45th Clip. Title: Fleeing the Dark Side. 2:36 minutes long. Total: 4:14:32 hours.
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 . . .
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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 . . .
44th Clip. Title: Breakout from the Castle. 5:27 minutes. Total: 4:11:56 hours.
Posting this second to the last clip of chapter 4 with a brief message. We must never forget the crimes on deaf people from the past. Most information about those crimes is lost to time. With creative mythology, some lost information is “transcended” to the present through “epic” storytelling based on what deaf history we have unearthed . . . . we must never forget . . .
Enjoy finding out how the Deaf Child got out of the Castle. Click away . . .
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Commentary on the Deaf Child in Hein’s Castle: We do not have thousands of stories of individual lives of deaf students/people in oral schools all over Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. The character of the Deaf Child in Hein’s Castle is assembled to give both positive and negative aspects of the deaf experience, all rolled into one deaf person undergoing the older (pre-electronic) oral deaf educational method. Some deaf students did enjoy and could acquire (at varied levels) spoken languages, no question about it, but what about the (seemingly, larger) segment who did not like it. What was it like to “suffer” in an oral school?
Deafhood question: Have you ever suffered of any kind in oral classroom with other deaf or with hearing students? Have you ever thought of really want to get the hell out of the oral (or public) classroom to go elsewhere? If you were aware of sign language and the deaf community, then have you ever dreamt or fantastize of getting out of “hearing” world and seek the Deaf World? Would you like to share your experience here? Anonymity is fine here.
43rd Clip. Title: The Final Surgical Experiment. 4:02 minutes. Total: 4:06:29 hours.
Posted with hands forward out saluted open-palms good luck for another wrinkle in the transformation of DeafRead and related sites produced by the gray matter upthere and mousestrokes of taylorinfomedia.
Now click away to view the final brutal surgical experiment done on the deaf child.
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42nd Clip. Title: Signing Hands Swatted. 4:10 minutes. Total: 4:02:27 hours.
Tired of cochlear implant topics and movie reviews? Here is a change of scenery. Click on to find out what happened to the Deaf Child after the second surgical experiment. A classic oral classroom scenario.
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41st Clip. Title: The Second Experiment. 6:18 minutes long. Total: 3:58:17 hours.
This clip is posted in gratitude to Brian Malzkuhn who was instrumental in making it possible for me, in the spring of 1994, to teach a deaf history course at Ohlone College where the myth was used for the first time in a college course. I wrote this sentence in the second edition (draft) of the Deaf Child Deafhood workbook: “to Brian Malzkuhn, an avid fan/instructor of deaf history, for falling in love with the myth and pulling me into Ohlone College.”
This was also when I began observing the role the mythology played in the effortless learning of deaf history by hearing and deaf people. Read below for two excerpts of students’ responses to the idea of using the myth to learn about the history of the deaf experience.
Click away and enjoy the second horror the Deaf Child experienced in Hein’s Castle . . .
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Commentary: Please go to the 04.08 post to read the commentary on the history of experiment in curing deafness.
Here are two written responses by hearing students who used the Deaf Child mythology to learn about deaf history. Soon to be part of a new page - see the top row of this website.
Throughout this course, “Deaf History,” I have gained a tremendous amount of knowledge regarding the evolution of deaf culture, the deaf community, deaf education, and influential deaf individuals. Initially, I had difficulty translating the mythology into true historical events. By mid-term, however, I began to understand the symbolism presented in the myth. Actually, when I experienced the “ah-ha” and the light came on, I began to really enjoy studying deaf history from this perspective.
I must admit that at first I really had my doubts about learning history through the myth. I vividly remembered the ear-mouth soldiers, the gruesome experiments, and the hands getting chopped off. I thought I would prefer to just have the names and dates thrown at me, and learn it all through memorization. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I can honestly say at this point after going through it that the myth made the learning process more interesting and much less dry. One of the most important aspects of the myth as a learning tool, I think, is the way more than one real-life characters can be combined to form a mythical character; for example, Dr. Hein, Gen. Volt, and Abbe Siepee.
40th Clip. Title: Selling False Hope. 4:30 minutes long. Total: 3:51:59 hours.
This clip is posted for those oral deaf people who “exclaim” about their speaking skills, needing to express “I can speak”. Signing deaf people usually don’t do that, not needing to express “I can sign”. The spirit behind this clip, “Selling False Hope” describes the soul, the quintessence, and the epitome of oralism.
Click away and enjoy Hein’s false advertisement . . .
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Commentary: Research on the history of oral education have shown that oral educators, in the 18th and 19th century, had used various deceptive ways to demonstrate that oral educational method was superior, worked better, or appropriate for deaf children. The infamous 1880 Milan Congress used students from local deaf schools, most of them POST-lingually deaf, to demonstrate “good” speaking skills. Oral schools in the past AND the present would select students with best speaking skills to give demonstrations. It is false hope given to parents and the public that “all” deaf children can be like this “one” deaf person who can speak.
The shrill of the oral educators of the deaf, oral deaf people, and few signing deaf people - who say “The deaf can speak” or “I can speak” - epitomize the spirit behind this clip. Want to see/hear the most current shrill - click here. That DEAF person wrote this sentence, “I’m able to hear and speak well.”
I find that very same young deaf oral woman’s brave stance very helpful for the deaf world to accept the fact that cochlear implants are probably not the death knell of sign languages and deaf cultures, yet her shrill still resonates the spirit of this clip.
I find Patti Durr’s response to “the shrill of the oral” reasonable, balanced, and intelligent. Click here to read her words.
This endless cycle of the Deaf Question (to speak or not to speak) OR (to sign or not to sign) will not stop until the prophecy of this myth happens, that is IF. That comes in the 12th and last chapter, so hold our pants, we need to.
Tikkun Olam, we must . . .
May VisMa Be With You . . .
39th Clip. Title: Behind Hein’s Facade. 5:35 minutes long. Total: 3:47:29 hours.
This post is for all deaf people who experienced oral classrooms and knew what was behind the facade of oralism in those schools. Sign language could not be suppressed. It is like if you try to move the light on a plant which then would grow toward wherever the light is. Suppress sign language and it’ll pop up somewhere else.
Watch what the deaf child saw behind the facade in Hein’s Castle. Click away . . .
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Commentary: We know very little of what was was life like in oral schools during the 18th and 19th centuries. We do have some information of student life in signing schools like in Paris from the writings of Clerc and Berthier. Not so for oral schools. What was it like to attend the Braidwood schools in England or the Heinicke school in Germany? We could guess safely that the oral students did sign behind their teachers’ backs and in the dormitory rooms. What did happen when they were caught signing? Hands slapped and/or what kinds of punishment did they receive? All this is subaltern or “minority” history that probably is lost in the mists of time. Historians might come across accounts overlooked in the files of those oral schools. Let’s hope they do find them and enlarge our understanding of deaf history in the 18th and 19th centuries.
38th Clip. Title: Hein’s First Experiment. 5:18 minutes long. Total: 3:41:54 hours.
Caution: Graphic ASL description of an experimental cure of deafness. Not for the faint-hearted. A picture included below.
This clip is posted in memory of those deaf people who needlessly suffered from painful experiments in the attempts by quacks, parents, scientists, and doctors from the past (and present) in curing their deafness and/or muteness. It is up to you to include the cochlear-implanted in this group of deaf people.
Enjoy the first of several horrible episodes in the deaf child’s stay in Hein’s Castle. Carefully click away . . .
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Commentary: In the annals of medical history, we see countless horrible experiments in curing anything undesirable in human life. Several journals and blogs explained those experiments in curing deafness. Even today, we see people trying to cure hearing loss, see this website. As in this clip, people poured liquid imaginable and not into the ears and tried to enlarge the Eustachian tubes by inserting various sticks into them. A small and smooth metal stick, called the “Eustachian catheter”, was invented for insertion into Eustachian tubes by the famous Dr. Itard, teacher of the Wild Boy of Aveyron (see page 132 to 134 of Lane’s book, When the Mind Hears).
This picture below (click on it to enlarge) was scanned from page 498 of the book: Looking Back: A Reader on the History of Deaf Communities and Their Sign Languages, edited by Renate Fischer and Harlan Lane, published by SIGNUM Press in Hamburg, Germany.
I want to share a story reflecting the nature of the clip here. I was a Montessori pre-school teacher for the Tripod school in 1988 and 1989. I remembered one 3 or 4 years old deaf boy who had a difficult time being separated from his parents, standing by the gate crying with his arms outstretched and hands clawing for several long minutes before I had to bring him inside the classroom. It went on for some weeks before this behavior began to subside. Anyway, for many weeks, I noticed cotton balls inside both of his ears. I had to inquire his parents’ on why, which was their homeopathic attempt in curing their son’s deafness. They put various liquids, some smelling bitter, some sweet, some both, in the cotton. Sure enough, as most of deaf people know, the parents stopped doing this and began the long process of accepting their son’s deafness.
37th Clip. Title: In the Oral Classroom. 04:43 minutes long. Total: 3:36:36 hours.
Many deaf people, including myself, had experienced oral classrooms therefore this clip is posted in salutation to them.
Enjoy observing the Deaf Child’s first experience in an oral classroom. Click away . . .
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36th Clip. Title: The First Speech Lesson. 08:59 minutes long. Total: 3:31:53 hours.
This clip is posted in gratitude to the 1992 committee of the GUAA’s Laurent Clerc Cultural Fund who granted funding for my airfare to Europe that summer. See here for this blog’s first deaf history video clip of the oldest oral school in Germany. I am grateful for GUAA’s support because this trip to various deaf history sites in Europe invaluably helped me visualize many scenes in the myth, even more so while presently enlarging the myth three times more. I will repeat my gratitude to the GUAA Clerc committee whenever I post myth clips having symbolic representations of places in Liepzig, Paris, Hartford, and Washington, D.C.
Enjoy the Deaf Child’s first speech lesson with Dr. Hein. Click away . . .
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Embedded here is my video of my visit to the Samuel Heinicke School in Liepzig, Germany.
HEINICKE SCHOOL
Commentary: As you may notice, words used in the deaf child’s first speech lesson came from a different language. Yes, from the German language because it was in Germany where oralism first began (around the same time in England with the Braidwood schools) and was instrumental in spreading the oral method before the 1880 Milan Convention where Italian and French oral educators cemented the spread of oral method all over the world. The German words used in this clip were: sprechen, horle, taub, eule, vater, and mutter. Can you guess what they mean based on contextual clues in the clip?
Again this clip is too long. It can be split between after the speech lesson and the grieving mother’s return to the castle to sign the papers. I apologize for the length which could tax on your attention span. Thank you for you patience and continuing to view the clip(s).
Myth Commentary: In this TDC blog, I have not discussed the significance of the emergence of a myth in the deaf community. As the creator of a genuine mythology based on the Deaf Spirit, I felt it is arrogant and presumptuous for me to state that my story here is the myth of the Deaf because any story or epic becomes a myth only when its viewer/readers/users fall in love with it and declare it a sacred myth (or “bible-like” epic). My research/reading on the functions of mythology and religion in society have demonstrated to me that mythology plays a very critical role in making a community more cohesive and proud of themselves (very psychological). And that the deaf community has not yet seen, accept, love, and celebrate one that represent their Deaf spirit. People, both deaf and hearing, still do not understand the importance of the role mythology play in the their minds and souls.
Once deaf (and hearing) people fully understand and appreciate this (and any other) mythology, their Deafhood SOAR!
Let me close by sharing this anecdote. Few weeks ago, a deaf woman, a “famous” blogger, told me that viewing clips of this mythology is like reading the bible. I gasped at the truth she saw. She is beginning to grasp the full meaning of this myth and what it means for the deafhood of the deaf community. I have decided not to proselytize, attempt to “sell” this myth, or try to shove this story in any one’s throat (eyes). Truth and reality in life are best understood when voluntarily sought, and not forced upon.
May VisMa be with the readers/viewers/users of this sacred story.
Namaste’
35th clip. Title: Meeting Dr. Hein. 04:41 minutes long. Total: 3:22:54 hours.
2 photos below. 1 is of a large painting of the Father of German Oralism: Samuel Heinicke and this inspired the name-sign for Dr. Hein. Another one is of a painting of his school which existed in the 1800’s until its destruction during World War 1. It was rebuilt and still exists today on the same site in Leipzig, Germany. Click here for their website.
Enjoy this clip of when the Deaf Child meets Doctor Hein for the first time. Click away . . .
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Two photos here. This is how Doctor Hein in the myth could look like - and how Hein’s Castle could look like.
Above is a cropped photo of a large painting of Samuel Heinicke, founder of first oral school for the deaf in Germany, hung in the front grand staircase on the second floor (when I visited there in 1992). Below is a painting of how the school looked before it was destroyed during the first world war. It was hung directly across from the painting above.
Commentary on the two pictures above: I visited the school in the summer of 1992, just a year or 2 after the communist government in East Germany fell. I could see evidence of communism all around the school - decaying buildings and huge empty lot right in front of the school. The school was out of session but I was able to visit the whole school thanks to one music teacher from the school, yes a music teacher of a deaf school! I have videotapes and slides of the visit and will convert into digitial and upload here someday soon. The teacher even took me to Samuel Heinicke’s family cemetery plot.
34th clip of DC myth. Clip Title: First Hearing Test. 03:52 minutes. Total: 3:18:13 hours.
This clip is posted in joy to someone I just conversed with - who is following the myth and understanding the deep interplay of connections to everything Deaf this story entails. The more I ponder on this myth, the more enlightened and appreciative I am in being Deaf. This is how this mythology works for me, and other hearing and deaf people who saw that they are the Deaf Child (or other character-s) themselves too, and that we all are still living in this myth . This clip is posted for you, my Deaf Adult, who I just signed with electronically. The more you delve into this story, the more you understand and become _________ about being Deaf nudging you into a higher stage of deafhood. A big tbc . . .
Enjoy watching the deaf child’s first hearing evaluation . . . click away . . .
Click here for youtube if above is slow in downloading or not working. Tks.
To you, the Deaf Adult, from above the clip here, I sincerely wish I can elaborate here on the symbols depicted in the 04.04 clip but I have to go to bed! What could and should be here are: the history of early hearing tests conducted in deaf history, the deafhood questions on experiences being tested for hearing loss, and the pictures and videos of Samuel Heincke Schul in Liepzig, Germany. And more . . .
Ah, such bottomless pit this myth has . . . and falling with glee, I am . . .
33rd clip of DC myth. Clip Title: Into the Castle. 07:36 minutes long. Total: 3:14:31 hours.
This clip is posted with congratulations to Tayler and Jared for such a wonderful DR conference! I am seeing impacts DeafRead and the blogsphere are making on the deaf community. The Pepsi-AgBAD uproar and how the NAD response is bringing, as new and non members, more grassroot deaf people into the fray. The subtitling whining on all sides is brought out in the open. The audistic cochlear impanted experiences being posted in DeafRead had brought their views into the faces of the ASLans. And the vociferous deaf-mute ASLans being shoved into the English speaking throats. All that is WONDERFUL! The more interplay among different people within the deaf community will bring us all together inch by inch.
Enjoy this clip about when the Deaf Child is finally brought into Hein’s Castle. Click away . . .
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32nd clip of DC myth - Clip Title: Return to the Feral. 08:38 minutes long. Total: 3:06:55 hours.
I would like to post this clip in gratitude and homage to Harlan Lane and his book, When the Mind Hears. In 1984, in the streets of Manhattan on a bicycle, I vividly remembered the moment someone signed to me that Lane’s Clerc book was finally available at the bookstores and the mad bicycle dash there thereafter. At that time, I was in the middle two things: trying to do a biography of Clerc and my seven years itch on Clerc, enamored by his legacy and the sacred purpose his story serves to the American deaf community. Once the book was in my hands and perusing it, I became “awed-shocked” to see how Harlan used Clerc to tell the sacred story of the deaf. Lane did the biography for me, telling Clerc’s life story. This historical method/technique was criticized by some historians, rightly so, I think. I am thankful Harlan opted to use this unconventional method rather than other dry conventional ones. The story became more powerful. The impact of Harlan’s book on me is immeasurable.
This clip is about VisMa finding the Deaf Child feral. Lane’s area of specialty before entering the deaf world, if I am not wrong, was on feral children with his impressive scholastic work on Viktor on Rue St. Jacques in Paris. He was so graceful to sit down and sign with me before a videocamera. If I may say so here, the Deaf should and will be grateful for what Harlan did for them. He belongs to the place on “Mt. Olympus” of the Deaf where Heinicke, Eppe, Sicard, Massieu, Gallaudet, Bell, Clerc, Stokoe and few others now live. More on that in LATER in the myth.
Enjoy the jaw-drop of VisMa at the feral side of deaf/humanity - click away
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Myth/Deaf History/Deaf Studies Commentaries: please go to the previous post of 03.11.01 for elaboration on feral children.
31st and the first clip of 4th chapter. Title: Finding Dr. Hein. 9:01 minutes long. Total: 2:58:17 hours.
This clip is posted in gratitude to Joyanne Rasmus Burdett and Marlon “Lon” Kuntze, my former CSDFremont colleagues. They, in 1992, wrote letters for my application to the Laurent Clerc Cultural Fund maintained by the GUAA. It was to apply for a grant to fund my flight to Europe to visit sites of deaf history behind the myth. I look back with fondness at the memory of working with Joyanne and Lon, along with many others at CSDF. Joyanne in the museum/library discussing deaf/CSD history and children books. Lon, as the Bi-Bi coordinator, elaborating on the development of Deaf Studies courses/curriculum which I taught in the HS dept. Thank you, you two.
I have never discussed in this blog on why I include a list of gratitudes. Maybe there is no need but it feels right that I do. I am still in “shock/awe” that this story got created - a mythology! “never heard” ever before - and it might continue for the rest of my life. I am grateful for everything that had crossed my life-path contributing to the growth of this myth. The books and other printed materials, visiting “sacred” places, acquiring “sacred” deaf artifacts, the people who lent support of different kinds, and _____________. I surmise some people will find the listing of so many people to thank to something odd, I don’t know, but it just feel right to thank them “publicly”.
About the length of this clip - 9 minutes. I aim to keep each clip to around 5 minutes. That is one of the reasons why I will need to revise some clips That is why the seemingly unnecessary last appendage of three clusters of two digits for each clip, 04.01.02. I apologize for such a long clip, taxing your attention.
Click away and enjoy the first part of Hein’s Castle
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Deaf history commentary: As to how the myth naturally evolved in its creation, the duo-chapters: 4 - 5 and 10 - 11 occur somehow simultaneously in deaf history (more on that in other posts - or a book). Doctor Hein is an archetypal character which represents certain people in deaf history - all hearing white men who wrote about the educability of deaf people in the 15th and 16th centuries: Rudolph Agricola, Girolamo Cardano to name a few. Click on them to to go to wiki-info on them.
Bibliography:
Bender, Scouten, Lane, and more to be added. (Decided to add a new page above - biblio, so I dont have to type out the whole citation. Making a book in ASL is fun here.)
The art for the title of the fourth chapter, Hein’s Castle, of the Deaf Child mythology. Click on the image to enlarge.
The title mandala of the fourth chapter, Hein’s Castle, of the Deaf Child mythology. Click on the image to enlarge.
