Building Bridges, Crossing Borders

Chapter 2: Freedom to Thrive

Chapter 2 Freedom to Thrive Pedagogies: Oppression vs. Liberation In 1992 Harlan Lane published his second book on deafness, The Mask of Benevolence: Disabling the Deaf Community. The title says it all and raises the question of the motive behind one’s choice to work with a marginalized population. Some may be familiar with a stage play by Mark Medoff that was later made into a movie, Children of a Lesser God. The crux of the play is a romance between a hearing speech teacher of deaf students and his interaction with a recent deaf graduate at a school for deaf people. The goal of the speech therapist/teacher is to give voice to deaf people, to teach students who cannot hear how to acquire intelligible speech. The speech therapist and the young deaf woman, both recent employees at the school, develop an odd alliance , eventually fall in love, and marry. The speech therapist/ husband encourages his wife to attempt to acquire spoken communication.Hebecomesangryandperplexedatherrefusal, a choice he feels limits her. She responds by intimating that he merely pities her rather than attempting to understand her perspective. At one point in an argument, she uses her voice to satisfy his wish for her to do so. The resulting change from the silence of signs to shrill, ear-piercing sounds emitted through constricted vocal cords is gripping. Her voice, so startling and jarring, leaves all who hear its pained expression wondering about the scars left on the Deaf children of the world because of the demand that they speak. Her voice is that of one who is 26 Freedom to Thrive 27 unable to modulate pitch, quality, or volume. It becomes the collective voice of Deaf people, begging to be accepted as they are, pleading not to be forced to accommodate individuals who would impose a philosophical perspective that regards spoken language as superior. Who could not help but admire—nay, even wish to emulate— the teacher? Who could not think that the awakening of the tongue is less than the noblest of all tasks? And with those desires , intrinsically good, is there not the potential to view students as recipients of a teacher’s beneficence? Such notions, notwithstanding an element of altruism and decency, contain an opportunity for what Paulo Freire (2007) terms the banking concept of education, in which knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing. Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry. The teacher presents himself to his students as their necessary opposite; by considering their ignorance absolute, he justifies his own existence. (p. 72) According to Freire, reconciliation of the matter can occur only when both parties are simultaneously students and teachers: “To impede communication is to reduce men to the status of things” (p. 128), a quote bearing much significance for the Deaf population. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “oppressed” as meaning “to crush or burden by abuse of power or authority.” Paulo Freire sees the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed to be that of liberating themselves and their oppressors as well (p. 44). He notes that many oppressed people have a fear of freedom as it requires one to assume the mantleof self-determinationandresponsibility.Howshouldone 28 Building Bridges, Crossing Borders acquire freedom? Freire believes one does so by conquest and advises that initiation of the struggle for freedom is difficult because oppressed people have become resigned to their situation, not to mention that their efforts may well result in even greater oppression. It involves taking immense risk and convincing others to do the same. Like childbirth, liberation is painful. Freire looks with disdain upon those who speak of the worthiness of all humanity and yet do nothing to resolve issues of oppression. “To affirm that men and women are persons and as persons should be free, and yet to do nothing tangible to make this affirmation a reality, is a farce” (p. 50). Oppression is viewed as a form of domestication, whose crush can be removed only by reflection and change. Freire’s notion of righting this wrong is most interesting in that he acknowledges that the sword of freedom has a most beneficial double edge. It liberates oppressed people and restores to the oppressors the humanity lost in the exercise of oppression (p...