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29 Current and Future Trends in the Education of the Hearing Impaired4 Newman was a leading force behind a protest outside a national leadership conference where federal education officials addressed the issue of LRE by defending and promoting the concept of placing handicapped children in local public school classrooms. He was giving a speech inside the building while over 150 demonstrators were rallying outside.5 It is my understanding that we who are here today represent a wide range of interests and involvement in the well-being of our deaf people: state special education officials, local education agencies, state residential school and day school people, deaf adult consumers, students , parents, and other professionals. This is marvelous! Who knows but we can make this day a memorable one. Who knows but we can be the spark that sets in motion forces impacting on the quality of the lives of our deaf people not only in Indiana but perhaps I am starry-eyed—nationwide. First, I hope to arouse a deeper understanding and sensitivity to what we face as deaf persons. Most of us have learned to adjust to our deafness but there are times when it hangs heavy on us. We need to determine if there are attitudinal and communication barriers before we decide where to work, to live and to retire. In the area of education we need to look at the big picture. We need to understand why deaf people are concerned about what is happening in the field. We have always had a thirst, a burning desire to learn, and what we are seeking are equal educational opportunities which hearing Talk, National Leadership Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana, May 20, 1987 4. The term hearing impaired has fallen out of fashion in describing the deaf community. 5. NAD Broadcaster 9, no. 5 (May 1987): 1. 30 people take for granted. The right to an education did not come easy to us. For example, in the 18th century Jean Massieu from France, the first deaf teacher of deaf students,6 had this burning desire to learn. He saw neighborhood children going to school and tried to follow them but was forcefully told by his father that he was not educable and his deafness was a punishment from god. He languished until he was 12 years old when, fortunately, he was rescued and tutored by a hearing teacher of deaf students, the Abbe Sicard. In one short year Jean Massieu electrified the academic circles in France by his ability to read and write and by his erudition. He opened the doors for other deaf people to be educated. Deaf people established 22 schools for deaf students in America and a black man, Andrew Foster,7 opened several schools for deaf children in many parts of Africa. We fought for the right to use sign language. Many of my friends were hit on the palms of their hands or on their thighs with a ruler or a pointer if they used sign language. If one of my classmates used sign language all of us were made to stand up, raise our arms and close our eyes. For periods of time we were deaf and blind. Teaching deaf children is a complex undertaking. Not only must one use a different communication mode but one must have insight, special skill and the personality to understand and get along with the deaf child. It isnotsimplyamatterof readingsignsorunderstandingdistortedspeech— it is the ability to penetrate layer after layer of what appears on the surface . Rejected by neighborhood children at home, living with parents who cannot communicate with them to the same degree and intensity as with hearing siblings, these deaf children come to school lacking a healthy sense of self. They may act out, lash out at you and mutter obscenities. It takes a special person to sidestep all this and give strokes. Deaf children tell me that their parents are kind enough to take them on outings but they do not explain anything. They do not tell them why 6. Newman’s references to French educators are probably due to the then-recent publication of When the Mind Hears by Harlan Lane (1984), which traced the history of deaf education in America to the education of the deaf in France in the eighteenth century. This book contributed to a resurgence of deaf pride within the community in the 1980s. 7. Andrew Foster (1925–1987) was a deaf African American who established thirty-one schools...

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