Dark Ages of Deaf Education: Is there a glimmer of hope?

Dark Ages of Deaf Education: Is there a glimmer of hope?

Personal Testimony of a volunteer/interpreter for the Deaf in the Philippines

I vividly remember the events that had transpired between the Deaf High School students at SPED school for the Deaf and their teachers. It was a microcosm of that “Deaf Oppression” happening all around the world especially on Deaf education since time immemorial. If Gallaudet University had a “Deaf President Now” movement in 1989 which shook the “hearing world” with their deafening outcry of “THE DEAF CAN!” the Deaf in Iloilo made history, right here in their own backyard, at that point. I may call it the “Deaf Liberation Movement.” Their clamor was”free us from ignorance, free us from a world of not knowing.”

The Deaf in Iloilo City, had for many years had long-sufferingly accepting the “Bahala-na”- anything-goes kind of Deaf Educational system. And no one questions it because nobody really knew that the way things are, is not supposed to be the way it should be. Not the teachers, who are clueless on how to handle their Deaf students and on the fact that there are other emerging methods of Deaf Education. Not the Deaf, who would only resort to that attitude of “patience, accept.”

For a long time, they had been blind followers of this educational system, which was brought by a Peace Corps volunteer to SPED in the 1980’s. Up to now, this system is still adopted and insisted in the Deaf school in Iloilo, by the high school teachers even though it has already become obsolete in other parts of the world.

It was just a matter of time, when that dormant volcano would come out from its hibernation. And now it is inevitable, an eruption has happened, mounting and swelling up hot molten lavas of long-hidden anger, discontent, and frustration. It is unstoppable, it will reach its fiery wrath to those who would want to block its path, or cover its crater with boulders of insults and aggression. Make way, make way, here comes an empowered Deaf…ready to fight for their own battle--- to liberate themselves and reclaim their birthright, their identity as a Deaf people--- their own Sign Language.

Recently, there was a meeting of the High school teachers of the Deaf to which they are opting not to adopt use of Filipino Sign Language (FSL) in teaching their students. They scorn upon the idea of teaching using FSL because they have wrongly perceived it as just initialized signs of Filipino words i.e. nanay (mother), tatay (father), paaralan (school), which is not at all the case. How amazing that the teachers could be so arrogant about something on which they are ignorant about – in particular the arrogance towards FSL.

FSL is not at all inferior initialization of Filipino words. It is the visual language naturally arising within the Deaf Filipino community.

In a sign language workshop at Cebu City, the Deaf learned that FSL is a product of history of language contact between American Sign Language, natural signs from the Filipino Deaf community and Manually Coded English Systems. FSL is a symbol for the Deaf Filipino Identity. It is a source of pride for the Filipino Deaf Community. FSL is a result of advocacy through the leadership of the Philippine Federation of the Deaf. FSL represents a dream, ideal and goal for the future. National language policy and planning will be important in the next 5 to 10 years. FSL research is going on as of the present.

The teachers believed that the methodology of using SEE and Total Communication to the Deaf at SPED High School would improve their English writing skills. Could they identify who among their Deaf graduates, really have improved English writing skills? Has it worked amazingly that the hearing teachers are not open to new emerging methodologies, especially to the movement towards use of FSL as base language and English-as second language for Deaf students.

The real issue here is not about the methodology used, it is about the question on their passion for teaching and imparting knowledge to the deaf, if at all they have it! Are the teachers doing their homework? Are they actually teaching in its truest and noblest sense? If so, why are the Deaf complaining that they don’t understand their teachers? Why did one teacher teach Filipino language and not at all sign it when the student asked her to explain it. Why was another teacher fuming mad when her student asked her to repeat what she was signing because the student did not understand her?

It is not about “parroting” English or Filipino sentences that make no sense at all, but it is about successfully communicating ideas, concepts, and knowledge to the deaf in a language that they would understand. To share the joy of successfully putting across knowledge and see that glow in their eyes and that imaginary spark of “light bulbs” on top of their head. A friend once told me, there are no bad students, only bad teachers, because good teachers make bad students good.

In a subsequent feedback meeting with the high school Deaf students, it was seen through their “angry hands, flying and flipping in the air” how they hunger for knowledge and crave for information. And that definitely is not filled in by their teachers. For the lack of understanding that the deaf are different and their means of acquiring knowledge is totally different from the hearing students, that the education that they have acquired should not be compared to a 4^th grader Fast-Learner student. After all, it is not a level playing field and more so, it is not a fair game.

The rules, the referee, the criteria and the decisions are definitely in favor of the opponent. It is like in a game of basketball, where the star player of the hearing team is Kobe Bryant, the manager is Michael Jordan, the referee is let’s say Larry Bird (of course I’m making up the characters)…. and then the Deaf team is composed of some not-known amateur team who won in some “barangay” (small town) basketball tournament! Get the picture?

What the Deaf students wanted is that they would understand and be understood, that they be respected. Respect for their language, for their culture and most especially respect for their identity, their personhood. How can that be when one teacher wrote on the blackboard in his fits of anger…”Deaf culture, FUCK!” That is really one scary picture!

In fairness for the teachers, I understand how something new, can be something scary, especially when it would mean dragging them away from their comfort zones. And if at all they are doing what they could to “educate the deaf”, then probably it is in a way that what they think is right, unmindful of the fact that the Deaf has not learned at all. I know how they are feeling right now, probably in total disbelief and shock that these kids are trying to attack their system of teaching. They perceive their students as persona-non-grata, gossip-mongers and downright “bobo” (stupid)! Should they have been objective enough and see the issue rather than taking things too personal, it would not at all end up to this. Rather than having a “secret meeting” among themselves and deciding on banning Filipino Sign Language, they should have called their students and some third party for a dialogue and ask what was the real problem. But of course the students would have been cautious knowing that “complaining” about their teacher would just be fruitless since the teachers exude this air of authority!

Seeing the other side of the coin, sometimes I am tempted to give my sympathy votes for these teachers, because they are left powerless and without a guided direction in their aim to produce Deaf kids who could write perfect English, in their ultimate goal to have a good reputation as “educators of the Deaf,” no quality and sincere support from the government especially from Department of Education. I know it can be frustrating when no matter how good a teacher you are but when you’re not equipped with the skills and the training especially on how to approach a Deaf child, all your efforts would just go down the drain. But I just could not reconcile the fact, why such aggression towards FSL, when even their counterpart hearing teachers at the Deaf Elementary level are open to such changes.

Would these inevitable changes unravel some disgusting truth about the real pathetic state of high school Deaf education? Would we find out the incompetence, inconsistency, indifference and indolence of these teachers if ever the accusations of their Deaf students are true? What is really the true motive behind the arrogance?

If they choose to be stuck in their own time-warped prehistoric zone of Deaf Education, if they insist on banning Filipino Sign Language, if they would exact unjust vengeance on their Deaf students by their negative attitudes and their power over their students’ report cards, if they continue to oppress the Deaf with their insults and humiliation, they’d better do their research on Deaf History and read especially on the Milan Conference in 1880, and the Deaf President Now movement in 1981, should they not want to be etched forever in a bad light and be disgraced in the history that is happening now within the Deaf community. Is there hope? Would the dawning of the Golden Age ever rise at the shores of my country for the Deaf? I believe there is a glimmer if not a bursting radiance of hope, if each one of us should light that wick of the candle called enlightenment, if we all work together to keep that spark glowing even for just one Deaf at a time, by then they would no longer be in the darkness.

Disclaimer: This blog is a personal reaction and opinion of a volunteer for the Deaf. She is sharing her opinion and views from the conflict that happened between the Deaf students and their teachers on the issue of Deaf Education last March 2003. Such reaction therefore is on a personal level.