09- November- Pursuit of Happiness: ASL, Part I

Tips for Leaders DEAF BAYOU e-news Pursuit of Happiness:  ASL, Part I Linda Annala, B.A., M.Ed., C.A.G.S. Contributing Columnist November 2006     Looking out from my second floor Peet Hall dormitory window, I’d see a slightly stooped middle-aged man walking down the Kendall Green from Hall Memorial Building on many occasions.  I inquired of my then roommate who this guy was.   She informed me that he was Dr. William Stokoe, a professor of English.   We didn’t often see hearing professors making the trek through Kendall Green and go inside the Student Union Lounge.   Dr. Stokoe seemed to be riveted by the going-ons at SUL.    As my roommate informed me on another occasion as she was taking English classes under Dr. Stokoe that one time he asked this class: “Why do you sign differently to me than you sign to your Deaf friends?”     Muted response… Moments later, one or two brave students signed up: “Well it’s because you are a hearing person.  We just have to sign carefully in our best English word order.” Strange as this may seem during the mid-1960's that we would be signing away furiously in different places during our free time on campus.  Little did we realize what we had on our hands?   Pure and wonderful language…    Dr. Stokoe must’ve done this quiet observation for quite some time, perhaps a decade or more.  In his endeavor to figure out what was happening inside the Deaf circles all around him except in his own classroom.  He didn’t sign too well “like Deaf people” but he showed sincerity of heart to dig into what we as Deaf people experience every day. We as students enrolled at Gallaudet came from all around the country along with some notable international Deaf students.  We would sign according to our hometown or regional signs.  However when we came into Gallaudet campus, we tried to standardize our signing so that we could look more uniform in our communication efforts.   In those days during 1960's and before, signing among ourselves did not have those major divisive boundaries as we see it today, 40 years and two generations later.   It was from this period during the 1960's and 1970's that people undertook different systems of sign language.  Manually Coded English, Pidgin Sign English, and many subsequent sign systems were being devised and proclaimed as a cure-all for improving Deaf English.   The work that Dr. William Stokoe came to our attention circa mid 1970's when he developed his theory using linguistics as his base of observation.  He devised his codes as a manner of writing down the movements, hand-shapes, orientation and the rules of grammar peculiar to our Deaf Way signing.  He formulated the work as “American Sign Language.” Dr. Stokoe disavowed any credit to him for being the “Father of American Sign Language” because he did not invent ASL!!  He’d say: “ASL is YOUR language.  I just happened to study your signing and knew it was a language by its own right with the linguistic foundation.” Today we are embroiled in an insidious deep-seated controversy over the mode and form of signing.  American Sign Language is mainly 40% derived from English signers in America and 60% French sign language.   Why 60% French Sign Language.  Because Laurent Clerc, a Deaf Frenchman, traveled to America with Dr. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet to work together in forming a school for the Deaf.  First school was set in Hartford, Connecticut circa 1810's.  The popularity of establishing Deaf Schools soon caught on and state by state, legislature decreed that a school for the deaf should be set up in a given area or city.   By 1864, the United States Congress recognized the need for higher institution of learning so they formally moved into law and President Abraham Lincoln signed this bill into law later that year.  The first president was the son of Rev. Thomas H. Gallaudet and his Deaf wife, Sophia Fowler, who used American Sign Language.  Edward Miner Gallaudet administered the education using the best education methods and implementing the best possible education.   This higher education was to train and empower Deaf students to matriculate and return to their home states and begin teaching classes using ASL and printed/written English in their classrooms where they grew up as students!  Some traveled from one school to another for better opportunities for advancement or new experiences.  True historical, linguistic and cultural heritages were passed on from teacher to student for several decades. Of course during Dr. Gallaudet’s time at Kendall Green, there was an archrival named Dr. Alexander Graham Bell who advocated oralism.  His mother had more hearing although she had hearing loss.  She was a fluent lip-reader and did not use sign language.  Dr. Bell knew sign language because he was teaching Deaf children up in Boston, Massachusetts. However as time went on, the controversy over signing known in those days as manualism and the lip-reading and speech abilities (known formerly as oralism spread throughout the country and had a far reaching ripple effect to this day.  This controversy spilled into Europe and spiked in 1880 when the International Conference of Educators for the Deaf (ICED) met in Milan, Italy and moved to strike out all forms of sign language from schools and programs serving Deaf children. This suppression of joy filled and free expression of signing was subsequently thwarted.  Many Deaf children, and thankfully those DEAF families who had Deaf offspring and the genetic trait went on for several generations which had preserved the true heritage of American Sign Language. I had two classmates in my sixth grade who came from Deaf families.  Both of them attended this oral school for the Deaf in New York City.  We all trooped to little girls’ room and our teacher would stand outside to wait for boys and girls to line up again.  So during our rest room breaks, we broke out into lots of gleeful signing and conversation in ASL.  Oh what a JOY!  We were doing this surreptitiously since second grade. What a blessing!!!! Little did I realize what was actually happening in my growing up years at this oral school?  A future column will be devoted to the early origins of this educational facility in New York City. Part II: Outside the school setting . . . As time went on, we all went our separate ways.  There were several schools for the Deaf in New York City.  However the mainstay of the ‘standardization” of signing stemmed from New York School for the Deaf at White Plains, popularly known as “Fanwood”   This was  significantly the common denominator of our signing whether we gathered for different socials and events throughout the city.   I attended a Deaf Church.  I learned a lot as a child from age 11 on.  This Deaf Church taught me everything I needed to know about Deaf Life.  I wanted to become a good teacher of the Deaf.  This was what I chose during my junior high school years.  I then went on to Gallaudet for my college education.  I learned a lot more while on Kendall Green.   I tried to take classes where there were Deaf professors.  They signed so well and some of them challenged us steadfastly.  I loved my college life during my too-short-of-stay at Gally. However when I began my first job as a teacher for the Deaf in Jacksonville, IL.  things started to change from the old fashioned ways of setting children apart.  Manual unit (for slow learners or who didn’t have a clue about being Deaf or otherwise), Oral unit (for brighter Deaf students who lip-read well in spite of teachers’ poor signing skills), Multiple-Handicapped Unit for severely retarded Deaf children or with complicated birth defects accompanied by deafness.     Then came along Total Communication…Was it just a strategy to set things into motion for better education?  In some ways, yes because when this school I worked for changed completely the curriculum, structure and the departments to accommodate all different Deaf students.  Gone were the Manual Unit 3, Oral Units 1 & 2, and of course MHC had to be retained because of the nature of birth defects.  The Deaf students were grouped according to their achievement and performance scores.  There were inequities in this dramatic change over.  Deaf teachers were half as lucky if their supervising teachers assigned them a bright class.  If there were some hearing teachers who did not have the competency of Deaf sign or the ability ‘to reach the slower students’, they were given good class of average or above average Deaf students.  Other teachers were stuck with a class load of slow learners.   Essentially this was just a cosmetic make-over with very little far-reaching results.   We as Deaf educators at this school for the Deaf were NOT consulted whether or not the concept of Total Communication, or the selected form of Signing Exact English was the ideal mode of communication or philosophy.  Usually these decisions were made by administrators up in the front building with little or no signing skills or in-depth education of the Deaf!   I wondered why there were so many slow learners in this school.  I began to suspect that because sign language was not encouraged by professionals such as audiologists, psychologists, pre-school teachers and those crucial educational and medical professionals, Deaf children were left to learn on their own and often got confused by mixed messages as their parents, adults and authority figures couldn’t figure out what was the best.  Schools for the Deaf were often the institutions for referral and education for both Deaf children and their families.  There were a few Deaf children who came from Deaf families and they were usually the ones to show the way how to communicate the best and efficient way in Deaf-speak.   With Total Communication, the settings throughout the country in terms of espousing one system of sign language over another system of signing.  Pretty soon students from one school travel to another school in sport related activities had to cope with understanding ‘different signing styles” but they managed to figure things out on their own.  If they had Deaf coaches traveling with them, they all were free to express themselves in their own Deaf signing mode.  In future columns, the columnist will touch on different areas of Deaf Life, ASL and pursuit of happiness from 18th century on to 21st century. Signingly yours, Linda

 

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