Check out the book "Deaf in America, Voices from a Culture." Meet the deadlines below by READING and posting to the blog. For each blog post please include 2 quotes and a page number. Read what others have said. Your entry in that blog shows me you read that chapter. BONUS: Comment / Post to 7 of the 8!
This chapter wraps up the book and brings together all of the ideas that have been mentioned in earlier chapters. Specifically, this chapter talks about Deaf people's lives and how they see themselves in the world. More specifically, "The theme of battling against lives proposed by others is one that has endured through many generations"(110). The author then goes on to recall a story that is a response to the image of a Deaf person that is "ideal" from the hearing perspective, yet is very unrealistic. This is a reflection of how Deaf people tend to have lived in a world where the rules of society have been created by others and imposed on them. Another idea about deaf people's world is that "Vedit's dark world of oralism, in which educator tried to eliminate signing, has given way to an uncertain world of 'mainstreaming,' where deaf children face a different kind of isolation" (115). I think this is a very interesting way to look at it. I can see how mainstreaming can be almost isolating, because in a way deaf children would not really have the means to connect with many other deaf children in the way that they would if they all went to school together. I think that the ideas that this chapter mentioned were all very interesting and though provoking.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter ties everything together, makes sense of the whole book. By reading this book, we have learned so many new things about the Deaf culture, such as their past and the world in their point of view. "Many of the stories we have recounted are about what Deaf people consider to be 'possible' and 'not possible' lives for themselves" (110). We learned about how the hearing world has such a negative affect on the Deaf community. The hearing community is like an authoritarian parent to the Deaf community. Telling them what they can and cannot be, what is possible and what is not possible. But anything is possible if you set your mind to it. "Deaf culture is a powerful testimony to both the profound needs and the profound possibilities of human beings" (121). The Deaf community has come so far and it's inspiring to see what change can be made in this world. We're all human beings living on the same planet, what we do on this planet is up to us. However, as the Deaf community and culture has shown us, there are so many possibilities that can become of us.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter was an overall way to bring the book to an end. Throughout this book, we learned about the idea's other people have about Deaf culture and how the Hearing culture needs to be more aware of the Deaf community. The first sentence of this chapter explains the books purpose perfectly. It states, " Our approach in this book has been to shift attention away from deafness itself to the way Deaf people live- to their culture." (110) Deaf lives are affected so much by the Hearing community, and many times in a negative matter. The books purpose was to show the life of the Deaf, to inform the reader the challenges the face and the way they live their everyday life. Towards the end of the chapter the author states, " Studying the culture of Deaf people provides an interesting perspective on culture in general and on the relationship between human beings and the properties of their cultures."(120-121) This book brings up a good point in needing to study the Deaf culture to be able to understand it. From my knowledge in class and from reading this book, I feel I have a good understanding of the Deaf culture. The Hearing culture needs to open their eyes and study the Deaf culture to understand it and stop discrimination.
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