Bilingual Education of Deaf Children: A Movement Begins Barbara M. Kannapell , Ph.D.

1. Bilingual Education of Deaf Children: A Movement Begins Barbara M. Kannapell, Ph.D. 

2. I. Introduction • Retrospective of pioneers for bilingual education from 1970s to 1990s • Recognition of ASL at the Federal level • Lessons I learned II. Deafpride Inc.

3. III. My first paper • Title: Bilingualism: A New Direction in the Education of the Deaf. Published in The Deaf American, June 1974 • Bilingual Education Act signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson (January, 1968)

4. A. Attitudes Toward Bilingualism • Ethnocentrism • Statistics • “No Spanish” rules in many schools attended by non-English-speaking children

5. 1. English is the standard language in the United States and all citizens must learn it; 2. The pupil’s best interests are served if he speaks English well; English enhances his opportunity for education and employment while Spanish is a handicap; 3. Proper English enables Mexican-Americans to compete with Anglos; 4. Teacher and Anglo pupils do not speak Spanish; it is impolite to speak a language not understood by all.

6. 1. English is the standard language in the United States and all citizens must learn it; 2. The pupil’s best interests are served if he speaks English well; English enhances his opportunity for education and employment while ASL is a handicap; 3. Proper English enables deaf people to live in a hearing world; 4. Teachers and hearing people do not use ASL; it is impolite to speak a language not understood by all.

7. 40% percent of children misdiagnosed as mentally retarded because many teachers equate linguistic ability with intellectual ability. Exactly same percent for both groups: Mexican-Americans vs. deaf children (Sanchez and McCay Vernon) “The real problem is the inflexibility born of an orally-based program.” • Lack of Deaf Teachers vs. Black or Spanish-speaking teachers

8. B. Current Developments in Bilingual Education Related to the Education of Deaf Persons 1. Teachers should understand the phonemic, grammatical, and semantic differences between the child’s native language and the English language. 1. Teachers of the deaf should understand the grammatical and semantic differences between the American Sign Language and English language.

9. 2. The child should always be encouraged to feel that his own language is valued and appreciated. 2. The deaf children should always be encouraged to feel that American Sign Language is valued and appreciated. 3. The child must want to learn English. 3. The deaf child must want to learn English.

10. 4. It is less difficult for a child to learn two languages when the languages are consistently presented in two separate contexts. Thus it may be helpful to have a specific classroom time and place for each language. 4. The school should have two teachers – deaf and hearing. The deaf teacher will teach deaf children in ASL and also teach ASL to the deaf children. The hearing teacher will teach children in English and will teach English to the children.

11. IV. Working for the Recognition of ASL at the Federal Government Level On January 2, 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson had signed the TitleVII-Bilingual Education Act (BEA). Hearing and Deaf people started working for the inclusion of ASL on the list of languages recognized under the Act. It was met with resistance by Gallaudet administrators.

12. In 1972, Deafpride, Inc was the first community-based non-profit organization to recognize ASL as the language of Deaf people and to support the bilingual approach to teaching Deaf children. In 1974, my paper on “Bilingualism….” was published in the Deaf American.

13. In 1978, a resolution to ask the US Department of Education to recognize ASL as the language of Deaf people was developed at the National Symposium on Sign Language Research and Teaching in San Diego, California and was sent to the US Department of Education. In 1984, the NAD formally recognized ASL and English as the natural languages of the Deaf community and advocated a bilingual approach in the education of deaf children at the Board meeting prior to the NAD Convention in Baltimore.

14. In 1988, the U.S. Congress appointed twelve (12) people to serve on the Commission of Education of the Deaf (COED) In the Spring 1989, Dr. Robert Davila was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS). In July 1989, Dr. Sam Supalla presented a paper entitled "Equality in Educational Opportunities: The Deaf Version"

15. In September 1989, Dr. Davila's memo to Senator Harkins stated that: "1) the US Department of Education does not recognize ASL as a 'native' language as defined in the BEA and 2) If ASL is recognized, it will not be useful to authorize services for this population only in rare instances."

16. In 1990, Dr. Harlan Lane wrote an article entitled, "Bilingual Education for ASL-Using Children" in the Deaf American Monograph, Eyes, Hands, Voices: Communication Issues Among Deaf People.

17. In May, 1990 an internal memo of advice from the Office of General Counsel (OGC) was written and sent to Dr. Davila that ASL should not be included under the BEA.

18. In 1991, the Commission on Sign Language of the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) made strong recommendations on the recognition of Sign Language;

19. In February, 1992, Roz Rosen, then President of the NAD, testified before the Congress on the Education of the Deaf Act re-authorization calling on the Congress to recognize ASL as a language and urging programs to develop bilingual proficiency in both English and ASL.

20. In June 1992 the petition to request the NAD to recognize ASL as the first language of Deaf children and English as their second language was signed by the participants of the English as a Second Language Conference at the NWC of Gallaudet University. In July 1992, at the NAD convention in Denver, Deaf people pressured the NAD to take action on COED15 by developing two mandates and through the committee process, they were combined into a mandate (The NAD Broadcaster, March 1994):

21. CO-92-02 Recognition of ASL at Federal Level R1-02 (Rachel Bavister) Be it moved that NAD push for recognition at the federal level of ASL (American Sign Language) as a language in its own right. CO-92-86 Recognize Only ASL as the Language of Deaf People (Marylynn Sinclar) Be it mandated that NAD recognizes the fact that the NAD was established in 1880 on the premise that there was a need to preserve Sign Language; and that the NAD continues to recognize that both ASL and English as the languages of the Deaf Community (as mandated in 1984) and now recognizes that ASL is the first and/or natural language of a Deaf Child with written English being a second language (ESL).

22. President Rosen appointed Melvia Nomeland and Barbara Kannapell as the co-chairpersons of a newly-established committee on ASL and COED15.

23. At the NAD convention in July 1994, David Reynolds proposed a mandate: Mandate (TN-94-171): ASL Recognition at Federal Level Be it moved that NAD take action on the "NAD position paper on ASL and Bilingual Education" and make it a federal mandate.

24. On September 16, 1995 for the first time in history, the National Association of the Deaf met with representatives from Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) and the Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Language Affairs (OBEMLA) to discuss American Sign Language (ASL) issues in Deaf Education (See The NAD Broadcaster, January 1995).

25. AFTERMATH • The Bilingual Education Act (1968 – 2002) • No Child Left Behind (NCLB) • Bilingual Education Act transformed into the English Language Acquisition Act • Liberal Democrats and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus

26. Lessons I learned from this process Strong support from both levels – the national level and the local level Strong support from the Deaf Community Strong support from the NAD “Think Globally, Act Locally”