The main reason why many people in the world do not know much about Deaf culture is because of the wall that needs to be torn down.

Please read Deaf Chipmunk’s Vlog about “Tear down this wall”

http://deafchipmunk.com/?p=29

All the people in the Deaf community need to do their part to educate the society about American Sign Language and Deaf culture.

Hundreds of hearing ASL students now starting to read MindField book and read below about one of the many reaction papers students wrote;

 

Kim

ASL 3705

April 23,2008

MindField Paper

MindField is more than an entertaining novel; it is a piece of literature that brings up extremely important issues about societies reactions and views of deaf people. I personally enjoyed it, but found its underlying issues fascinating and worth thinking twice about.

There were several hidden messages in MindField. One hidden message I saw was the identification of organizations that do not support ASL. The Secretary of Education who supports oralism is like the equivalent of Alexander Graham Bell Association. These groups believe that the hard-of-hearing and deaf people should learn to lip read and speak English. This is not only almost impossible for all people to do, but incredibly ignorant. The secretary was the President’s advisor because she had a deaf daughter and was thought to know the “correct” way of dealing with newly deaf people. Because the President was poorly informed, he was unable to make a decision that was best for everyone. Instead, he agreed to put newly deaf people in camps to teach them to speak and lip read. This is exactly what the AG Bell association support. They think like the Secretary of Education when says, “The whole signing ‘thing’ was a joke, as far as she was concerned-the children’s hands and arms flailing about, struggling to make some sense out of some archaic three-dimensional dots and dashes-not only were they advertising their disabilities, they were acting like clowns.” This aspect of the book certainly influenced me. It made me much more aware of the seriousness of the issue and just how oppressive the AG Bell association can be. I was extremely offended that there are people who would suggest that “flailing your arms” is embarrassing. It seems particularly selfish to believe that English is the only means of communicate which is “normal” when it is only one of hundreds of different languages. Not to mention that those who sign ASL are bilingual because the English in its written form which far more than most hearing people can do.

One of the other hidden messages in MindField is society’s current perception of the deaf as disabled or in need of fixing. This is a problem today, not just a possible problem of the future that might happen if the events in MindField were to come true. In fact, many believe that cochlear implants, hearing aids, and other devices are attempts at “fixing” the deaf of their “problems”. Although MindField presents this issue as a future occurrence, the fact is that it is happening today. Again, the AG Bell association comes into the picture here because they are one of the biggest supporters of cochlear implants in young children. They believe they can “fix the problem” as early as 12 months in babies. However, deaf people are just as capable as any other human being and a cochlear implant doesn’t give a deaf person the ability to hear like a hearing person in most cases.

I was also influenced by the book in respect to the importance of educating people about things such as the Deaf culture. Society takes for granted things that they don’t have to deal with on a regular basis and are therefore ignorant and judgmental when they do encounter such a situation.

I do feel that MindField gives off a strong anti-oralism vibe. This is because the Secretary of Education is portrayed as a puppet; simply telling others to do as she had been told. Someone told her to teach her daughter to speak and read lips and in turn she then thinks that oralism is the right way to teach newly deaf people to communicate. In the camps, the teachers couldn’t even communicate with the two women who were signing because the teachers did not know how to sign. I think that part of the book made a very strong point because while reading lips and teaching people to speak is possible in some cases, it is not the best option for everyone. American Sign Language breaks down huge barriers in terms of communication because it is its own language. Instead of guessing what someone is saying by reading their lips, they can say it perfectly clear using sign language. Also, the government is portrayed as a nasty agency because it wants to force all the victims to learn in terms of oralism. Clearly MindField is anti-oralism or else it wouldn’t have portrayed it in such a negative way. I think it is a positive message in terms of the bigger picture because it shows the real-life struggle deaf people have with pro-oralist organizations. Sign language is completely functioning in its own right and being forced to speak when one can’t hear themselves just seems barbaric.

When the epidemic broke out in Montana, I definitely think that the government should have asked the Deaf Culture for assistance and advice. There are already thousands of Deaf people who function normally within society and so could the newly deaf victims, had they been properly taught to communicate in a language without barriers. The government could have set up schools such as those already established, and simply given them the capacity to teach so many people. The education of deaf people shouldn’t be left solely to the decision of hearing individuals. Deaf people know what is best for them because they have lived it, and experienced it. They know what works and what doesn’t. If the government had taken the time to compile information on both sides and liked at the results a much better resolution would have been made then forcing oralism all the meningitis victims.

Overall, the information that the book provided was helpful, insightful, and at times hard to read. It is not easy to look at a problem such as this and realize that I wouldn’t have known any better had I not been in ASL or this Deaf Culture class. If an epidemic such as this one really broke out, I probably would have trusted the government to so what is right. But really, the government isn’t always properly informed and can’t always make the best decision for a group of people such as the ones in MindField. Therefore, I think it is even more important now that people get the facts about sign language and Deaf culture before they assume what is right based on what organizations such as AG Bell or others might say.

Posted on April 28th, 2008 by egbertpress
Filed under: Uncategorized