Deaf Studies: A Framework for Learning and Teaching Keynote Address

Harvey J. Corson

Today, we are gathered here to explore a conference theme that is timely and of great interest to us: Deaf Studies for Educators.

From days of antiquity to modern times, deaf people have existed and coped with a pressing human need to think and communicate. Over time, deaf people have developed sign languages and have lived lives as self-sustaining and productive people.

Nevertheless, deaf people have been misunderstood, viewed as defective, and pitied for living in a world of silence. We also have experienced frustration, discrimination, and struggle, and continue to experience these to the extent that our linguistic, educational, and cultural needs are not recognized nor understood.

At the same time, over the years we have enjoyed breakthroughs in society’s understanding of and support for education, job training, equal opportunity, and the use of specialized services and technology. The latter breakthroughs have given us equal access to information not only through interpreters, but also through electronic amplification, telephone devices for the deaf, telephone relay services, captioning, and electronic mail.

With the changes that we are now experiencing and will continue to experience as we approach the 21st century, what are the challenges before us, the educators of deaf people?

The title of my address, “Deaf Studies: A Framework for Learning and Teaching,” connects the content of this conference—Deaf Studies—to the process of education—learning and teaching. The title says that deaf studies is a framework for teaching and learning. We can think of a framework as having several different uses. It can set the parameters for something, define it, and set it off—like the framework for a stained glass window. A framework can provide access to a work in progress—like the platform used during construction. And a framework can form, shape, and thus define the fundamental design for something—such as curriculum as the framework of an educational program.

By looking at these different aspects of “framework” and connecting them to the terms “Deaf Studies” and “learning and teaching,” the title of my presentation can be viewed in several ways.

First of all, Deaf Studies can set the parameters and definitions for education. Second, Deaf Studies can also allow access to education while the education itself, that is, the process of learning and teaching, is being restructured. Finally, Deaf Studies can give shape and form to education by defining the fundamental design of that education.

The term “Deaf Studies” is relatively new. The emergence of Deaf Studies indicates the growing acceptance of the cultural study of deaf people as a legitimate scholarly pursuit, deserving of the same recognition afforded to programs such as African-American studies or women’s studies.

Twenty years ago, Frederick C. Schreiber (1981), the first executive director of the National Association of the Deaf, emphasized the value and legitimacy of Deaf Studies in this way:

If deaf people are to get ahead in our time, they must have a better image of themselves and their capabilities. They need concrete examples of what deaf people have already done so they can project for themselves a brighter future. If we can have Black studies, Jewish studies, why not Deaf Studies? (p. 76)

In 1985, Dr. Barbara Kannapell, reporting the recommendations of a Task Force on Deaf Studies at Gallaudet, stated that there is a body of knowledge to be studied—deaf history, literature, culture, arts, and language. Accordingly, this body of knowledge provides the academic framework for studying the field.

In 1989 at The Deaf Way Conference and Festival, Dr. Harlan Lane stated that “the knowledge of the Deaf Way is collectively called Deaf Studies” (p. 2). Furthermore, the “overriding goal of Deaf Studies is to understand better the lives of Deaf people so as to improve their lot …” (p. 3).

Deaf Studies, in that it encompasses culture in a comprehensive sense, can be viewed as an umbrella term. The umbrella covers a wide range of components including language, education, history, arts, literature, sociology, and anthropology within a specific culture to be studied. Related to this discussion, Deaf Studies can look at Deaf people as a minority culture within a dominant culture.

In some ways the development of the term “Deaf Studies” has closely followed the development of our understanding of our language, American Sign Language, as well as our understanding of the emergence of the concept called “Deaf culture.” The development of “Deaf Studies” has also mirrored the change in how we view ourselves and, to a greater extent, how we are viewed by other people. The focus has shifted. Before, a pathological viewpoint prevailed. That view looked at deficits, handicap, primitive gestures. The developing new view looks at abilities, culture, and a complete, distinct language. Thus, a medical model is gradually being replaced by a social model as a basis for looking at and understanding Deaf people.

Let us look at the “pictures” that are in the “frames” that make up Deaf Studies. These pictures reveal a change in view. The pictures are real. They are pictures of people who lived before, and are living now. These pictures, and the people whose lives they capture, take Deaf Studies out of the realm of the abstract and place it in the realm of real life.

When we refer to “Deaf Studies,” whose pictures do we see? In his book Deaf Heritage: A Narrative History of Deaf America, Jack Gannon (1981) captures some of the pictures that show the early view of deaf people as well as the changing view. Along with pictures that depict deaf people in less than positive ways, we see deaf pioneers, teachers, artists, scientists, inventors, writers, printers, and others whose life work has contributed to the world.

The pictures of the people whose lives are central to Deaf Studies are still being collected. Some of those deaf people are already widely recognized and respected as scholars, administrators, computer programmers, actors, actresses, entrepreneurs, lawyers, and researchers.

Other deaf people may not be as well known but are nonetheless important—the deaf people who form what we know as “the Deaf Community.” Their pictures are also in the frames that we now look at when we define “Deaf Studies.” As Robert F. Panara (1974), the renowned professor of English and drama, stated, “… it is time that the deaf are studied as the human beings that they are—as a living representation of the experience of Everyman in his journey through life” (p. 15).

In their book Deaf in America: Voices from a Culture, Carol Padden and Tom Humphries (1988) describe what they see as a difference in “center” (p. 41). Every culture has a center, a way the people who make up a culture see themselves and view the world around them.

Deaf people have a “different center,” a world view of our own. It is a world view that, depending on age of onset, type of deafness, and experience, can differ in some personal ways. But as members of a group, as a culture, we share many similarities. Our world view—our center—is visually-based. It is a center that has been passed from one generation to the next by hand, through American Sign Language.

Our world view is shaped by what we have learned through Deaf experience and what we have been taught both formally and informally. As Deaf people, how we see ourselves and view the world, what we have learned and have been taught, have changed in profound ways. The center has shifted—from disability to ability, from handicap to culture, from silent individuals to a vibrant community, from primitive gestures to American Sign Language.

I believe that the study of language, and particularly the study of American Sign Language, has provided the impetus for this shift in how we view ourselves and are viewed by others. Although Deaf people have always shared values and experiences, formed networks, married, had families, and earned a living, it was not until linguists studied how we communicated, and recognized that we have a language linking us together, that the view of Deaf people began to change.

With the discoveries made by sign language linguists, we gained reinforcement and validation for something that, as deaf people, we intuitively had, and guarded within ourselves—a picture of our “language of signs” as a language which George W. Veditz (cited in Gannon, 1981, p. 359) described as “the noblest gift God has given to deaf people.” It wasn’t so much that our intuitive sense of ourselves as whole persons had changed as a result of linguistic research, but rather that the part of us that the world at large rarely saw—our wholeness, our humanness—became reinforced and clear for all to see. In turn, we experienced what Mervin D. Garretson (1990, p. 45) has called “a step toward pride and liberation.”

This change in how we see ourselves and how the world sees us has been influenced, and continues to be influenced, to a large extent by research. Research in the areas of language, culture, history, arts, sociology, anthropology, brain function, and cognition has forever changed what we know about ourselves.

Through research we can step close to the “pictures” in our gallery of Deaf culture and examine them in more detail. Through research we are also able to step back and view our gallery with an objective eye. At times, research confirms what we already know. At other times, it enables us to see what before was hidden, thus unknown.

Any one of us gains knowledge and understanding about ourselves and the world we live, in part by investigation and comparison. We look for similarities and differences—between ourselves and the next person, between our view of the world and the view held by another person. Understanding differences helps to bring down barriers. When we understand differences, the unknown becomes known, the stranger becomes a co-inhabitant of the human community. By studying different cultures, we are more able to understand, identify, and communicate with the people of other cultures.

We need to recognize the fact that we live in one world together, that the Deaf community is one segment of a larger society. We need to recognize that it is important to develop one’s cultural heritage. These are necessary foundations enabling Deaf people to bridge our own world to the larger world which is comprised of people with diverse backgrounds and cultures.

Some people may believe that formalizing Deaf Studies will further separate deaf people from hearing people by further defining how we as Deaf people are different. I do not believe that further separation will be the result of such study and research, especially if learning and teaching are conducted collaboratively in a community where Deaf and hearing people work side by side to challenge assumptions and ways of thinking. This kind of partnership is already happening and needs to continue and be supported. All of us, deaf and hearing, will ultimately benefit from this work, and by collaboratively discovering and sharing knowledge, we will more fully recognize the richness of our diversity as well as our similarities as human beings.

When research results in new knowledge, it must have an outlet, a means by which the information can be transmitted to the world. The general practice is that new information resulting from research is published. Articles, books, and videotapes fill our libraries. But libraries should not be the resting place for the documented work of researchers. Research, when it is meaningful and appropriately utilized, can positively influence the way we live and the way we perceive things.

When we think about medical research, for example, the kind that takes place in hospitals and laboratories, we expect that the results of meaningful research will be published. We also expect, however, that significant research findings will be integrated into medical practice and positively affect our physical well-being and the way we live.

Similarly, significant research that looks at deaf people becomes published. But to add to our self-knowledge and understanding, and to be integrated into educational practice, the research findings must be shared. That is where Deaf Studies and education become necessary partners.

As educators involved in teaching deaf students, or in teaching hearing students about Deaf people—especially those hearing people who are interested in professions working with Deaf people—we must integrate the significant findings generated through research into our educational curricula.

During the last three decades, research related to American Sign Language and Deaf culture has increased dramatically. I applaud those deaf and hearing researchers who have added greater understanding, clarity, depth, and dimension to our lives. You have provided, and continue to provide, a great service. You enable us to understand ourselves better, you add to the quality of our world by focusing attention on the richness of diversity, and you enable us to see ourselves and be seen, understood, and accepted as whole people.

Our challenge as educators is to take this new knowledge, this “different center,” this cultural view off the printed page, off the shelves of libraries, and bring it into the classroom.

How do we move Deaf Studies into the classroom? Is Deaf Studies a subject to learn or an approach to education? Is it both? Should we change the way we educate deaf children and do it quickly? Do we wait for classroom-based research before we change the curriculum? What is the best way to integrate Deaf Studies into the curriculum for deaf children? What about for hearing children? For the parents of deaf children? How should Deaf Studies be handled in mainstream settings? In center schools or residential settings? How can the adult deaf population benefit from Deaf Studies? How can Deaf Studies be integrated into the curriculum of any college or university? Who will provide consultation and leadership for schools that are ready to integrate Deaf Studies into their curricula? Who will advocate for inclusion of Deaf Studies in settings where there are deaf students who have no cultural identity and no Deaf role models within the setting?

There are a lot of questions. I am sure that by the time this three-day conference ends, you will come face to face with the implications of these questions and many more. You will experience different points of view, learn different definitions of Deaf Studies, and discuss different ways these studies can be integrated into curricula. You will find that some schools, colleges and universities, and adult education programs are on their way to making their curricula “Deaf centered.” Others are beginning to make the change.

At Gallaudet University, we are in the process of developing what is presently being proposed as a new academic Department of American Sign Language and Deaf Studies. The form this department will take, the courses it offers, the faculty it includes, and the scholarly activities and research that faculty and students eventually generate will be defined by the involvement of faculty, staff, students, administrators, and members of the professional community whose lives and careers converge among and around deaf people. One thing is already defined, however. The proposed new department is an outgrowth of a change in world view, that clearly defined “different center” that researchers have illuminated in a variety of ways.

Gallaudet’s proposed department will be one step in the process of changing our curriculum to more fully include and reflect a Deaf experience and therefore view of the world. I believe that this view of the world is neither narrow, nor limited, nor inferior as has often been misunderstood in the past. It is both an expansive, global view and a deeply personal view shared by a group of deaf people who experience the world in a unique way. Learning about this view of the world enables Deaf students to gain access to a shared “world knowledge” (Chall, 1983, p. 8) which E. D. Hirsch, Jr. (1987) calls “cultural literacy” (p. 2).

Our view, although unique, is not limited geographically. Around the world, deaf people and our hearing colleagues are growing in self-knowledge and in our understanding of Deaf culture. This international growth is evidenced by a variety of books, articles, and the oral tradition dealing with Deaf history and culture. More and more countries are reviewing and reshaping the way deaf children are educated so deaf children can learn and grow in an environment that supports language learning, positive self-esteem and self-image—an environment grounded in a sense of belonging in a community of shared language, history, values, and experience. We see interest in, and the development of, bilingual and bicultural education programs for deaf children in the United States and other countries around the world.

By the end of this conference, you will see many ways in which Deaf Studies can shape education. I ask you to think about the “pictures” of the people who make up our culture. Throughout this conference, think about the selection of “pictures” you want to display in a changing gallery called “education” to effectively present the world view seen by Deaf people. I also ask you to think about the “audience” of the different people, both deaf and hearing, who will view the gallery you envision.

The possibilities are without limit. A small, one-room gallery may be appropriate for the needs of your setting. Maybe Deaf Studies can be effectively handled as one or two courses in your curriculum.

Others of you may need to collaborate to bring together resources to add a wing onto an existing art gallery. You could create a Deaf Studies program with a variety of offerings.

For some people here, a complete cultural/educational exhibit may need to be constructed wherein the “Deaf-centered” perspective is visible throughout the curriculum.

As educators, we have the opportunity and responsibility to use our knowledge and resources wisely to support quality education. What will your “gallery” look like? What will be in the collection of “framed pictures” you call your curriculum?

The future of Deaf Studies is connected to the way we view several issues that are tied to education: recognition that Deaf people have an inalienable right to be different; acceptance of Deaf people as belonging to a cultural and linguistic group; validation of the principle of equal access to language, education, information, and services; and finally, incorporation of deaf people as participants in the decision-making processes affecting their destiny. These are our challenges as we leave this conference.

About the Presenter

Dr. Harvey J. Corson, the first deaf provost of Gallaudet University, served as superintendent of the Louisiana School for the Deaf for 13 years. He holds a master’s degree in education of the deaf from Gallaudet University and another in administration and supervision from California State University at Northridge. Dr. Corson earned his Ed.D. in special education at the University of Cincinnati, majoring in education of the deaf with minors in educational administration and educational research.

References

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Hirsch, E. D., Jr. (1987). Cultural literacy: What every American needs to know. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Johnson, R. E., Liddell, S. K., & Erting, C. J. (1989). Unlocking the curriculum: Principles for achieving access in deaf education. (Gallaudet Research Institute Working Paper 89-3). Washington, DC: Gallaudet University.

Kannapell, B. (1985, April). Report on deaf studies program prepared by task force on deaf studies. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University, Deafness-Related Concerns Council.

Klima, E., & Bullugi, U. (1979). The signs of language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Padden, C., & Humphries, T. (1988). Deaf in America: Voices from a culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Panara, R. (1974). Deaf studies in the English curriculum. Deaf American, 26(5), 15–17.

Sacks, O. (1989). Seeing voices: A journey into the world of the deaf. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

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Van Cleve, J. V., & Crouch, B. A. (1989). A place of their own: Creating the deaf community in America. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.