Historical Issues in the Deaf Community: Some Questions and Answers

Historical Issues in the Deaf Community: Some Questions and Answers Deaf History? What can that mean? Well, just like everyone else, Deaf people can look backwards in time, to learn from the experiences of the past. There were always Deaf people in the past. They were not always recognised as having hearing losses – often just as stupid or as deranged - and they were shunned by some communities. Even today, some communities hide the Deaf children as they consider they are some sort of punishment. Yet there were also Deaf leaders and periods of progress throughout history. So when can we say Deaf History starts? A very long time ago …. Probably in pre-history …. .. for thousands upon thousands of years the congenitally deaf were being born and were probably able to take part in what were very simple societies of nomads and farmers. Their special needs of people with a hearing loss probably did not become obvious until the development of speech and writing became a significant factor in progress. The ancient Greeks refer to Deaf people – and mention their communication in sign. However, the Greeks placed speaking as the purest form of thinking and so Deaf people were excluded. It is said that even further back, the ancient Egyptians respected Deaf people as their visual communication was considered to be linked to the hieroglyphic writing. There are also references to Deaf people in the writings of Confucius in China and again the way people approached Deaf people and the responsibility the community took for Deaf members was shaped by this thinking. More recently, our attitudes to Deaf people were shaped by what appeared in religious texts – the Bible being one of the most significant. “Then the Lord said unto him, who hath made man’s mouth? Who makes him dumb, or deaf or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?” Exodus, 4:11 And also in Leviticus 11:14, “You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind ...” So we can say quite clearly that there were always Deaf people in our communities. Well, that is a bit far back ….. what do we know of more recent history? Religious influence was very strong and Deaf people were seldom given full rights as citizens in Western societies. Roman Law confirmed these ideas and would not allow deaf people to marry. One positive report on the son of Quintus Pedius, a consul with Caesar around 63BC explains that he was able to learn to paint very well even though he was deaf. Such positive views are relatively rare - except where the person was able to learn to speak. In Britain the earliest record is supposed to be that of the Venerable Bede but the reference is only to someone who was dumb cured by the Bishop (later St John of Beverley). Although there are organisations and institutions which take the name of St John of Beverley there is some doubt as to whether there was a clear association with deafness. Leonardo da Vinci is supposed to have identified the idea of lipreading. Cardano in 1663 claimed that the deaf could hear by reading and speak by writing. But it was not really until Ponce de Leon (1520-1584) set up his school in Spain that deaf education was supposed to have started. He had pupils from all over Spain from the families who had enough money to pay. Bonet also from Spain published the first book on teaching deaf children in 1620. His work in Spain was also based on signing and fingerspelling. Bulwer (1644, 1648) was the first published record of deafness and sign language in Britain. He proposed to set up an academy where sign could be taught. Although he had all these ideas he never put them into practice and there was no direct progress from his writings. Philocophus (1648) is considered the first book which is really devoted to deafness. Is there more recent history? The real roots of the modern treatment of Deaf people are in the schools which were set up in the 18th century. This was when we see the start of the controversy which has raged until very recently … should Deaf people be taught with their own language – sign language or by the spoken language of the community. The first school was set up in Edinburgh in 1760 by Thomas Braidwood but there was to be a fierce dispute about method in mainland Europe. De l’Epee in Paris after an encounter with Deaf sisters set up a shelter for Deaf people in the 1750s which by the 1760s had evolved into the first public school for the Deaf in France. He created the French method which was a system of standardised signs. This is a form of signed speech (speaking and signing at the same time) and was an attempt to regularise the signing so that it could fit better with speech and written language. Heinecke in 1778 set up his school for the deaf in Leipzig. This was solely using the oral method – just speak to the children as if they were hearing. He felt that thought came from oral language and written language was a translation of the thought. Heinecke and de l’Epee were entirely opposed in their approaches and the huge debate was described as the French versus the German method. Thomas Braidwood (1715-1806) was the founder of the first school for deaf children in Edinburgh and then in London. His approach which he tried to keep secret (but failed in the end) used fingerpelling and speech – a mixed method. Why was this important? Well, it created a huge adversity in approach which lasted in the first phase for a hundred years or so, until the conference of Milan in 1880 – which launched the oral method as the only method to be used in schools in Europe. In that period, Deaf school provision expanded rapidly from Edinburgh to London and then Birmingham and by the middle of the 19th century, almost all large cities in the UK had a Deaf school. Most of them had teachers who were Deaf themselves as well as hearing staff. Most had residences for the pupils to be boarders. It created the basis of the community. The education varied in its success but it was designed to lead to practical employment as carpenters, and shoemakers and seamstresses and so on. But just continuing with the educational theme … One of the features of the schools was their stability. When a headmaster was installed, he was able to stay there for a very long time. Because of the rapid expansion of Deaf schools in the early part of the century, the head teachers were appointed quite young. Many remained in post until quite late in the century. Not surprisingly the methods used and the organisation itself, reflected the views of the older members of the staff. New ideas were absent and the schools slipped into decay and there was a lack of new initiative. Signing became associated with low achievement and institutionalisation. Charles Dickens was interested in Deaf education and he became a governor of the school in London - it is not clear how active he was but he did write about deaf education in Doctor Marigold’s Prescription. However, a major change took place in the second half of the 19th century. Experiments with oralism (just speaking to the child and focusing on speech training) happened in the 1860s. What they found, perhaps not surprisingly was that the child who was taught individually was better in learning speech. So the early successes of this type of approach contrasted markedly with the slow development of deaf children in the schools - who also were slipping into deaf stereotype jobs. This apparent success was valued by parents and it was the parent lobby which began to give a fresh momentum to Deaf education. The movement went in two directions at once - it decided to teach speech and it decided to make sure that the teachers were formally trained in method. There was no great tradition of teacher training - it was mainly the master-apprentice model. Since there were few masters who could teach oralism, the parents decided to set up their own college. The teachers’ organisation became the force behind the professionalisation of teachers. By the latter part of the century, all the meetings of head teachers discussed the need to develop training for the teachers. Such training was in the oral method and Deaf teachers were almost automatically excluded. But there were deafened people and also hard of hearing such as Alexander Graham Bell’s wife who shone out as examples of what oralism could achieve and these began to be spokespersons for this movement. They said that deaf people would speak if they could. As a result the battle for speech teaching was won at least for a hundred years. So who were the important figures in this? Interestingly, one of the key people was Alexander Graham Bell – Scotsman and inventor of the telephone amongst other things. He made his fortune in the USA and was highly respected. He put his full weight behind the idea of speech training (not surprising as that was his father’s occupation). He gave evidence to the Royal Commission for Deaf Education in the late 1880s and his views were accepted over those of the other expert Thomas Gallaudet, from Washington DC, where they had set up the only college in the world (now the only University in the world) for Deaf people.

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