46th Clip - Title: Finding Monks - (04:03 mins - 4:18:20 hours)
This first clip of chapter 5 is posted to give more recognition to Etienne de Fay, one of the earliest deaf teacher of the deaf in history. Even though the history of deaf education began in Spain in the 1500’s, barring more discoveries might be made, the world’s first deaf teacher of the deaf was probably Etienne de Fay from France. More on him below.
Enjoy the first clip of Siepee’s Monastery where VisMa, flying westward, sought help to raise the Deaf Child.
Click here for YouTube if above undownloadable, too slow to download, or wanting a full screen.
Deaf History Commentary: In this clip VisMa observed one monastery, convinently put together as one in the myth, which actually are several monasteries, first in Spain and then in France (possibly other places).
The world knew that the first teacher of the Deaf was Abbe de l’ Epee, partly the namesake of the title of this chapter. As Bernard Truffaut reported in his research, Etienne de Fay actually taught deaf students some 40 years before Epee started teaching the deaf (focus of the next clip, 05.02). Here is what we know of our first deaf teacher.
Etienne de Fay was born deaf around 1669, apparently from a noble family. At the age of 5, he was placed in the Abbey of Saint-Jean d’ Amiens where he stayed for the rest of his life. In the abbey (or monastery) de Fay learned reading, writing, arithmetic, mechanic drawing, architecture, a remarkable feat for a deaf person at that time. There are written testimonies that he was skilled in communicating with sign language (remember that was some 50 years before Epee in Paris). When the abbey expanded, he drew architectural plans on which portions were built. The walls and the plans survived today.
Several deaf children were placed under the tutelage of Etienne de Fay. The first glimmer of deaf history began when a famous deaf person, Azy d’Etavigny, was first taught by de Fay before going on to become the pupil of the famous French oralist, Jacob Periere. The venerated Abbe de l’ Epee knew of Periere and his famous pupil and started the world’s first public school for the deaf around the same time (the main focus of chapter 5 - Siepee’s Monastery).
There is a deaf history organization based in Orleans, France named Association Etienne de Fay. Click here to go to their website.
Bibliography:
Truffaut, Bernard. (1993) Etienne de Fay and the History of the Deaf. From Fischer and Lane (editors) Looking Back: A Reader of Deaf Communities and Their Sign language. Hamburg: Germany. Signum Press. pages 13 - 24.
45th Clip - Title: Fleeing the Dark Side - 2:36 mins. This last short clip of Hein’s Castle is posted with a pointing out to the deaf community about Daniel Plainview, a despicable hearing father in the new film “There Will Be Blood”, who mocked his son’s proud Deafhood. The dark side of audism in Daniel is revealed - the same VisMa saw in Dr. Hein in this myth. Refusing to communicate with deaf children through sign language and brutally forcing them to conform to spoken language could and should be construed as a biological crime, especially just what Daniel Plainview did.
I finished watching the film based on Upton Sinclair’s book about Daniel Plainview, the worst a human being can be: scheming and competitive, drunk rich in oil and whiskey, denouncing sign language and religion, not opening his heart to people around him, and not trying to be a better person. Pure greed and hatred. I had a hard time progressing through the film because I was filled with revulsion toward Daniel Plainview, well-acted out in the body of Daniel Day-Lewis.
This excellent film left me uncomfortable. I was not “entertained”. It was a “catharsis” experience - meeting a person you are propelled to detest. Are there still hearing parents of deaf children who feel strongly like Daniel Plainview on sign language? How can we, the Deaf, explain to the hearing world that the more everyone, especially parents, sign, the better the world will be. The more the world sign, the better chances our future deaf children can acquire language fully like any other human beings. The hearing world’s core primeval response to deafness is revealed in Daniel Plainview, in the vein of Doctor Hein here and later in the myth, in General Volt. What should we do with our fight against audism, or “Daniel Plainview”?
Enjoy this short clip about VisMa fleeing Doctor Hein with the Deaf Child below toward something in the West . . .
Click here for YouTube if above undownloadable, too slow to download, or wanting full screen. Thank You.
The emergence of video and blogging in the internet has created a great boon to the deaf community. Video in the Internet will serve as the Deaf “newspaper-radio-TV” of the future. Mass-communication has arrived for the deaf community. I am enjoying this new development, especially YouTube and the blogs (deafvideo.tv and deafread.com), and its impact on helping me continue developing an epic in ASL about our deaf history.
I am still not sure of the myth I created. What and how would the deaf community react to a long story in ASL about their deaf history, serialized like Dickens and Clemens in the 19th century? This is treading into new ground, I humbly feel, for the sign language viewers in the deaf community. New types of ASL literature. New terminology like deafhood in our discourse. We see glimmers of deaf spirituality growing. We reap opportunities technology has given us: videophones, pagers, and the cochlear implants. We now see more films in ASL. More and more hearing people learn sign language. We, the Deaf, are now confronting the AgBell organization.
Looking back at the topic of the talk I gave at the DeafRead conference, The Impact of the Blogsphere on Deaf Society, I reiterate the idea I made. We can not measure the impact because we are living in it right now. Jared Evans signed it well at the beginning of the conference by saying that we are treading into uncharted territory. This is truly the dawn of an new era for the Deaf.
As in the end of the clip, embrace while fighting Audism . . .