06.05.01 – The Anglais Presentation
This 65th clip of the DC mythology is posted with hand-waving congratulations to Gallaudet University and its ASL/Deaf Studies department for reaching this historic milestone after years of hard work – inaugurating the Deaf Studies Digital Journal. Click on the blue word to go to the websites. I would like to discuss the implications of the establishment of this journal.
I have labored to receive a doctorate degree myself and during the process, I became utterly turned off by one part which was to cite previous work by scholars in order to bolster the validity of my scholastic reasoning. I am aware that this argument might be inane because it is the way science is built on. Only when one scholar find everything known and written by previous scholars, that person can create a little something new built on these labors. Without this process, science (everything, especially technology we enjoy today) will crumble down.
When I had to cite someone, I once thought that was ridiculous. It was like “he said, she said therefore I am right”. No scholastic work is totally right, even those by geniuses like Albert Einstein. What if someone I cited was wrong? My work could then be affected by any kind of mistakes in any cited scholastic work. We would then have to repeat ourselves by constantly revising our work to improve. Even though this is time-consuming and somewhat erroneous, I guess this is probably the only way we can strive to improve ourselves. Exclaim something new and found and then oops, there was a mistake or two. Correct this and that before moving on with the hope that the future will be improved based on our failures and successes.
I also became discouraged by the fact that I had to write my dissertation in written English which is not my primary and natural language. I was not comfortable with the whole process but I went ahead and finished the dissertation in English. When looking back, I realized that I once wished that I could contribute to my field of studies with prepared treatises in ASL. I wondered if I should have proposed to my committee to do my dissertation in ASL. I probably did not want to fight and rock the system but just to get the degree so I could move on.
People teaching in universities are encouraged to publish in peer-reviewed journals in order to achieve tenure and to maintain it. To publish always meant writing articles in written English (or other languages). Most of us in the ivory tower knew this maxim, “To publish or die”. Today, we could see something new on the horizon. Any hearing and deaf scholars could publish their work in ASL in this new Gallaudet University digital journal. Their work, when published in this journal, probably would be accepted by university department committees reviewing tenure-granting. Future scholars could cite work that is not written but signed (or spoken). I sincerely hope that other universities would be encouraged by Gallaudet’s example and establish more digital journals publishing works in ASL or other signed languages.
Seminars, symposiums, and conferences focused on academic or scholastic endeavors could someday accept papers which are signed (or spoken) without requiring them to be written down. Proceedings could then go down in history preserved on video in signed and spoken languages without being even written. Would that continue to be looked down by those who continue to demand that scholastic work only be written? Only time will tell.
The new digital journal at Gallaudet also offers an irrefutable evidence that we, deaf people and hearing allies, are contributing to a paradigm shifting on how humanity view not only on sign language and deafness but on how humanity develop communication, language, community, and many more. Now with this new digital journal at Gallaudet, anyone could present scholarly and artistic work in ASL. PAH! Finally! May this DSDJ and other similar ones lead to paradigm and revolutionary shifting of the way humans look at their audist practices and ways of life. May we all diversify our ways of life and move away from ancient audist ones.
Please click below to begin the 6.5 clip of the Deaf Child myth to the part where Abbe Siepee used the Deaf Young Adult to convince the world that using sign language to teach the deaf is the WAY . . .
Please click on the video-screen above to go to the you-tube site where you could enlarge the screen to full size in the window of your computer. Thank you.
Myth Commentary: The story of Gallaudet and Clerc meeting in England is being mythologized here. The importance of Gallaudet meeting Clerc is being exaggerated just as the way the activities of the American founding fathers are being mythologized and exaggerated. I feel it is important that deaf people need to mythologize important events in deaf history in order for future generations to enjoy them. The mythology will encourage the viewers to think and wonder how things happened in the deaf past.
A small tangent on the title. One small scene in Steve Spielberg’s film, “Schnidler’s List” had a strong impression on me. We do wonder why one person, one literary or artistic work, or anything small could succeed in making a big impression while countless others had failed. In this little scene, the Jewish man who helped type up the list of names asked Oskar Schnidler how he could convince the Nazis to allow his factory running and to keep his Jewish workers in the factory, and how he could succeed. Oscar simply replied in two words with this marvelous body pose, “the presentation”. From this little scene, I understood why Schnidler was able to save one thousand Jews from the holocaust. Read below for the discussion on how Sicard could convince many people on his success in educating deaf people at his school in Paris simply by making a good impression or “presentation”.
Deaf History Commentary:
(Transcript of the Video) The chapter 6, Anglais Plaza, is actually a scholastic and artistic contemplation of the situation when Thomas Gallaudet, Sr. went to England around the same time Sicard, Massieu, and Clerc were there. The historical background of this 6.5 clip actually focuses on when Sicard and his three deaf colleagues were in London to give their lectures about their pioneering ways of education (and lives).
The monarchy in France had always been supportive (by giving money and other things) to the deaf school run by Abbe Sicard. When Napoleon took over the French government and overthrew the monarchy, the deaf school had a harder time maintaining their sources of fund and support. When Napoleon was overthrown, the school and Sicard drew breaths of relief when the monarchy came back into power. When Napoleon was returning to power, Sicard then thought of a trip abroad to England who was fighting against Napoleon. That was one reason.
Another reason why Sicard went to England was because the trip was an opportunity for him to increase his (and his school) fame (he was flamboyant and boastful) and to procure fund for his deaf school in Paris. in 1815, Sicard with his deaf students-colleagues, Massieu, Clerc, and Godard. When they arrived in England, they printed leaflets to be distributed to the British public. A copy of this leaflet could be seen in page xx in Jack Gannon’s 1980 book, Deaf Heritage. There is also a genuine copy of the leaflet in the museum at American School for the Deaf where it belongs to the personal papers of Thomas Gallaudet. When I visited the museum, I took a picture of the leaflet (which can be seen in the video).
Sicard and his three deaf cohorts gave about six lectures. The audience comprised of the members of the House of Parliament, members of the nobility, the clergy, and any interested public. People in the audience were so impressed with the presentations made by then-called deaf-mutes’ ability to learn to read and write and of Sicard’s skills in teaching the deaf. Certain persons were so impressed that they decided to compile the things discussed in the lectures into an interesting book by Laffon Ladebat and translated by J. H. Sievrac. You can view the book in its entirety at Goggle books where you can type Massieu and Clerc in London 1815 as keywords or click on this link. 1815 Book. The book has the French text on one side of the page and the English translation on the other.
This 1815 book opened with an introduction written by Sicard. He discussed on the difficulty to put his lecture into words so he prepared a text to be included. He discussed on the beginning of deaf education in France with the famous incident of Epee (the founder of the deaf school) meeting the two deaf sisters and how he labored to develop methods on educating deaf people through sign language and other means.
The next item was a transcript of a written conversation between Laurent Clerc and a young English lady (sic) at a party of an admiral near the Cavendish Square in London. After that, the rest of the book is Massieu’s and Clerc’s written answers on a chalkboard to the questions posed to them by the audience. The publisher or translator copied the answers and put them in this book. The questions were various. Examples were “What were the differences between Mind and Intellect?”, meanings of words or terms such as gratitude, virtue, and military, “What do you think of England?”, and deaf education in France, among many other things. My two favorite answers were the replies by more intelligent and eloquent Massieu to the difference between mind and intellect (”Mind is the source of intellect and intellect is the result of the mind.”) and the meaning of gratitude (”remembrance of the heart”). This 1815 book is a remarkable eyewitness report of the lectures made by Sicard and his three deaf colleagues.
Why is the book and Sicard’s visit to England important? Two possible reasons. England is a bastion of oralism with the monopoly of the Braidwood family over deaf education there. The British people did not know much about the French manual method of education of the deaf. Information of “alternative” deaf education was spread into England. The other reason, of course, was that Thomas Gallaudet found the leaflet announcing the lectures. That resulted into him meeting Sicard, Massieu, and Clerc first in England during the 5th or 6th lecture. That encounter probably directly led him to continue his travels to Paris to learn the manual method of deaf education and sign language. Subsequently, Gallaudet brought Clerc to America and the rest was history. I felt it is important to study Gallaudet’s encounter with the French deaf educators in England BEFORE going to the deaf school in Paris. That is what chapter 6, Anglais Plaza, is really all focused on.
Deaf Studies Commentary: Continuation of psychology: to be or not to be deaf deaf studies topic here.
I believe the most fundamental question to deafhood is this: To be Deaf or Not to be Deaf. This is in spirit of Shakespeare’s Hamlet “to be or not to be” soliloquy. Should a deaf person decide to sign and be a proud deaf person or not to sign and try to pass as a hearing person? Should parents of a deaf child decide that their baby should aim to lead a life as a hearing person modeled after themselves or to model after a signing deaf person, thus encouraging their deaf child to lead a life in God’s natural way? Should the general public look at a deaf person from their own definition or the deaf person’s own definition – be that person an oral or signing deaf? You can see the conflicting questions and answers. That is the basic question at the bottom of the heart of the deafhood development of EVERY deaf or hearing impaired person on earth.
Deafhood Questions: Have you ever stood up in front of thousands of hearing people knowing little to nothing about sign language and/or deaf people to demonstrate that the deaf people could do this or that? How does that experience make you feel as a deaf person or influence your own deafhood?
Deaf Quote: “Use the Signing Deaf as the Way”
Bibliography: (here I go citing someone else below, grin)
Ladebat and Sievrac. (1815) A Collection of the Most Remarkable Definitions and Answers of Massieu and Clerc, Deaf and Dumb, to the Various Questions Put to Them at the Public Lectures of the Abbe Sicard in London. London, England: Cox and Baylis. (link to the book in Google here)
Lane, Harlan. (1985) When the Mind Hears: A History of the Deaf. New York: Random House.