provided the opportunity to develop a strong L1 language in sign. They, because of the failure in the oral methods, also have not been able to develop a fluency in English. Hearing signers, on the other hand, have not suffered through a liguistically deprived childhood and early education. They have strong L1 language skills, which in turn, fosters developing fluency in a second language.

The transformation needed is a shift to a bi-bi environment in not just the school, but the deaf child's home environment, as well.

Jillio, I hold the same sentiment that the bi-bi theory is probably the best approach. However, I think the reason it's not more wide-spread (and thereby, gain replication and proof in my lifetime, lol) is two-fold:It is a daunting task to convince or to wrest the power from those in the highest reaches of State education departments and the Legislators who currently, and, apparently are satisfied (make that ignorant) with the status quo.

The second reason, in my opinion, is that there are not enough hearing teachers with native-like expertise in ASL and also not enough deaf teachers with native-like expertise in English to fill all of the deaf student classrooms, be they in mainstreaming or residential schools to forge ahead full-steam with the bi-bi approach and all the years of replication it will take to finally say, "See, this works." And within that scenario, I would be pleased to see that the above-defined teachers would be skilled enough to micro manage individual children to include only those who would benefit from CI's, CS, etc. at the request of parents.

Lastly, I haven't really mentioned the parents much, the most critical party to this scenario and this is where the success or failure of individual children will hinge and thereby dictate the success rate.

I truly wish that I could live to be 200 years old and be in relatively good health on the day of my death. Then, among other things in my life, I might be able to see great advances in the education of deaf children and a deaf society that is richly diverse and respectful of differences. Hey, there's room enough for everybody! lol....

 

[jillio]

Jillio, I hold the same sentiment that the bi-bi theory is probably the best approach. However, I think the reason it's not more wide-spread (and thereby, gain replication and proof in my lifetime, lol) is two-fold:It is a daunting task to convince or to wrest the power from those in the highest reaches of State education departments and the Legislators who currently, and, apparently are satisfied (make that ignorant) with the status quo.

Well said.

The second reason, in my opinion, is that there are not enough hearing teachers with native-like expertise in ASL and also not enough deaf teachers with native-like expertise in English to fill all of the deaf student classrooms, be they in mainstreaming or residential schools to forge ahead full-steam with the bi-bi approach and all the years of replication it will take to finally say, "See, this works." And within that scenario, I would be pleased to see that the above-defined teachers would be skilled enough to micro manage individual children to include only those who would benefit from CI's, CS, etc. at the request of parents.

Absolutley. But I maintain as well, that there are those deaf individuals who would be excellent educators but have never pursued their degree and certification because they do not see it as a viable occupation based on exactly the reasons you have cited. I see it as a situation in which the philosophy needs to be embraced with a result in opening up the opportuntiy for those individuals who could be educated in the micro-management needed to implement and show results.

Lastly, I haven't really mentioned the parents much, the most critical party to this scenario and this is where the success or failure of individual children will hinge and thereby dictate the success rate.
Absolutely. This is a variablethat applies to any and all children. Parents are also capable of dictating the failure rate.

I truly wish that I could live to be 200 years old and be in relatively good health on the day of my death. Then, among other things in my life, I might be able to see great advances in the education of deaf children and a deaf society that is richly diverse and respectful of differences. Hey, there's room enough for everybody! lol....

If you find a way to accomplish that, let me in on your secret, please. I'd like very much to join you!

 

[Grummer]

hi tousi and jillio, I like your replies.

I strongly agree that parents play a significant role in contributing to the failure rates, perhaps if it is made clear (again there's layers of battles behind this one as well) for hearing parents must learn this language if they wish to support a deaf child who shows inclination towards signing. however this is a very different kind of support compared to a more practical or physical support of disabled children , where that people knows what is lifting means and can learn how to something or someone in particular way. So for breaking pass the barrier of the reluctance to use sign language is something much more difficult to do, if not impossible. For that sign language is not entirely appreciated, when I say appreciated, I mean to use SL much more than "oh they just have to sign so they know its tea-time", that's the very problem, lack of faith in sign language, also on top of that, lack of exposure stemming from bureaucratic intent to conceal, or at best, to discourage the 'unrecognised' sign language since sign language's potential is not understood by those in the powers-that-be, which the distortion or arrogancy brought on by perceived comparison of two languages in terms of achievement at any given point in time, a very crude example of what I'm conveying is thus like; "since SL users didnt invent aeroplanes, so hearies immediately thinks SL is useless".

This may sound naive, but the hearing people needs to understand this, we need to confront the bias, as well as to formulate a bilingual education structure which does not introduce bias and maximising the use of two languages , whereas at present at best, bilingual deaf education stumbles obstacles because it is nothing more than an ad-hoc form; often it is not much more than applying monolingual education through sign language.

The potential for us to change the perceived legacy of deaf education in future, is in not only in our hands, reaching out to parents is a MAJOR task, the barriers to this really needed to be broken down, but also from us on how do we explain, hate to say this, but i think there's alot change to be made in how we represent Deaf/deaf reality to hearing people, franky I'm not sure how...

 

[jillio]

hi tousi and jillio, I like your replies.

I strongly agree that parents play a significant role in contributing to the failure rates, perhaps if it is made clear (again there's layers of battles behind this one as well) for hearing parents must learn this language if they wish to support a deaf child who shows inclination towards signing. however this is a very different kind of support compared to a more practical or physical support of disabled children , where that people knows what is lifting means and can learn how to something or someone in particular way. So for breaking pass the barrier of the reluctance to use sign language is something much more difficult to do, if not impossible. For that sign language is not entirely appreciated, when I say appreciated, I mean to use SL much more than "oh they just have to sign so they know its tea-time", that's the very problem, lack of faith in sign language, also on top of that, lack of exposure stemming from bureaucratic intent to conceal, or at best, to discourage the 'unrecognised' sign language since sign language's potential is not understood by those in the powers-that-be, which the distortion or arrogancy brought on by perceived comparison of two languages in terms of achievement at any given point in time, a very crude example of what I'm conveying is thus like; "since SL users didnt invent aeroplanes, so hearies immediately thinks SL is useless".

This may sound naive, but the hearing people needs to understand this, we need to confront the bias, as well as to formulate a bilingual education structure which does not introduce bias and maximising the use of two languages , whereas at present at best, bilingual deaf education stumbles obstacles because it is nothing more than an ad-hoc form; often it is not much more than applying monolingual education through sign language.

The potential for us to change the perceived legacy of deaf education in future, is in not only in our hands, reaching out to parents is a MAJOR task, the barriers to this really needed to be broken down, but also from us on how do we explain, hate to say this, but i think there's alot change to be made in how we represent Deaf/deaf reality to hearing people, franky I'm not sure how...

I agree with you Grummer. Getting hearing parents to confront their bias is a monumental task, as I'm sure you have seen right here on AD. But it is not an impossible task---just extremely difficult. I suppose we need to keep giving the message so often that they reach the point where they can no longer ignore it. It is only when those parents begin to undersand, that powers to be will be forced to listen. And the only way to accomplish that, to my way of thinking, is one parent at a time.