I Fill This Small Space: The Writings of a Deaf Activist

Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee

114 Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee The following essay holds value for future teachers of deaf students because it condenses Newman’s feelings and thoughts about the appropriate modalities of communication in the classroom. The title of this paper “Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee,” was spoken by Muhammad Ali, the former heavyweight boxing champion of the world. In what way is this relevant to the thesis of this write up? It is not in the Englishness in the elegance and telling imagery of the statement itself, yet in a way it is. Before this contradiction confuses, let me hasten to say: the way we communicated should be unfettered; our signing hands should be able to soar or float like a butterfly or, if the occasion warrants it, come across with the sting of a bee. It is precisely this: our hands should be unbound, not hemmed in by rules, by thou shalls and shall nots. The ultimate determinants should be: Am I clear? Do you understand me? Do I understand you? Are both the expressive and receptive parts functioning to the point that effective communication is going on? There is so much controversy and misunderstanding in our field in the realm of communication because the points at issue are not clearly understood or fully grasped. The first point in the form of a question is: Can language be taught? Grammar or rules of language can be taught but language itself, it would seem to me, develops with the help of some internal ticking cognitive pattern , some form of osmosis, and through a constant barrage of modeling either through human interaction or eventually the printed world. The second point is that age is a critical factor whether one is talking about onset of deafness or the critical language input years. Before the A Deaf American Monograph 40 (1990) 115 age of five, the critical factors are the establishment of an effective line of communication; otherwise there is a vacuum, a void, a wasteland. This goes a long way to explain why deafness has a devastating effect on the development of English. It should be of no surprise that when deaf children, who come from practically noncommunicating families, enter school for the first time, they do not even know their names, the names given to foods or the words to express basic daily needs. These children, perhaps however, have developed some internal language. Surely, for them some kind of cognitive bells ring, but they have been ringing without words upon which to hang their understandings and their memories. No wonder there is such a contrast between these children and deaf children of deaf parents or, for that matter, deaf children of effectively communicating families. Here, we are talking about the very beginnings, the embryonic flutterings of language which is so much different when we talk about high school or college students. The expressive attempts of small, tiny hands are far different from those of bigger and more experienced hands. To these little children, the world must be a strange, multifaceted place, an array of bewildering colors and sensations. And within this context, the visual processing skills of young minds are far different from those who are older and more sophisticated. Yes, the onset of deafness makes a big difference and it impacts on the need for different communication modes. It makes a difference if one is born deaf or became deaf later on in life . . . (in professional jargon, “the prelinguals and the postlinguals”). Other points follow: Degree of hearing loss also makes a difference. If connected speech can be heard and understood then the person who has this function is, in most cases, way ahead in terms of language acquisition than those who were born deaf. So does the person who has enough residual hearing and can combine it with speechreading to follow the flow of speech. Not to be ignored is the cause (etiology) of deafness. It makes a difference how one became deaf because, for example, in cases of rubella, another part of the physiognomy can be affected—the neurological cellboard , for example. 116 Understandable is the current furor by advocates of American Sign Language (ASL) against the inroads of systems such as Seeing Exact English (SEE), Signed English, Pidgin English (PSE), Cued Speech, etc. Understandable because history shows there was a repression of ASL which has been identi...