Rethinking the Education of Deaf Students: Theory and Practice from a Teacher’s Perspective by Sue Livingston (review)

REVIEW: Rethinking the Education of Deaf Students: Theory and Practice from a Teacher's Perspective, by Sue Livingston. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. 1997. xii & 180 pages. Paperback. ISBN 0-435-07236-6. Price $22.50. Reading Sue Livingston's book brought to mind Johnny Appleseed, the legendary American who scattered seeds as he strode across the Midwest; flowering and fruiting trees sprang up after his crossing. One might become a legend today, if one could just load a large van with copies of this book and stop off everywhere deaf students are being taught to leave copies of it with their teachers. The book is honestly that good. Its title, Rethinking the Education of Deaf Students, should be taken literally. What the public and teachers of deaf students and the teachers of their teachers think that deaf students can learn is the key. Livingston makes it clear that "... we teach, first and foremost, human learners who just happen to be Deaf" (xi). The gift book approach should work too, because like seeds, the ideas and examples and advice in this book are the kind that germinate and grow and bear fruit. @ 1997 Linstok Press, Inc. 373 ISSN 0302-1475 Review This is not one of those drier-than-dust textbooks in Education with a capital E. It is, as the subtitle puts it in climatic order: "Theory and Practice from a Teacher's Perspective." The theory comes from two sources: ideas about language and learning gained from the research and first-hand experience of acknowledged masters, but even more from the author's description and insightful examination of her own classroom practice. The last few pages (154-159) of the concluding chapter summarize the story that unfolds throughout the book. It tells how Dr. Livingston, in the dark continent of misconceived education, discovered the true nature of teaching and found the way to tap the capabilities of children and young adults who cannot hear. Chapter One powerfully ventilates two misconceptions that have taken education of the deaf down the wrong road since before 1880: one is the belief that deaf children will not "have language" unless someone formally teaches it to them. The other is the belief that "correct English" must be drilled in before anything else can be taught, before reading, writing, arithmetic, history, or any other subject-even if that means teaching nothing but grammar drills from kindergarten through grade twelve. Stated thus baldly, these misconceptions seem as obvious as they are odious, but unfortunately , they are still strongly and persistently held. The next chapter comes to grips with the fundamental problem, language. Sue Livingston is a consumer and connoisseur of linguistics, sociolinguistics , and psycholinguistics, but she spares the reader the jargon of these disciplines. She interprets the gist of this body of knowledge in plain terms: children acquire language by using it and seeing it SLS 93 374 A Teacher's Perspective 375 (or hearing it) used by people around them who are really interested in communicating with them, and who do so in language accessible to them. The language deaf children acquire-if they are lucky enough to have such teachers or deaf parents-is sign language. Having acquired that, and with the kind of teaching this book describes, they acquire competence in English through being read to, with the teacher interpreting into Sign (ASL or American Sign Language) and becoming interested in the stories they read themselves. What deaf students do not do, and the evidence is plain and well documented-they do not acquire either English or a usable sign language when their teachers use "Total Communication" or some brand of signed English with invented signs for English words and grammatical affixes. Chapters Three and Four deal with reading and writing, English of course, but English that is understood through teacher-student cooperation in explaining the unknown by means of the known; that is, the teacher uses ASL for translating difficult passages. The crucial ingredient is real interest. The teacher does not burden the students with meaningless models of "correct language" but reads with them from overhead projection, as well as to them using live interpretation. The stories are selected to hold their attention and stimulate...