Deaf People Myth

For my American Sign Language class I needed to attend some type of Deaf event. The event I chose was the showing of Love is Never Silent on October 22nd from 6-8pm in Wiley Hall at the University of Minnesota. Love is Never Silent is a very touching and powerful television movie from 1985. This movie can help the hearing world get a look at what it is like to have family members that are Deaf. This movie was also probably an inspiration for Deaf people by how relatable it could be to their life. The movie follows Margaret, a child of Deaf parents, through childhood until she is a grown adult. During the stages of Margaret’s life depicted through the movie I learned new information about Deaf culture and was able to make

The video titled “The D: Detroit Deaf Education” is about the deaf students and their parents explaining their experiences with Detroit Public Schools, specifically the deaf education that the students are receiving. I chose this video because it is directly related to my major, ASL Education and hopefully Deaf Education in the future as well. I wanted to see what it’s like for the students in Detroit Public Schools and if the education they receive is appropriate for them as well.

In “Through Deaf Eyes” you will find a range of perspective on the question what is deafness? This film is a balanced presentation of deaf experience. I believe that the film does a good job of revealing the struggles and triumphs of deaf people in society throughout history. The documentary covers a span of close to 200 years of deaf life in the United States. You will see experiences among deaf people in education, family life, work, and social activities.

Bob Hiltermann is a famous deaf storyteller, actor, comic, and musician. He was born in Wiesbaden, Germany and became deaf at the age of four due to spinal meningitis. His family assumed that he was slow and it wasn’t until he was ten years old that they finally realized he was deaf. When Bob turned eighteen, he attended Gallaudet University. While attending Gallaudet he learned American Sign Language, which would eventually lead him to become a confident and successful signer. Bob grew up in a family of classical musicians and this shaped his love for music. Despite being deaf he has become an accomplished musician himself and is the drummer for a famous all deaf band named Beethoven’s Nightmare. He has also experienced a very successful career as an actor and has starred in many award winning documentary films, TV, stage productions, soaps, and feature films. Bob has also helped create and star in an educational sign language series called “Shut up and Sign” (Hiltermann, 2016).

After reading Deaf Again I learned a lot of new things I didn?t know about Deaf culture and was drawn in by the story of Mark Drolsbaugh. ?The hardest fight a man has to fight is to live in a world where every single day someone is trying to make you someone you do not want to be ? ? e.e cummings. I was brought into the book immediately from

Have you ever found this strange that a deaf person became a famous actor by not speaking? Certainly, Sean Berdy was a talent show stopper! People look up at Sean of his deafness, compassionate, and loving personalities traits. He was a heroic person not just because he did movies, but he also helped poor kids in the communities. Before his movie, he was nominated in the Mr. Deaf American in 2015.

First, this book allowed me to see the negative way in which deaf people were perceived. This book is not old by any means, and I was taken aback by the way deaf children were perceived by not only others in the community, but often times by their own parents as well. The term

“Through Deaf Eyes” was a documentary that really opened my eyes and allowed me to understand just a small fraction of what it may be like for a Deaf person to live in a hearing world. The first thing that really stuck with me was the fact that the film was all silent. The part that made it easy for me to understand was the fact that there was closed captioning. All throughout the film, all participants, both Deaf and hearing, were signing at what seemed like lightning speed. If it were not for the closed captioning, there was no way I would be able to catch up and really engage in the film. Then it hit me: this must be how Deaf people feel if the situation was reversed. I always used to get irritated

The Black Deaf Experience: Excellence and Equity gives more examples of how minorities have contributed to the majority in a beneficial way. They main ideology that was presented was that people bring a unique perspective that can bring more clarity (5). For example, Hillard theorizes that discrimination only happens when a threat to power occurs. He goes onto say that this was first discovered by black individuals and later spread to every marginalized group. They were able to use the new perspective, created by one group, and every marginalized group was able to use it. Many disabled theories arose from racism models that came from black theories. For example Critical Race Theory evolved into Critical Deaf Theory. Without the input or marginalized races, there would be no work to build on to. They also state that one of the ways to reach equity is through a similar education among groups so that there is equal access to resources in effect all people could all contribute instead of only have a few percentage benefiting society(7). Everyone needs education that is on the same caliber, but centered around their personal ideologies. This would help them learn in a way that is best for them.

This documentary does an excellent job of advocating for the acknowledgment of people who are deaf within society. This is shown through not only the brilliantly written and performed poems of the students but also in the basic, everyday struggles each of them face, such as the desire to fit in or be valued by those around them. Deafness is not a specific to any gender, race, culture, or religion. The struggles many people who are deaf go through are relatable to all and

The book also describes how life has changed for deaf adults through the years. Previously, many deaf adults were not able to get jobs in many places, because there were not many places that were accepting to them. These days, however, almost every business or company is looking for those that are fluent in American Sign Language, due to the simple fact that they would be able to accommodate that many more people and earn more money for their business. Also, there were not many outlets for deaf adults to use in relation to entertainment or basic needs, because again, mostly everything was catered to hearing adults only. However, they have recently developed many different ways for the deaf to communicate with the hearing and with one another, including TTY, full-keyboard, and internet phones and closed-captions on television stations and movies.

The Book I decided to read is called “Seeing Voices: A Journey into the World of the Deaf”. In this book the author Oliver Sacks basically focuses on Deaf history and the community of the deaf developed toward linguistic self-sufficiency. Sacks is a Professor of Neurology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He became interested in the problem of how deaf children acquire language after reviewing a book by Harlan Lane. The book was titled “When the Mind Hears: A History of the Deaf”. This book was first published in 1984 and was published again in 1989. Before reading Harlan’s book Sacks did not know any sign language. The book encouraged him to begin studying sign language. Sacks became extremely interested on how the deaf learn to communicate with the ability of sound being nonexistent. He wanted to know what this process may tell us about the nature of language. Seeing Voices is made up of three chapters, the history of the deaf, a discussion of language and the brain, and an evaluation of the problems behind the student strike that occurred at Gallaudet University, in March of 1988.

In the documentary, For A Deaf Son a deaf child, named Thomas is born into an all hearing family. Not ever experiencing such a situation in their lives, Thomas’s parents grieve for their child and the fact that they are never going to have the perfect “normal” child they dreamed of having. Knowing that Thomas will not get his hearing back, Thomas’s parent want him to be cured as much as possible, so they make him take speech/oral classes. As Thomas continues to take speech classes over the years his speech improves very little. Not being satisfied with Thomas’s improvement and becoming frustrated with not being able to understand Thomas, Thomas’s father explores the deaf community to find more options available for Thomas to be able to communicate.

The authors visted different places in France to understand  the orgins myth of sign language. They were invited to by the local Deaf club in Marseilles, France, to a spcially oranized dinner. They heard a story again about Abbé de l’Epée and how he met two deaf women. As he wonder outside in the dark, he found a a house and as he entered the house he found two young women. When he spoke to them they didnt respond. He didnt know both girls were deaf until the mother walked in. He then decided to educate Deaf students. He became very known for creating the signs and educating Deaf

The movie "Love is Never Silent " consisted of a hearing child left alone with deaf parents when her younger hearing brother dies. This movie shows how she was her parents sole link to the hearing world. It also showed how her parents were looked at by the hearing world and how they looked at the hearing world. They had a certain distrust for the hearing. The daughter was ashamed to have deaf parents and to sign in front of hearing people because she didn't want to be different. Her