ICF - Statement
Many of my psychological publications present ideas that I had in the past, but no longer at this moment.
In 1977, I started to work as a young psychologist on the Instituut voor Doven (IvD) at Sint-Michielsgestel, Netherlands. In that period of time IvD was the top of deaf education, in the Netherlands and in the world. Education results were better than in other schools for the deaf, and better than was shown by publications in the field. I was proud to work in IvD. IvD had at that time a clear educational philosophy, with the following elements:
- Oralism: oral education, the acquisition of spoken Dutch, was seen as the highest ideal for deaf children. Much attention was paid to speech and hearing development, and in many pupils the results were far from poor.
- Conversation and dialogue: conversation was the basis of language learning, conversation about the own experiences of deaf children. The basic assumption was that spoken language could be experienced as something of their own by deaf children only when it shows to be for them an adequate means of communicating about their own experiences.
- Differentiation: it was recognised that there are individual differences between deaf children, that might make it more difficult for some deaf children to follow an oral programme. These pupils were offered a different programme, with fingerspelling (Rochester Method).
- The ideal of integration of deaf persons into hearing society.
When I started to work as a psychologist, I took these ideas over as self-evident. Part of my work in the field of psychological assessment was directed on those ideals: early assessment of learning problems with regard to the acquisition of oral communication, early referral of deaf children to regular schools.
At the same time I worked in the field of deaf children’s social-emotional development, and counselling of deaf adolescents and deaf adults. In those contacts I saw that deaf people’s self-experience was quite different from the way in which hearing people, especially people in IvD looked to deaf people. For my deaf clients, it was not an issue if deafness was a disability or not: they felt normal people. In our counselling sessions, communication became more and more informal, no longer directed on adequate spoken language, but on fluent communication. In this way, I saw and learned some beautiful old signs. I discovered that my deaf clients had the same needs, the same potentials, the same growth force as hearing persons. They were not a pitiful scrap of humanity, threatened by the most terrible of all disabilities: deafness. And sign language was not so primitive as I had come to believe.
There was one simple, but important experiential moment which brought me to change my mind. I did a psychological assessment of a young boy, who was obliged to use fingerspelling in communication (the Rochester Method), because of his limited oral communication development. It was a lively and funny boy, and I wanted to make jokes with him. But how do you make jokes in fingerspelling, a mode of communication that interferes heavily with normal body language and natural expression. I decided to stop fingerspelling and to prefer signs. He was a bright boy, but he left IvD with a very poor educational level. The Rochester Method had had its chance, now it was up to others.
So, there was a growing cognitive dissonance within myself. When the moment of change came at IvD, at first I resisted strongly against it. It was a painful infringement on my loyalty with people that I had loved, and for whom I continue to have a high esteem, people whom I continue to call my masters. I changed my mind with regard to communication, view on deafness and deaf culture, but I continue to keep some of the high ideals of old IvD: high standards for deaf children’s education, conversation and dialogue as the basis of education, education towards friendship.
My work for the Chair brought me more in contact with the adult deaf community than before. It was for me the confirmation that communication with deaf people in sign language was deeper and far more personal than spoken language. I experienced how limited spoken language is for deaf persons as a means for personal expression. It saw what I had suspected before: deaf persons who have only oral communication, even when it is far more proficient than in other deaf people, have more problems in personal communication, in faith communication, and sharing the experience of God than signing deaf people. I do not deny the value of oral communication, but I dare to say: Ephphetha, "open yourself", starts with the courage to sign. Sign Language is the gift of God to deaf people.
I illustrate this with a recording of a part of a Eucharist for the Deaf community of Mexico City, August 3 2003, at the occasion of a symposium of ICF. ICF had stated that the Catholic Deaf community of Mexico City was a very strong and flourishing community, a community with strong Deaf leadership, in which a real synthesis was achieved between three cultures: Deaf culture, Mexican culture, and Catholic culture, a real example of Deaf Liberation Theology and Deaf teología indígena. ICF came to them in order to learn.
The Eucharist was presided by Cardinal Norberto Rivera, archbishop of Mexico City. For years and years, they had invited him, but he found never the opportunity to come.
For years and years they had asked for the ordination of deaf men as priests in the Catholic Church. It continued to be a problem for him. Now he came, and he concelebrated with two deaf priests, from USA and UK. In his doctrinal homily he explained the relationship between the offer of Abraham, the Transfiguration on Mount Thabor, and the Eucharist. It was interpreted in a marvellous way by a Mexican interpreter, daughter of deaf parents, grand-daughter of four deaf grand-parents, sister of deaf brothers and sisters, a culturally Deaf person. This tape was recorded by a deaf participant from the Netherlands.
