Editorial

Editorial What Millennium' Whether the third millennium begins in 2000 or 2001, it would seem appropriate to mark the onset on the new age with some Janus-like words of wisdom, looking knowingly back to the past and confidently forward to the future. It has been suggested to me-facetiously, I hope-that the Annals publish a millennium issue sometime in 2000. In keeping with the comments of the editor of Vanity Fair, lack of such an issue may be chalked up to laziness, incompetence , or just plain millennial ennui. The ennui is best encapsulated by the cover of the New Republic, which shows three people asleep on a bench under the headline, "The Millennium Dawns." Despite all of the publicity and advertisements about the significance of the event, the general reaction has not been overwhelming. It seems as if the new millennium is coming in with a yawn, not a bang. Perhaps a thousand years is too much for us to deal with. We really do not know much about life around the year 1000 except that it typically was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutal, and short. " Although the last century has been the most bloody in history, life expectancy has doubled, and we enjoy conveniences that our forebears could not have imagined. The reality is that education, as we know it, is a modern phenomenon. Jefferson's concept of an educated citizenry and universal education would have been anathema 500, let alone 1000, years ago. Because of this, we can't think in millennial terms educationally. In education of the Deaf, it is difficult to think in terms of more than a century or two. With the exception of a handful of members of the aristocratic elite, education of the deaf did not begin until the middle of the eighteenth century, three quarters of the way through the millennium. Even then, for the next 100 years or so, it was limited to only a few countries and usually to a minority of children in those countries. In 1997, the Annals published a celebratory 150th anniversary issue as the oldest educational journal in the United States. This means that any millennial issue would consist primarily of empty pages. 150 years may seem like a long time but, historically speaking, it is an eye-blink. Strange as it may seem, our field is in its relative infancy. Although deafness is an enduring reality, we may see more changes in the next generation than have occurred in the last thousand years. Nobody knows what the results of cochlear implants, genetic engineering, charter schools, inclusion , and educational technology will be. The potential is exciting, but I think there will continue to be one constant. No matter what advances may occur, the essential ingredient will be a teacher interacting with his or her students. Donald F. Moores Editor Volume 144, No. 5, 1999 American Annals of the Deaf ...