Legislation Impacting America's Education System: A Deaf Education Overview - Essay Sample

Introduction

In the past 40 years they have been legislation that has been passed in the American landscape of education like the, 'No Child Left Behind' (NCLB) of 2001. These mandates influenced the public education system of America and an overview that is short-term on the legislation that examines a field in deaf education. In the 1980s there was legislation involved in the public education and this period's educational reforms were known as the first wave of educational reform. And this legislation was spread all over the students with disabilities, this was a way to mending the gap between the United States education qualities with that of other industrialized countries. The next two waves of educational reform of 1986 and 1988 respectively were concerned with the restructuring of the school system by providing students with materials ensuring them of becoming successful adults. In our study today we are going to be looking at the placement options of education aimed at learners who are deaf or who have difficulty earshot.

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Approaches Used in Deaf Schools

Now getting to talk about the deaf education we are going to learn about the methods of oral or manual that arose more than 200 years ago, and there have been some basic approaches aimed at the variations. In an approach like, 'oral' this focuses on the society's spoken language and its development and this popularly known as, 'Bilingual-Bicultural' (Bi-Bi), and this, in fact, highlight the natural sign development in a community as the initial language and then through reading the majority are taught the language (Garay, 2003). Another approach on the sign system development supports syntax and the sign language modification and this type of system can be used either unaided or in synchronization with speech said to be, "simultaneous communication" (Sim Com). Additional approach said to be, 'total communication' (TC) use of all means of communication encourages individual needs depends on the debates that are longstanding and that haven't been resolved after two centuries so some deafness perception is represented on these perceptions.

The Pros and Cons on the Oral-Manual Controversy

We embark on another setting, this time focusing on the oral-manual controversy and try to find what it's all about and we first look at a brief description or history on this issue. We start by looking at many schools in the United States for deaf people who initially supported manual communication but this was not the ideology supported by international professors. In Europe, there was a culture or belief that was strong that deaf individuals should be orally educated, popularly known as 'oralist philosophy' professors such as Frederick Moritz Hill and John Baptist Graser of German descent who were loyal cliques of the ideology credited by German oralist movement and later spread through Europe in the 1800s. it made its way to America in the second half of the 19th century and found itself in conflict with others who supported the manual system of communication. In the 1880s there were schools which used both sign and speech in dealing with the deaf while others used either speech or sign language in their scholarly affairs (White Jr, 1975). Alexander Bell a loyal follower of speech method sparked a bitter debate in the U.S which was then decided in Conference of Milan of 1880 and where the oral method was voted most popular.

Positive and Negative on the Controversy

From the text provided, we can learn that sign language or the use of 'manually' is integral in large groups of people who are deaf and in the 18th and 19th century it was witnessed to have been used in every aspect of their day to day life a primary with this kind of language. Now we want to look at the main problem concerned with the sign language kind of language, as the sign systems used in many education systems differ from the actual sign language which may be a challenge in knowing two different languages in two different settings. In an oral method, we can see the main positive thing about it is that it helps the people who have difficulty hearing are aided in the development of speech and the residual hearing usage (Hornby, 2013). A challenge witnessed in the 19th century was when the oral method was championed in the Conference of Milan it resulted in the deaf professors being fired because of their use of sign language.

'Mainstream' Vs 'Deaf Schools'

This is mainly the debate that is ongoing nowadays talking about parents taking their deaf or hard to hear kids to a normal hearing school or take them to a deaf school (Nunes,2001). A statistic report in 2008 by GRI stated that deaf or hard to hear students in public schools, with those who receive an education with hearing students are roughly 64 percent whereas 33.6 percent are not combined with hearing students. In a residential school setting, it was initially created as a way to take off the deaf in a secluded place (as many were boarding schools) away from the metropolitan locations so as to train them in the areas of deaf education. Hiring deaf and hearing teachers teach several programs consisting of; counseling, audiology, or psychology as well as extra-curricular involving athletics and social courses.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we learn that all humans have a right to be educated in the different forums available so, in the case of deaf students, they are supposed to enter the academic arena at a tender age so as to remain the school environment until early adulthood. For them to grow academically, psychologically, or socially while being prepared to enter adulthood with all the ammunition required to face the outside world.

References

Nunes, T., Pretzlik, U., & Olsson, J. (2001). Deaf children's social relationships in mainstream schools. Deafness & Education International, 3(3), 123-136.

White Jr, A. H., & Stevenson, V. M. (1975). The effects of total communication, manual communication, oral communication and reading on the learning of factual information in residential school deaf children. American Annals of the Deaf, 48-57.

Hornby, G., Howard, J., & Atkinson, M. (2013). Controversial issues in special education. David Fulton Publishers.

Garay, S. V. (2003). Listening to the voices of deaf students: Essential transition issues. Teaching Exceptional Children, 35(4), 44-48.