Deaf students have a unique linguistic and cultural needs that are cultivated in social settings; however, these needs have received minimal consideration from school administrators and policy makers when designing and implementing educational programs. Inquiry regarding how Deaf people learn in social situations and whether these processes are present in formal educational settings is necessary to understand how to better serve this population in school. I can’t express enough the need for school staff and administrators to understand cultural nuances that are important for deaf students, the need for barrier free communication, the importance of self identity, and the need for Deaf mentors and or role models in school. Three teaching philosophies attributed to culture and identity are total communication, bilingualism/biculturalism, and oralism. However, these philosophies focus on how to communicate with deaf children in teaching environments versus the educational needs of deaf children overall. The discrepancies in deaf and hearing education have been attributed to many factors, including the lower cognitive functioning of deaf people and their inability to grasp the English language, their social isolation due to being deaf, lack of qualified teachers of the deaf, and modes of communication used in deaf education programs. While there have been significant advances in deaf education, a paucity of attention has been paid to integrating Deaf culture in educational interventions. In this chapter, I learned that when discussing education, modes of communication embedded in teaching philosophies guide current practice. Total communication integrates multiple communication methods during instruction, particularly spoken language simultaneously matched with its sign counterpart. This method is also known as simultaneous communication or simcom and is typically used when the instructor is well versed in signed and spoken English. This technique however is controversial because it perpetuates the myth that ASL is a visual code for English. ASL and English are two very distinct languages with different grammatical structures. Simcom maintains the linguistic properties of English. However, the nuances of ASL such as facial expression and conceptually accurate sign choices are lost. The bilingual approach uses ASL as the primary language for teaching, with English taught as a second language. In this environment, sign language is not a means of understanding spoken language but is used by children and teachers throughout the school day to actively communicate. This method is often preferred by members of the Deaf community as it promotes ASL while teaching a second language. In contrast to the bilingual approach, oral methods encourage the use of vocal communication complemented by assistive listening devices. Students are discouraged from signing and encouraged to lip read regardless of the degree of hearing loss. Gallaudet then established the first school for the deaf in America. Teaching involved gestures, symbols, and fingerspelling, which Gallaudet had observed during his European explorations. However, following the Civil War, educational reformists sought to replace sign language with oral communication. This was done to help deaf people assimilate into the greater society. Several schools for the deaf erected during this time began to focus on teaching deaf students speech and lip reading and banned the use of manual communication. Oralism was highly popular and soon adopted as the preferred method for teaching deaf students. Deaf children have been viewed from a disability and special education perspective throughout history. At the same time, ASL has been shown to be a fully formed language, and deaf youth are coming of age at a time when activism and movements for language and human rights are on the rise. Although there is so much change that needs to be done, this change will have far-reaching effects.
