The Greatest Mistake: Alexander Graham Bell

Deaf people have always existed, as did discrimination towards deaf people. As far back as 384-322 BCE, people had been saying that deaf people could not learn. Due to Deaf people being seen as inferior, we hardly have any documented history on them before the early 1500’s. Patient parents of Deaf children needed to have a way to communicate with their young, through this need the rise of Deaf education began. Geronimo Cardano, a mathematician, created

The legacy of Laurent Clerc is long withstanding. As the first teacher for deaf individuals, he pioneered a system of teaching the deaf that carries on today. Without him, the American School for the Deaf may not have come to fruition. By offering classes in sign

Alexander Graham Bell was a Scottish inventor that had made things that have to do with hearing because his mother and wife were both deaf and his father taught elocution to the deaf, he was very interested in the science of sound, so Bell had gone to various schools

In 1861, George Veditz was born of hearing and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, USA by his two German immigrant parents. By the age of five he was already fluent in two languages, English and German. However, when he was just eight years old, Veditz lost his hearing to scarlet fever. Fortunately, he was taught sign language by a private tutor, and had decided to attend Maryland School for the Deaf. After his graduation, he went to National Deaf-Mute College, which later became known as Gallaudet University, to become a teacher (Cadeaf.org). Years passed and in 1904, he became the president of the National Association of the Deaf (NAD). There, he laid his legacy toward his most prominent accomplishment, the Preservation of Sign Language. With the help of film technology, Veditz also become a well-known Teller to the Deaf community and has made significant contributions to Deaf literature

Benjamin James Bahan who was born by Deaf parents in New Jersey was very passionate about American Sign Language and Deaf Literature. As a child he attended Marie Katzenbach School for the Deaf in West Trenton, New Jersey as well as Gallaudet University where he is now a professor and chair of American Sign Language and Deaf Studies. Upon returning to Gallaudet University as a professor and chairs person in 1996 he went to The Salk Institute in La Jolla where he researched American Sign Language linguistics and acquisitions as well as receiving his masters degree in Deaf Education and helped operate the Deaf Studies Program in the School of Education at Boston University. Lucky for Ben, while attending Boston University he met his wonderful wife who was not only Deaf but had Deaf parents just like him.

Over the years, Alexander made his way around the world, teaching people about, and promoting, oralism. During this time, Alexander attracted parents of deaf children who wanted their children to speak. Alexander truly believed that without the ability to speak, deaf people would never be able to fully participate in society. Alexander Graham Bell took it upon himself to find the most appropriate way for oralism to be the main form of communication, which

By April of 1871, a Scottish immigrant named, Alexander Graham Bell (founder of the telephone), laid a foundation for teaching deaf children in Boston. Bell had a deaf mother and wife, and was always involved with the Deaf community. According to Baynton, “Bell thought that signing prevented deaf people from learning to speak, so he was against deaf people using sign, their

When it comes to influence, there may be no human being that has influenced deaf literature more than George Veditz. I like to label him as a hero, among other adjectives. Born in August 13th, 1861, Veditz became deaf at the age of 8 due to scarlet fever, according to Gallaudet.edu. After becoming deaf, he was privately tutored for 6 years until the age of 14. He then later enrolled in the Maryland School for the Deaf. He then received his masters from Gallaudet in 1887. After this, he moved to Colorado Springs where he taught at the Colorado School for the Deaf for 17 years. The man was brilliant and had plenty of knowledge to spread to the masses. In 1904, he became the president of the National Association of the Deaf. This is where he made the most impact possibly anyone has ever had in the deaf community. He was a huge advocate for sign language, and he seeked out to preserve it. The motivation for his passion for preserving sign language came from the mistreatment of deaf people and sign language in forms of discrimination. These forms of discrimination are still seen today sadly, as deaf people are occasionally seen as second-class citizens. He preserved sign language in the deaf community with the use of film. He used the effectiveness of film to mass spread his message around the world. His films are still impacting the deaf community today and are still relevant throughout time and history. Another issue he was very passionate about was the discrimination of deaf

“Differences among deaf people are okay, but we need to recognize those differences and work together.” A quote from I. King Jordan, former deaf president at Gallaudet University. That quote symbolize of what we need to do now for Deaf Education. Before I get into the issues of Deaf Education, I would like to explain how Deaf Education started. The start of Deaf Education in America was sparked by a man named Thomas H. Gallaudet.

On the other hand, the deaf were kept away, serving no purpose in any way. Women were seen to be “Endowed with finely tuned moral sensibilities...they were the keepers of society's conscience, with special responsibility to teach the young how to be good and productive citizens of the Republic.” Women needed to exist to balance out the crude and blunt nature of men. Tasks and responsibilities that men could not fulfill, including housekeeping, cooking, and constantly raising children, were left to women. Society would not be able to function without the crafty, sensible mother in the home to ensure there is counterweight to the partial foolishness, clumsiness, and ineptitude of men when it comes to being a homemaker. Becoming well educated on a higher scale allowed women to transcend the role they already possessed. Conversely, the deaf were completely closed off from the world as a whole. They were utterly incapable of making any contribution to society. Education was instead a very first step in integrating the deaf into the regular population of productive citizens. The deaf needed education in order to break out of their previous isolation and open the doors of opportunity. Leaders in deaf education, including Laurent Clerc and Alexander Graham Bell, helped the deaf make initial

In 1880 there was an international conference of deaf educators. There were 164 members (142 of which were either British or Italian) representing eight different countries and were champions of both oral and manual methods. On one side was Alexander Graham Bell and his colleagues from around Europe supporting the oral methods and on the other side was Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet

According to an online journal by Carla A. Halpern, in 1817, a Connecticut clergyman named Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, opened the first permanent school for the deaf in Hartford (Halpern, C., 1996). This deaf school was for American children which only had seven students and a head teacher by the name of Laurent Clerc. Clec was from the Paris Institution for the Deaf and had been deaf since infancy. He bought to the United States a nonverbal form of communication known as French sign language (Halpern, C., 1996).

In his life Alexander Graham Bell invented a number of wide ranging inventions. Starting from a labor saving de-husker in his youth to the famous telephone to the predecessor of radio and fiber optic communications--the photophone and also a metal detector. His impact on science is permanently honored by naming the unit of sound intensity the bel (more commonly used as a decibel.) Everyone’s life is still affected strongly by the giant leap that Mr. Bell took when he decided to help deaf students

Early in 1874 Bell met Thomas A. Watson, a young machinist at a Boston electrical shop. Watson became Bell’s indispensable assistant, bringing to Bell’s experiments the crucial ingredient that had been lacking, his technical expertise in electrical engineering. Together the two men spent endless hours experimenting (Paschoff 43,44). Although Bell formed the basic concept of the telephone using a varying but unbroken electric current to transmit the varying sound waves of human speech, in the summer of 1874, Hubbard insisted that the young inventor focus his efforts on the harmonic telegraph instead. Bell wanted to continue his work on the telephone but he complied. When he patented one of his telegraph designs in February 1875, he found that Elisha Gray had patented a multiple telegraph two days earlier. Greatly discouraged, Bell consulted in Washington with the elderly Joseph Henry, who urged Bell to pursue his “germ of a great invention” speech transmission (Grosvenor and Wesson 55).

In past times, an issue that occurred most often was how to respond to the deaf in terms of education. They most certainly were not able to hear which meant that they also would not be able to speak clearly or at all; many questioned how they would be able to comprehend others or communicate with them in that kind of setting. There were little to no schools that educated deaf children until Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, a man with great intellect, decided that what he wanted do in life was to contribute to the deaf world (“Thomas H. Gallaudet”). Gallaudet, founder of Gallaudet