Cover next page > title: Seeing Language in Sign : The Work of William C. Stokoe author

< previous page
page_173
next page >
Page Merrill to present his ideas to the Seventh Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf.
The implementation of the proposals we are making will not be easy. It will require a long-term commitment of the educational resources of a large public school district or deaf school. In addition it will require, among other things the recruitment of deaf teachers at the lower grades and preschool levels retraining hearing teachers who do not sign well;
community development work to establish various aspects of the parent-family program and the Child Development
Center; a great deal of curriculum development a great deal of materials development and a program that teaches all participants in the program that the education of deaf children can be successful. In the summer of 1989, more than five thousand deaf people from allover the world attended The Deaf Way Conference, a combined festival and symposium, at Gallaudet. Bill Stokoe was asked to introduce anthropologist Edward Hall, the author of
The Silent Language and The Hidden Dimension, and to give an address entitled "A Serious Sign Language Dictionary" Oliver
Sacks, author of Seeing Voices, interviewed Stokoe at the conference (often referred to simply as "The Deaf Way. "He is such an exceptional and warm human being" Sacks says, "one whose impact on linguistics, and the deaf, has been immeasurable. It was wonderful seeing him at The Deaf Way in the Father of it all, enjoying the depth and rightness of appreciation which were denied him for so long.''33
Sacks agrees with the critics of Gallaudet and other educational institutions that have chosen to ignore Stokoe's work and the growing field of research it engendered "There are regressive or bigoted or plain inert traits in the education of the deaf which have completely ignored everythingthe huge advancesof the last thirty years. So, paradoxically, Bill's work hasand has nothad an impact in some areas. No one who knows his work though, can be immune to it."34
It is no longer easy to ignore Bill Stokoe. In an essay entitled "The History of Language Use in the Education of the Deaf in the
United States" Mimi WheiPing Lou creates a timeline of

Download 2.48 Mb.

Share with your friends: