We watched two videos for this ASL class. One is a documentary called Audism Unveiled. And other documentary is Through Deaf Eyes. It was new to hear how Audism is discovered and how people reacted with the deafness. It was so surprising to hear that people actually did something to cure the disease with various ways. I did not expect that sign language is one thing that people did not allow deaf people to use. I felt really bad to know that deaf were trained to speak out loud and not allowed to use sign language. Even though I am not a deaf person, I already know how lip reading is hard to do in a conversation because I can’t communicate with my friends by lip reading which a lot of girls use to talk things secretly. It was totally heartbreaking to see many stories about parents trying to ‘cure’ their deaf children with science, and religion. Also devastating were the descriptions of a couple of 18th century ‘cures’ for deafness, including one which involved pumping the Eustachian tube full of chemicals. At least the chemicals make sense about curing the deafness, but flying on the jet to cure deafness is much more terrifying way to do to their children.
I was interested to learn that up until recently, almost all education for deaf students was entirely focused on speech. So many stories of people being punished for using sign or not pronouncing words to the teacher’s satisfaction. Many people also told their stories of being forced to learn Signed English or Manually Coded English at their Deaf schools and being punished for trying to sign instead. Even though deaf people went through hardship as they get education, I believe it was a great start for a better education for the future deaf students. If there was no one who tried to educate deaf students, I think no one will make such a successful deaf community. Because there were hardship and people tried