[sw-l] Re: London based charity endangers SW programs in Nicaragua

[Trevor Jenkins]

On Mon, 23 May 2005, Antony Daamen <adaamen at OPTUSNET.COM.AU> wrote:

Makes my blood boil too but quite honestly I'm not surprised that an
organisation based in England would promote Oralism. Sadly this is the
dominant educative programme used here in Britain. It is a direct
consequence of Milan 1880 and the imposition of Oralism on Deaf education.
And since the Warnock Report in 1978 and the subsequent Education Act 1981
plus the revisions thereof the mantra has been Inclusion, Inclusion,
Inclusion. This follows on from the Salamenca declaration from UNESCO that
Inclusion is the only true way to deliver education to all students.
Doesn't matter whether students have enough language to access the
curriculum so long as it is delivered in an inclusive environment. Why?
Because it saves money and that is the sole purpose of the Warnock Report
and the Edu Act 1981 and later. As to how effective it is the tribunal
that makes the final arbitration in cases under the Education Acts does
not keep any statistics! They just assume that their judgements result in
the best for the child.

There is a considerable body of anecdotal evidence supporting the idea
that inclusive education of Deaf students is inadequate. Groups such as
Deaf EX-mainstreamers have collected some of that evidence. Read their
Between a Rock and a Hard Place or the collection of auto-biographical
accounts at www.deafeducation.org. There is some overlap between the
material in those collections. For further evidence read Paddy Ladd's PhD
thesis published as Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood
published by Multilingual Matters. Anyone wanting to see the extremes that
Oralists will go to only has to look at the photograph from Fischer and
Lane 1973 that Ladd includes as one of the plates. Ladd's own experience
are documented in his "Making Plans for Nigel" which is included on the
Deaf Education web site. By the way don't mix up Deaf Education at
www.deafeducation.org with www.deafeducation.org.uk as the latter is DELTA
a rabid Oralist group.

The recognition in March 2003 of BSL as a minority language by Her
Majesty's Government caught the Oralists on the back foot. Going out to
other countries especially one that linguists are excited about because of
the spontaneous creation of a new language means the Oralists are scared
and want to suppress sign languages whereever they become dominat. These
idiots still hold to a view of Deaf people as Aristotilian "natural
slaves" so what do they care if they mess up the lives of Deaf people.

I'll climb down off my soapbox now.

> 23/05/05
>
> oh, how my blood boils when I read this!!
>
> Here is the website where we can protest!!
>
> http://www.ciir.org/Homepage.asp?nodeid=89623
>
> Antony
>
> -------Original Message-------
>
> From: James Shepard-Kegl, Esq.
> Date: 05/23/05 04:40:07
> To: sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
> Subject: [sw-l] Re: London based charity endangers SW programs in Nicaragua
>
> Is anyone on the list familiar with a London based charity called the
> Catholic Institute for International Relations (CIIR)?  This organization
> pays travel expenses and provides a monthly stipend (about $1,000) to
> professionals who wish to provide consulting services for Third World grass
> roots social programs.  CIIR is a very large organization with a good
> reputation.  Unfortunately, their personnel know nothing about Deaf
> education.  In the case of Condega, Nicaragua, this organization for the
> past three years has been paying an audiologist to advise the administrators
> of the Deaf school there.
>
> The Condega Deaf school, operated by an organization called Los Pipitos, and
> the Bluefields Deaf school were the only Deaf schools in Nicaragua to employ
> Deaf teachers and to teach SignWriting.  The CIIR consultant, who has no
> signing skills, advised that Nicaraguan Sign Language was not a language at
> all.  Consequently, he imposed a new curriculum based upon an oralist
> approach.  The Deaf teachers were reassigned to work as cooks and quit
> shortly afterwards.  (They now work as full time teachers at the Bluefields
> school.)
>
> I complained about this to Osvaldo Vasquez, the CIIR official in London
> having responsibility over the program.  I asked for an investigation into
> why a CIIR development worker, paid to assist a Deaf empowerment program,
> would instead disempower the Deaf people (teachers and students) involved
> with the program.  I urged Ms. Vasquez at the very least to question the
> Deaf teachers involved as part of any investigation.  This he refused to do.
>
> I thought that as users of SignWriting, you might be interested in some of
> the comments of the two Deaf teachers.  (Although CIIR would not contact
> them, I did.)  Tomasa Gonzalez writes (interpreted into English by the
> Bluefields school's interpreter):
>
> "...I went to visit the deaf school in Condega a while back, and all my
> students asked me to come back and teach....Nestor [referring to Nestor
> Pardo, the CIIR development worker] hired a new hearing teacher to teach
> them that didn't know sign.  She was going to try to teach them through
> oralism but these poor students just sat there.  They didn't know what was
> going on.  All the curriculum that [Nicaraguan Sign Language Projects] had
> provided (i.e., the SignWriting materials), all went to waste...."
>
>
> Claudia Avila writes:
>
> "...Nestor and Carlos [Los Pipitos administrator] informed us that the Deaf
> teachers would now be cooking due to budget cuts....We were the only two
> Deaf teachers there and no hearing teachers were put to cook....Afterward we
> had another meeting, in which I told Nestor I was there to teach not cook.
> He asked to see what I was teaching and then told me that we had a new
> curriculum and to disregard everything James [Shepard-Kegl from NSLP] had
> said re: SignWriting and sign language.  After Nestor took over, things
> really changed....If you teach a deaf child sign language, you give them
> their own language.  Afterwards, when they know their language you can teach
> them Spanish.  And they will be able to see how the two languages correspond
>   Often the orally taught deaf children get made fun of.  Reading lips is
> hard and often misunderstandings happen.  But if you have sign language you
> are able to gesture well with hearing people.  In Condega right now there
> are only hearing teachers.  How are the deaf students supposed to learn sign
> from them?  There are not as attentive to their needs.  As Deaf teachers, we
> understand their needs and are better able to teach them.  We are better
> able to engage them and to interact with them as well as serve as language
> models."
>
>
> Incidentally, Harlan Lane, author of The Mask of Benevolence: Disabling the
> Deaf Community, contacted Mr. Vasquez via email to complain about the
> dismantling of the educational program at the Condega Deaf School.
>
> Personally, I am outraged that a charitable organization, after funding
> someone whose ignorance has done such harm to Deaf children, would simply
> deny any responsibility.  I can understand when local administrators with no
> educational background in Deaf education can perpetuate the prejudicial and
> paternalistic traditional approaches to schooling Deaf children.  I am far
> less sympathetic when a large foreign based charitable corporation sends a
> salaried consultant to advise such approaches.  And I am appalled that an
> innovative empowerment program has been quite destroyed by the involvement
> of such a consultant.
>
> Initially, I was inclined to give CIIR the benefit of the doubt.  But, their
> investigation entailed nothing more than interviewing the people who had
> disempowered the Deaf teachers and students in the first place.  Moreover,
> CIIR continues to fund their development worker.  I think this establishes
> the viewpoint of this organization toward Deaf people, their sign language
> and SignWriting.
>
> I know many of you on the List have encountered similar frustrations, and I
> just wanted to commiserate.  Since CIIR has a very substantial budget, and
> NSLP (my organization) has effectively no budget at all, there is not really
> much I can do about this tragic situation.
>
> If anyone is interested, Osvaldo Vasquez can be contacted at osvaldo at ciir
> org
>
> -- James Shepard-Kegl
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Regards, Trevor

<>< Re: deemed!