We have seen the GLBT community’s success in removing the pathological label and associative stigma from the American Psychiatric Association list of mental disorders and witnessed the rise of political, corporate and celebrity power among the gay people.

Today, we are seeing the controversial inclusion of alternative lifestyles such as homosexuality in curriculum in schools.   This is a unique phenomenon, especially since the focus is heavily on multiculturalism in North America.

When one thinks of multiculturalism, the first thing to come to mind would be conventional cultures of people such as the First Nations People, French, Jews, Mexicans, and Asians and so on forth. These ethnic groups meet the conventional requirement of what it means to be cultural.  Culture typically requires a language or religion element.

In light of this requirement, the LGBT community would not be able to claim the status of a culture, as the gay people are not a linguistic or a religious group, unlike the Jews or the Navajo, for example. Yet, the LGBT community was able to get the one thing that binds this community together: sex orientation into the required mainstream curriculum of educational systems in North America.

By contrast, the Deaf, which is a cultural and linguistic minority, meet the conventional requirement of a culture.  ASL is indeed the language of the Deaf.  Yet, under the audist disability model, ASL is reduced to the status of a communication tool, on a par with cued speech, total communication, and Morse code.  ASL is now reduced to merely an option.

ASL is denied to Deaf children whose IEPs typically state that they must use oral, cochlear implants, AVT, Cued Speech, Signed Exact English and other communicative methods from Kindergarten on through secondary levels.  (Although rare, there are a few children whose IEPs do state the need for ASL.)  Most IEPs often state these children must be mainstreamed in public schools in accordance to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).  The reason for mainstreaming Deaf children is that educators and the public view public schools as the least restrictive environment (LRE) possible for the Deaf children.

Unfortunately, mainstreamed settings are actually more restrictive due to reduced access to linguistic, social and academic aspects of the educational experience due to the need to learn through interpreters or rely on hearing and speech, which may not always be “100% effective” for the Deaf child.  Opinions have been given in a document by several Deaf and professionals who work with the Deaf on why mainstreamed settings are the most restrictive environment for Deaf children.

What is even more disabling is the fact that while there are now a great number of gay teachers who serve as role models in many schools in North America, Deaf children have a great dearth of Deaf role models in the public educational system. Deaf teachers are seldom if ever hired in the public schools unless there are self-contained classrooms that basically function like one-room schoolhouses that serve Deaf children of all grades. Those Deaf teachers are often told to NOT use ASL with Deaf students, but rather adopt one of the artificial communicative signing systems approved by the school board, i.e. Signed English, or Signed Exact English.

The irony here is that in some North American schools, ASL is provided as a second language course option along with Spanish, for example, to hearing high school students.   In Alberta, ASL is taught to grade 4 hearing students as a second language.  Yet as was previously stated, Deaf children are denied ASL as a first language, which would have given them the most access to curricular expectations in every subject in the education system!

Only in a few schools that are bilingual-bicultural is ASL offered as the language of instruction as well as the language of study.  This means ASL curriculum is available in these schools for Deaf children with the express purpose of enhancing the linguistic acquisition and skills of children in both ASL and English.  These schools are where you would find the most number of Deaf teachers and role models.

In short, Deaf children in Maryland public schools, for example, learn about the GLBT community and their lifestyle in schools, but ASL and Deaf/ASL culture is only optional at best and excluded or denigrated at worst.  What is more, ASL is considered the very last resort for Deaf children if they should fail from the mainstream setting and all other offered options are exhausted.  When ASL is finally considered and offered to a Deaf child, it is often too late.  By then, the child has approached or gone past the window of opportunity for optimal language acquisition, with the result that this child would most likely be semi-lingual and semi-literate.

This has not always been the case for Deaf children.  Before 1880, schools for the deaf flourished.  There were Deaf role models for children galore, and classes were taught using sign language.  There is an excellent article, Women With Disabilities: How To Become A Boat Rocker In Life, by Sue Suter, former U.S. Commissioner Of Rehabilitation, and President of World Institute On Disabilities Services.  She goes on to explain the lessons she learned from the Deaf community, particularly that “history is a vast warning system.”  Here is an excerpt from her presentation at a New Zealand conference.

“Years ago, almost 50 percent of all teachers for the deaf in the United States were deaf, themselves. More than teachers, they were imparters of a graceful language of signs that were rooted in the deaf community, they were role models for entire generations of young deaf students.

Then, in 1880, the renaissance came to an abrupt end. At an international conference of rehabilitation professionals — much like this one — the school of thought called oralism won the day. American Sign Language was discouraged. Speech acquisition was made paramount, so many schools no longer used deaf teachers; they were now considered bad role models of communication. And perhaps the most blatant wrong committed at the Milan Conference of 1880 was that not a single deaf teacher was allowed to vote on the changes.

It was not so long ago that stories filtered from our own Illinois School for the Deaf about a young deaf girl who asked a hearing dorm counselor if she was going to die soon. She was nearing graduation, and she had only seen a few deaf adults. What happened to the others? This is an extreme example. But it points out the vital importance of role models.” (Suter. 1993)

This just drives home the point that the GLBT community has achieved so much where the Deaf have lost, and are trying to regain: namely, role models everywhere in the educational system, as well as language and culture.