Barbara Gerner Gerner de Garcia - Change and Promise: Bilingual Deaf Education and Deaf Culture in Latin America

Change and
Promise

Change and Promise

Bilingual Deaf Education and Deaf Culture in Latin America

Barbara Gerner de Garca

Lodenir Becker Karnopp

Editors

Gallaudet University Press
Washington, DC

Gallaudet University Press

Washington, DC 20002

http://gupress.gallaudet.edu

2016 by Gallaudet University

All rights reserved. Published 2016

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Gerner de Garca, Barbara, editor. | Karnopp, Lodenir Becker, editor.

Title: Change and promise: bilingual deaf education and deaf culture in Latin America / Barbara Gerner de Garca and Lodenir Becker Karnopp, editors.

Description: Washington, DC : Gallaudet University Press, [2016] | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016026253 | ISBN 9781563686740 (hardcover : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: DeafLatin America. | DeafEducationLatin America. | Education, BilingualLatin America.

Classification: LCC HV2580.5 .C43 2016 | DDC 371.91 / 2098dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016026253

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

Carlos Skliar

Barbara Gerner de Garca and Lodenir Becker Karnopp

Silvana Veinberg

Lodenir Becker Karnopp, Madalena Klein, and Mrcia Lise Lunardi-Lazzarin

Cristina B. F. Lacerda

Vernica de la Paz Caldern, Maribel Gonzlez Moraga, and Fabiola Otrola Cornejo

Alex Giovanny Barreto Muoz and Jos Ednilson Gomes de Souza, Jr.

Miroslava Cruz-Aldrete and Miguel ngel Villa-Rodrguez

Boris Fridman-Mintz

Mariana Martins and Marta Morgado

Elizabeth M. Lockwood

Juan Andrs Larrinaga and Leonardo Peluso

Ana Mara Morales Garca and Yolanda Mercedes Prez Hernndez

Gladis Perlin and Patrcia Luiza Ferreira Rezende

Vernica de la Paz Caldern

Instituto de la SorderaSantiago, Chile

Fabiola Otrola Cornejo

Pontificia Universidad Catlicade ValparasoValparaso, Chile

Miroslava Cruz-Aldrete

Universidad Autnoma del Estadode MorelosCuernavaca, Mexico

Barbara Gerner de Garca

Gallaudet UniversityWashington, DC

Ana Mara Morales Garca

Universidad Pedaggica ExperimentalLibertadorInstituto Pedaggico de CaracasCaracas, Venezuela

Jos Ednilson Gomes de Souza, Jr.

Federal University of Santa CatarinaFlorianopolis, SC, Brazil

Yolanda Mercedes Prez Hernndez

Universidad Pedaggica ExperimentalLibertadorInstituto Pedaggico de CaracasCaracas, Venezuela

Lodenir Becker Karnopp

Department of Special Studies andGraduate Program in EducationFederal University of Rio Grandedo Sul (UFRGS)Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil

Madalena Klein

Department of EducationalFoundations and Graduate Program inEducationFederal University of PelotasPelotas, RS, Brazil

Cristina B. F. Lacerda

Federal University of So CarlosGraduate Program in Special EducationSo Carlos, S.P., Brazil

Juan Andrs Larrinaga

University of the RepublicMontevideo, Uruguay

Elizabeth M. Lockwood

CBM International Representativeat the United NationsNew York, New York

Mrcia Lise Lunardi-Lazzarin

Department of Special Education andGraduate Program in EducationFederal University of Santa MariaSanta Maria, RS, Brazil

Mariana Martins

Portuguese Association of the DeafLisbon, Portugal

Boris Fridman-Mintz

National School of Anthropologyand HistoryMexico City, Mexico

Maribel Gonzlez Moraga

University of BristolBristol, United Kingdom

Marta Morgado

CED Jacob Rodrigues Pereira,Casa Pia de LisboaLisbon, Portugal

Alex Giovanny Barreto Muoz

Open and Distance National University(UNAD)Bogot, Colombia

Leonardo Peluso

University of the RepublicMontevideo, Uruguay

Gladis Perlin

Federal University of Santa CatarinaFlorianopolis, SC, Brazil

Patrcia Luiza Ferreira Rezende

National Institute of the Deaf (INES)Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Carlos Skliar

Facultad Latinoamericana de CienciasSocialesBuenos Aires, Argentina

Miguel ngel Villa-Rodrguez

Facultad de Estudios Superiores ZaragozaUniversidad Nacional Autnomade MxicoMexico City, Mexico

Silvana Veinberg

Founder and DirectorCanales, Creciendo en SeasBuenos Aires, Argentina

Carlos Skliar

T his significant book offers us a map of the situation of bilingual education for deaf children in Latin America over the last 30 years, as well as an analysis of its ethical strengths, linguistic and educational purposes, and political ambiguities. What is presented in this book is a question that has been constantly reiterated to the point of becoming redundant but which contains the entire dilemma of our world. That is, the political, economic, social, media, and technological dilemmas that, despite universal proclamations of equality, equity, and quality, keep producing more inequalities, inequities, and educational reforms of dubious significance. The following two questions, which may seem unchanging, were, are, and will remain as palpable as they are profound.

Is there still room for an education aimed at specific individuals (and their needs) that is not simply based on a theoretical or generic idea of a person? And what are the specific, unique features that make deaf education a controversial issue whose processes and outcomes involve claims and denials back and forth to the extent that it has created a discontinuity, a disruption, a break, a chasm between Deaf children, the education community, public policies, educational institutions and the Deaf community? To state it in a straightforward way: What is it that keeps deaf education from producing absolutely, for the length and breadth of the continent, a defined identity in public policy that leads to a genuine difference in the meaning and organization of educational structures? And furthermore: Is there room to think about bilingual education for Deaf children without the irrational pressure to normalize within a stagnant and stale debate that opposes the language of the other (recognizing difference) and proposes the language of we, in the context of legal discourse in a push towards educational inclusion?

A number of years have passed in Latin American countries since the first models of bilingual deaf education were made concrete in the 1980s, particularly in Venezuela and Uruguay. It seems incredible that there are continued demands that ask nothing more than to transform deaf education, which in Latin America exists as a kind of dispersed geography. While there are intense illuminated nuclei (Venezuela, Uruguay, and others), there are also arid desert landscapes where bilingual deaf education remains elusive.

One may note the contrast between advocacy of the need for early access to their (sign) language and the tremendous problems of access for the youngest Deaf children to the appropriate language environment. On the one hand, we see awareness of the need for comprehensive education, and, on the other hand, the immense difficulties in implementing an education that includes, at a minimum, wide-ranging materials and exemplars. We see the belief in the transcendental role played by Deaf adults in the education of Deaf children and the insufficient development of training programs to prepare them for this role. Lastly, we hear all the rhetoric about providing a comprehensive educational path for Deaf individuals, yet we know an insignificant number of Deaf students attend secondary schools and an even lower number attend higher education programs.