Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet

Watching the film Through Deaf Eyes was eye opening to Deaf history and culture. The film was a great introduction and snapshot of what it is like to be Deaf and to live in not only the Deaf world but to also be a part of the hearing world. Watching the film and learning the history and the achievements that the Deaf have overcome was inspiring. It was also depressing to see the kind of oppression that Deaf people have faced and within their own community. One of the biggest things that I took away from the movie was that Deaf people can do anything they wish to do, besides hear. Seeing the way they stood up and demanded a Deaf president of Gallaudet University and that helping to influence the introduction of the Americans with Disabilities Act was inspiring. Whenever I would think of what it would be like to be Deaf, I thought of the immediate loses that a Deaf person would have and that just isn’t the way to look at it.

The book A Loss for Words by Lou Ann Walker is a biography about Lou Ann. Her parents are deaf and she and her sister are hearing. The book describes the troubles and embarrassment she felt and had while growing up. She loved her parents dearly but often felt embarrassed, or infuriated about comments people would make to her about her parents. Lou Ann exclaims that “their world is deaf, their deaf culture, their deaf friends, and their own sign language it is something separate, something I can never really know, but I am intimate with.”(2) Lou Ann was both speaking and she could also sign. She felt it hard to fit into one culture. She had a love for her parents and the

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.

First, this book allowed me to see the negative way in which deaf people were perceived. This book is not old by any means, and I was taken aback by the way deaf children were perceived by not only others in the community, but often times by their own parents as well. The term

Together, Clerc and Gallaudet founded the first deaf school in the United States, what is now known as the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut. The school opened on April 15, 1817 with Gallaudet serving as the principal and Clerc as the head teacher. Aside from teaching the students, Clerc was responsible to training the future teachers and administrators of the School. He was sent to other schools throughout the United States to continue to teach his methods to both students and prospective teachers, and his influence on teaching the deaf spread widely throughout the United States.

All throughout history when an issue or problem presented it's self to a group of individuals. Their voices together would bring about change through toil and determination. However, what if the world couldn't hear your "voice" or understand your language? The degree of effort and work for such a group of people would seem futile. For the students of Gallaudet University, the barrier between the hearing world and the Deaf world could not have stopped them.

The Book I decided to read is called “Seeing Voices: A Journey into the World of the Deaf”. In this book the author Oliver Sacks basically focuses on Deaf history and the community of the deaf developed toward linguistic self-sufficiency. Sacks is a Professor of Neurology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He became interested in the problem of how deaf children acquire language after reviewing a book by Harlan Lane. The book was titled “When the Mind Hears: A History of the Deaf”. This book was first published in 1984 and was published again in 1989. Before reading Harlan’s book Sacks did not know any sign language. The book encouraged him to begin studying sign language. Sacks became extremely interested on how the deaf learn to communicate with the ability of sound being nonexistent. He wanted to know what this process may tell us about the nature of language. Seeing Voices is made up of three chapters, the history of the deaf, a discussion of language and the brain, and an evaluation of the problems behind the student strike that occurred at Gallaudet University, in March of 1988.

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

The technique that Clerc taught was by the use of his hands, which he communicated with French sign language, blended with a bit of signs used by students in the United States. To Gallaudet the language was a inspiration which he called it, “Highly poetical,” but to Clerc and many of the deaf people, the using of sign was natural and useful. This was a result of a created acculturated nonverbal language known as American Sign Language (ASL). As new schools for the deaf spread west and south, American sign language also evolved as well in the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois. By the year of 1864, Abraham Lincoln signed a law constituting the first college in the world for deaf students called Gallaudet University and all these schools used sign as a curriculum.

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

The authors visted different places in France to understand  the orgins myth of sign language. They were invited to by the local Deaf club in Marseilles, France, to a spcially oranized dinner. They heard a story again about Abbé de l’Epée and how he met two deaf women. As he wonder outside in the dark, he found a a house and as he entered the house he found two young women. When he spoke to them they didnt respond. He didnt know both girls were deaf until the mother walked in. He then decided to educate Deaf students. He became very known for creating the signs and educating Deaf

The rich history of American Deaf culture in conjunction withlanguage displays the determination along with the brilliance of these people. Though the hearing world had called them sin, denounced them as dumb, these people rose up against their oppressors, making a new world for themselves.

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).

The next year he took up RIT’s offer and attended that fall. It was as if RIT was a whole new world for him. There was a large community of Deaf people that attended the school. Almost everyone on campus, Deaf or not, was able to Sign. At first it was hard for him to communicate with other Deaf students because English was his first and only language at the time; he knew how to sign, but very little. With the help

“You have to be deaf to understand the deaf”’ is a deaf poem by Willard Madsen, and he was written at 1971’s. He was a professor of journalism and former Associate Professor of Sign Language at Gallaudet University. He was born from Peabody, Kansas in 1930s. He lost his hearing to scarlet fever when he was two age. He attended public junior high school before he transferring to Kansas school for the Deaf at Olathe. He went on to study at Gallaudet. He graduating in 1952s with a degree in the education. He do taught at the Louisiana school for the Deaf for five years after, he received a master’s degree from Louisiana State University. After he joined to Gallaudet faculty in 1957s, and he taught at gallaudet for 39 years when he have retirement at 1996s. His career was spent to teaching journalism and english to preparatory students. He was a founding member of American Sign language Teachers Association, which provided certification for sign teachers across the country. He wrote two text book for sign language but, he was well known as a poets in both American Sign Language and English. Classics of Deaf cultures are “You have to be deaf to Understand” and “NO!”.