Paul telling the St. Louis Post Dispatch reporter about how audistic CID was during CID Protests that brought Jean Moog down. She was fired. All the hoopla at CID. I tried to ask for replacement of hearing teachers with deaf teachers, have 51% deaf on the board, and incorporate the use of ASL in classrooms.
From St. Louis Post Dispatch, April 21, 1996 - Letters to Editor:
Changing Times at Deaf Institute:
It is time for changes at CID (Central Institute For the Deaf). Too much money is spent on researching when it is cheaper to have basic programs for the deaf.
It is time to reverse the Milan Conference of 1880 where A.G. Bell succeeded in banning the use of sign language in classrooms. It has proven to be a total failure, as stated by the President's Commission on the Education of the Deaf of 1988. It will save time and money using total communication.
Having pure oralism philosophy is not helping thousands of deaf children around the country. And cochlear implanting of deaf children should be stopped until they reach mature age of reasoning and responsibility.
Oral deaf people have higher mental health problems than the deaf who have accepted American Sign Language. Why do we have to struggle to get as much as 30 percent on lipreading, and it takes 70 percent of guesswork to complete the communication process?
American Sign Language is a solution to our needs.
It is time to stamp out audism. Audism, as stated in Dr. Harlan Lane's book, "The Mask of Benevolence," is the corporate institution for dealing with deaf people.
In short, audism is the hearing way of dominating, restructuring and exercising authority over the deaf.
As George Veditz, the deaf advocate, said in 1880, "Sign Language is the noblest gift God has given to the deaf!" Why deprive deaf children of the right to use the natural language of the deaf?
Paul J. Kiel
St. Louis
