The Truth About Illinois School for the Deaf

adreanaline March 12, 2015 in ASL 5 Subscribers Subscribe

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A few months ago, Michele Westfall tagged me and a few other people about the Illinois School for the Deaf's website on "Cued Speech Myths." What I saw there was heartbreaking. This is my response to the situation, sharing observations on their video series. Please support the Illinois Deaf Community's efforts to improve conditions at the school.

UPDATE 3/12/14: An Illinois Deaf Community member has stated that the superintendent is leaving in June 2015 and the pro-Cued Speech principal, Angela Kuhn, is a candidate for the position. The community does not want her to take the job.

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Description: Adrean Clark, a Deaf white woman wearing a black and silver ASL Bat t-shirt appears against a dark blue background. Her narrative is interspersed with footage from the Illinois School for the Deaf's video series featuring the superintendent and classroom situations.

Summary: The Illinois School for the Deaf released a series of videos intended to dispel doubts about their "bilingual" program. I was heartbroken by what I saw in the footage and would like to show you what I noticed.

- The school's mission is to provide a bilingual ASL - English environment. The actual practice is far from bilingual. The example footage shown takes place during an English composition class. The teacher asks (with Cued Speech) what "to conclude" means. Two students respond -- one with ASL/fingerspelling and another by oral English only. The teacher winks at the speaking students. This is common to oral environments that try to "share space" with ASL. Speaking English tends to come first. The student that spoke got special treatment while not signing at all.

- The superintendent claims that the thousands of words in science and social studies have no ASL equivalent, therefore must be fingerspelled. That is a false claim, since ASL has built-in systems for developing new words. The choice to depend on fingerspelling actually robs students of full access to ASL -- as an example a video from the ASL THAT! group is posted. In the video Joseph Wheeler differentiates between deer, moose, and elk by following ASL handshapes and structures. The result is a rich natural sciences education that all Deaf students should have access to.

- The superintendent states that Cued Speech provides an alternative for long-term retention of English information that doesn't involve English print alone. That statement shows that speaking is considered superior at the Illinois School for the Deaf.

- In a mathematics classroom, the teacher interrupts teaching to show students how to speak the word "proper." An assistant is called in to display proper mouthing and cueing for the students. When she tries to fingerspell the word, she gets a slap on the hand. It is disconcerting that so much time was spent on that one word -- and on top of that, even daring to use English fingerspelling was considered "bad." That is not an ASL-English bilingual environment at all!

The Illinois School for the Deaf is an oral program that uses manually-coded English as the primary mode of instruction. It is not a bilingual program.

Footage Sources: Myth 1, 2, and 5 at Link