The Deaf Community of America - Chapter 3 - Elsa Wybrow

There were lots of cool insights in this chapter. I did not know that Alexander Graham Bell was a

part of Deaf history. I thought he was only responsible for inventing the telephone. But after

thinking more about his role, I can see that it did impact the Deaf community, because they

couldn’t participate in this invention; it was only inclusive to those who could hear. And I

thought this quote from the book was interesting, “all countries except the United States formally

adopted oralism as the language of instruction for deaf students. — For the next hundred years,

the oral method of teaching dominated in Europe.” This part of the chapter took me back too,

“non-deaf teachers who knew sign language were considered dangerous by oral program

administrators. Teachers who were deaf were not allowed near small deaf children out of fear of

contamination by their signs among the naive youngsters. Deaf teachers were perceived as ‘unfit’

to teach since they could not hear their students’ voices or teach speech. In the 1850s, nearly half

of the teachers were deaf, but the numbers dropped to one-quarter around the 1880s. During

World War I, one-fifth of the teachers were deaf, and by the1960s, only one-eighth were deaf,

while all superintendents were hearing.” I am a little confused as to why oralism was a majority

teaching method in Europe, and why signing was considered the worst during this time in the

world. Was oralism helpful to students? Does oralism work? Why was sign language such a

taboo? Lots of questions I will have to do more research on. Looking at today, I am certainly

glad that American Sign Language was preserved and is used; it is such a beautiful language. It

is sad that during this age in the chapter, people resulted in segregation. Lots of individuals think

of segregation in terms of race or gender, but the fact that segregation by communication

occurred is crazy. The world has definitely come a long way from evolving to a more
accommodating and welcoming society. Learning more about Gallaudet University helped a lot

with that statement!