Deaf studies for transfer deaf adolescents
This capstone project focuses on developing a curriculum unit that deals specifically with Deafhood. The purpose of this curriculum development project is to help deaf students who transferred from mainstreamed schools to a school for the deaf, leam more about the DEAF-WORLD and thusly adapt to the new environment by constructing a Deaf identity and becoming confident in themselves as contributing members of society. Increasingly, transfer students are introduced to a new educational and cultural environment where sign language is free flowing, one of the primary educational and social languages of the deaf. The curriculum unit is divided into five programs:
Selected Topic Of Interest, 1997: Cultural Identity and Diversity in Deaf Education
The article begins with a discussion of the sociocultural model of a deaf child as a member of a bilingual minority and examines its implications for deaf education. A case is made for recognizing ethnic diversity within the deaf community in designing and implementing educational programs and policies that strengthen the self-identities of deaf children. Several issues related to the accommodation of the diversity of deaf learners are discussed illustrating how such accommodation would enhance their educational experiences. The use of technology, its potential to accommodate diverse deaf learners, and its influence on the deaf community are also discussed.
Deaf in America: Voices From a Culture
Historically, medical schools have seldom prepared an emerging physician to deal with problems so fundamental as nutrition, much less such complex political and ethical issues as the subcultures of poverty, minorities, or the "handicapped." Authors Padden and Humphries have undertaken the task of clarifying the cultural "uniqueness" of the deaf. Being deaf was regarded as a separate but very undesirable culture as early as medieval times, when "the position of the deaf was especially difficult because they were thought to be 'possessed by the devil' or, at least, morally deficient. The deaf could not obtain 'the true faith' since in the Holy Scriptures is written fides ex auditu (faith comes from hearing)." 1 Although Padden and Humphries write with compassion and understanding, their approach is less rigorous than traditional approaches by cultural anthropologists or linguists, and this in some ways detracts from the structured scholarship that such credentials afford. The