I did some freewriting and this is what I have so far......
Deaf Education is spefically educating deaf and hard of hearing children to master the n English language as well as gaining knowledge in other subjects. Up until the middle ages, the deaf were regardless as langaugeless because they were unable to understand spoken language, let alone written language. In the 1700s a French minister opened a school for the deaf in France after being asked to help two young girls learn language. He went to visit them in their home and he realized that they 'spoke' by pantomiming to each other and using various hand shapes. The girls had formed their own language to visually communicate with each other where they could use spoken language.
After noticing the local deaf community in Paris, France, the minister, Abbe Charles Michel de L'Epee, opened the Paris School for the Deaf. He made this his life mission. Instead of teaching solely deaf children of the rich aristocrats, but instead he taught deaf children from all walks of life. In order to accomplish this, he used all of his own money to finance the school. There are myths circulating that L'Epee would do without fire in his own quarters so that the students could have fire in theirs during the winter months.
Following L'Epee's death one of his pupils, Abbe Sicard succeeded in taking over the school and during this same time another of L'Epee's pupils, Laurent. St. Clerc became one of the top instructors at the school. An Englishman by the name of Thomas Gallaudet was interested in teaching for the deaf and visited the Paris School for the Deaf. There, he met St. Clerc and together they decided to start a deaf school in America, they moved to Connecticut. While there they noted the community of Martha's Vineyard as there were a high number of deaf individuals there that had been using their own system of localized sign language. They observed these signs and syntax and they eventually came up with the American Sign Language borrowing from the Old French Sign Language that was being taught at the Paris School for the Deaf as well as many of the signs that were currently being widely used by the local deaf community at Martha's Vineyard, as well as creating the American manual alphabet that are 26 handshapes that represent the 26 letters of the American alphabet.
Soon they established the American Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, with the word 'dumb' being associated with mute at the time. The name of the school was later changed to the American School for the Deaf.
During this time many deaf students graduated from this school and went on to establish for the deaf in their own states. After some time every state with a few exceptions had established their own deaf school with a curriculum often based on the local school district's with a primary emphasis on teaching the deaf to master the English language in written form with all of it's complexities and grammar.
Soon however when America joined WWI and WWII, the deaf became a very skilled workforce, and during this period some even attained white collar status. When a hearing man left to join the war effort, a deaf or hard of hearing that was unable to serve often took his place within the workforce, the same as the women did when their husbands joined the war effort.
After WWII their was a shift in the philosophy of deaf education, from a manual approach to a completely oral approach. Though not all deaf schools followed this trend, many of them started banning the use of signs in favor of using voice wherever possible and making the most of any residual hearing a child might have. Some schools went as far as expelling students who were caught using signs for fear that it might 'corrupt' the other students to using this 'lesser' language.
During this same time, much of hearing America began regarding the deaf as intellectually inferior to the hearing as their written English was not at a competent level with many grammatical and syntax errors. During the 1960s a certain number of people did some cognitive research on deaf students to figure out if they really were intellectually inferior as thought and if so, why?
After many years of study, research, and learning experiments with various groups of deaf and hard of hearing children in comparison to hearing children within the same age groups. They found that a majority of 18-20 year old deaf students scored at only a 4th grade reading and writing level, while a group of deaf 4th graders scored at only 2nd grade reading and writing level. However alarming this may be, another scientist decided that this experiment only showed how much the deaf students had learned at their respective deaf schools, it did not show the deaf students cognitive ability. One test asked that a 17 year old deaf boy be given a set of cards with numbers inscribed on them. He was instructed to make as many different combinations of the numbers as possible. He was given the instructions verbally, and he did not fully understand, but when he was shown what was asked of him from the instructor he understood the exercise. Then he preceded to make all the possible combinations with the exception of two number combinations. The instructor asked to the student to repeat the exercise. He did it again, this time with no errors. This was when the instructor knew the deaf student understood the exercise fully. Then the student was given another set of numbers inscribed on cards in addition to the first set. The instructor then asked the student to give all possible combinations. The student went through the exercise having to think about each number, he came up with all combinations, except for 11 and 22. The instructor pointed this out, then gave the student another set of numbers in addition to the first two sets and again was instructed to find all the possible combinations, including doublets. The student again worked through the exercise producing the doublets first then proceeding to the other combinations, this time without error. Finally the instructor gave him a fourth and final set of numbers and instructed the deaf student to repeat the exercise producing all possible combinations. The student worked through them quickly and once produced the same number twice. This was when the instructor gave the student pen and paper to write down each number combinaion as he formed them so he could keep up with each. Soon the instructor noted that the deaf student who had never done this exercise before was using a higher level of cognitive reasoning to not only grasp the concept of what the instructor was asking, but to be able to do so at a rapid rate. This experiment proved that the deaf were just as capable of learning new concepts and even had the ability to learn them just as quick as a hearing person would. This was done in the 1960s.
And that'ss not even half the material I have on hand to work with. That's just what Ive learned from what I have read over the past week.
Normally stuff like this comes quite easily for me, but this is the BIG FINAL and this is the absolutely worst time to have it!
, confused and frusrated.