A Free Hand: Enfranchising the Education of Deaf Children (review)

Book Reviews Given the widespread interest in the use of American Sign Language in educational settings, we're printing reviews from two perspectives of "A Free Hand, a hook that addresses the issue. One is written by a professional with more than 50 years of experience in the field, Merv Garretson, and the other is written by a Ph.D. student, Linda Taylor. Both are Gallaudet University graduates. A Free Hand: Enfranchising the Education of Deaf Children by Margaret Walworth, Donald F. Moores, and Terrencef. O'Rourke (Editors ). (Silver Spring, MD: TJ Publishers, Inc., 1992, 204 pages, paperback) Some of the most crowded presentations at recent conferences for educators of deaf students have been those presented by advocates of a bilingual-bicultural approach to educating deaf children . Changes in educational philosophy and practices are being watched carefully at the Indiana School for the Deaf, the California School for the Deaf at Fremont, the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf in Philadelphia, and the Learning Center for Deaf Children in Framingham, Massachusetts, as well as within the areas of teacher training and evaluation. Are these changes the latest manifestation of an old argument surfacing once again, or a symbol of a new linguistic, cultural, and political perception of deaf people? This generation is not the first to have struggled with conflicting ideas about sign languages and systems. What is usually seen as the recent American controversy over "natural" versus "methodical " signing has its roots firmly in the past. The argument was brought to this country almost 200 years ago by Laurent Clerc, the first deaf teacher of deaf people in the United States, who brought from France a system of initialized, methodical signs. The argument continued through the rise of oralism after the Conference of Milan in 1880 and spiraled around once again to incorporate the return of signing in the form of the Total Communication philosophy and its frequent embodiment as Simultaneous Communication in the 1970s. The field of education of deaf children has seen a recurring cycle of discussion and subsequent changes in the educational communication methods used with them. Within the past five to eight years, the discussion has begun again, although perhaps in a new atmosphere. We are living in a society that is different from any that saw earlier versions of this communication argument. The enrollment of deaf children in residential schools has plummeted , and the larger society is reexamining its views of the goals of special and bilingual education. Simultaneously, there have been other changes: the Deaf President Now! movement at Gallaudet University and the ensuing political empowerment of deaf people; the increased perception of deaf people as a cultural and linguistic minority rather than a group of disabled people; and growing respect for the complexity of ASL linguistics. What remains unsolved is whether the bilingual -bicultural approach in deaf education is simply history repeating itself or symbolic of a larger change. Language is an important symbol of this discussion, especially the choice of languages to be used with deaf children in educational settings. Because so often deaf children have hearing parents, the choice of a school and educational language for a child has historically represented the either -or enculturation of the child into a deaf, primarily ASL-using world or a hearing , primarily English using world. The language choice has also been indicative of certain educational attitudes and priorities. The idea of enculturation is one of the more fundamental issues in any discussion of language choice in the field of educating deaf children. However, the issue is no longer polarized in exactly the same way as it was years ago. Many deaf and hearing leaders are currently suggesting the use of both languages—ASL and English—in concert with radical changes in the education and teacher training systems for teachers of deaf students. Teachers need to be able to communicate well both receptively and expressively, but as importantly, they should be good teachers with high expectations and pedagogical skills. This presents us with a paradox: it is generally agreed that language choice alone is no longer enough to guarantee learning, and yet on the surface, the only difference in these views lies in the way...