What does decolonized deaf education look like for mainstream settings

Approximately eighty-nine percent of Deaf and Hard of Hearing (D/HH) students spent at least some time of their school day in a regular classroom that received various service accommodations such as an educational interpreter, speech & language, and self-contained Teachers of the Deaf (U.S. Department of Education [DOE], 2021).  Much of their mainstream learning is dominated by printed and aural English with some sign language usage variant. One must ask why are we not seeing schools designating a space in their building where students and teachers, both hearing and the deaf, can converse in sign language? American Sign Language (ASL) is one of the most sought-after foreign language courses in high school and colleges across the country, after all (American Councils for International Education [ACIE], 2017). Naturally, these language learners would better utilize their ASL skills if you had the opportunity to use them in a school space outside of the classroom.

Indeed, the Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) mandated accessibility for D/HH students in mainstream settings that leads to development of communication philosophy and educational placement. Whatsoever was not required is out-of-classroom accessibility, such as conversing in hallways and cafeteria or meeting up in a study group in the library. Some of your schools might have gone far and beyond to accommodate your D/HH students, but what about their independence? Their ability to wander around the school without an escort of sign language interpreters or school personnel and jump into spontaneous conversations when they came across one?

Sign language was once the prominent communication modal in educating the D/HH students about the world, many of them became contributing citizens in their community. It was until the infamous 1880 conference in Milan that severely restricted sign language in the classroom where we saw the decline of the Deaf community and cultural wealth (Mathews, 2017). Nevertheless, the Deaf community continued to use sign language outside of the school that produced tension between the school and the community for a long time.  

ASL experienced a renaissance in the 1960s’ when William Stokoe, an English professor at Gallaudet University, published the first edition of linguistic in ASL that recognized their complex language structure (Stokoe Jr., 2005). ASL can convey abstract concepts in academic language as much as English. Students need to use academic language by participating in the discourse using the language rather than a decontextualized controlled learning environment. Therefore, D/HH students need more opportunities to converse with their teachers and peers in sign language as much as in English. It affords more connections in their learning experience. It also prompts more reflective thinking with socio-scientific issues such as issues on pandemic and Black Lives Matter.  These kinds of thinking give them a sense of empowerment to make the world a better place. 

Introducing the decolonization thinking would allow us to explore how Deaf culture and ASL linguistic be expanded in a mainstream setting for D/HH students? Exploring such ways for the mainstream school, which housed an estimated 89% of the entire D/HH K-12 population, enriches D/HH students’ cultural and language assets in their building. We are exploring our horizon to transform into more multicultural and multilinguistic schools for more inclusive learning opportunities. Bio: Scott Cohen is a Deaf doctoral student in teaching and learning with a science education concentration at Georgia State University.  His emerging research explores the theoretical foundation on the language discourse between ASL, English, and the language of science.  His dissertation will work with teachers who teach science to D/HH students with their development with science content pedagogy.  He expected to graduate with his doctorate in the spring of 2022.  He is a former high school science teacher at Atlanta Area School for the Deaf.