| MCC Celebrates International Deaf Awareness Week, 23-29 September 2012 |
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MCC Celebrates the History and Ministry of Our Deaf Community
International Deaf Awareness Week is observed every year in the last whole week of September from Sunday to Saturday. The first World Congress of The Deaf was held in the last week of September in 1951 and since then the final week in the month of September has come to be specially marked to celebrate the accomplishment and lift-up the challenges of the deaf community.
During the last full week of September, various deaf organizations hold public awareness programs, and campaigns to educate people about the real life that the deaf have to overcome in their lives.
It is our hope that this resource will assist you and your congregation in celebrating our sisters and brothers who are deaf as well as raising our collective awareness of daily challenges faced.
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We speak with our hands and hear with our eyes.
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Silent Hands Can you hear me?
Listen, not with your ears
But with your eyes.
To you they speak,
My silent hands.
Hear me tell my tale.
Hear me sing my song.
Learn my language,
My beautiful native language.
Hear my hands,
Hear my music and story.
Learn my language.
Speak to me with your hands.
Share my beautiful language.
Hear my silent hands.
We have a tale to tell,
A song to sing.
Open your eyes
And hear me speak. ~ Sandra L. Brooks |
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Thank You
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Online Sign Dictionary
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Early Christians See Deafness as Sin
St. Augustine tells early Christians that deaf children are a sign of God's anger at the sins of their parents. Meanwhile, hearing and speaking Benedictine monks take vows of silence to better honor God. To communicate necessary information, they develop their own form of sign language.
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Deaf Education Develops
The experimentation that flourishes throughout Renaissance Europe sets the stage for the first attempts at educating the deaf. The physician Geronimo Cardano of Padua, Italy, attempts to teach his deaf son using a code of symbols, believing that the deaf can be taught written symbolic language.
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Pedro Ponce de Leon &
First Sign Alphabet
Meanwhile, Pedro Ponce de Leon, a Benedictine monk, successfully teaches speech to people deaf since birth. While neither Ponce de Leon or Cardano leaves much of a legacy, this period prompts Juan Pablo Bonet, an advocate of early sign language, to write the first well-known book of manual alphabetic signs for the deaf in 1620.
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| French Sign Language Established |
 | Abbe Charles
Michel de L'Eppe |
A French priest, Charles Michel De L'Eppe, establishes the first free public school for the deaf in France. De L'Eppe tries to develop a bridge between the deaf and hearing worlds through a system of standardized signs and finger spelling. Dedicated to helping the less fortunate, the energetic priest also founds a shelter for the deaf in Paris and a school for deaf children in Truffaut, France. In 1788 he publishes a dictionary of French sign language.
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German Sign Language Established
 | | Samuel Heinicke. |
At the same time, oral educators make strides in Spain, Germany, France, Holland and England. Many use secret methods to teach lipreading to their deaf pupils. Among the most successful oral teachers of the deaf is Samuel Heinicke, a German educator. Using techniques developed by a Dutch doctor, Heinicke teaches pupils speech by having them feel his throat while he speaks; his orally based educational techniques are called "the German Method."
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USA Sign Language Established
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Thomas H. Gallaudet |
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, an American interested in deaf education, travels to Europe where he meets De L'Eppe's successor, the Archbishop Roche Sicard, the author of "Theory of Signs." Sicard sends one of his instructors, Laurent Clerc, back with Gallaudet, and the pair found the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut. Many teachers of the deaf train in Hartford, and, soon sign-based deaf schools in New York, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and elsewhere begin to flourish. Alice Cogswell, Gallaudet's initial inspiration to teach the deaf, is the first to graduate from the American School.
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The Conference of Milan Endorses Oral Education
In a move with repercussions well into the future, this international gathering of deaf educators pronounces oral education methods superior to manual communications systems. The only country opposing the vote for oral-based education is the United States, where manual education has made great strides. During the next 10 years, the popularity of manual education for the deaf declines sharply. Seventy-five percent of teachers using the manual method have retired by 1890. In the U.S., the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) is founded and gains support in reaction to the Milan resolution. The NAD is instrumental in keeping sign language and manual education alive.
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Electrical Hearing Aid Invented
While early hearing aids are not easy to use (most weigh several pounds and must be placed on a desk), the carbon-based microphones, powered by large three- and six-volt batteries, give hearing-impaired people truly amplified sound for the first time. Alexander Graham Bell reportedly develops an earphone for amplifying sound, but he never pursues a patent.
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Phone for Deaf
Invented 1964
Robert Weitbrecht, who is deaf, invents the teletypewriter (TTY), which enables deaf people to use phone lines to call each other and type out their conversations.
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Program Captioning Introduced
The Caption Center at WGBH in Boston open captions "The French Chef" the country's first nationally broadcast captioned program. It airs on PBS. By 1980 Close Captioning is developed and the first show broadcast. Close Captioning hides the text from view unless the user has a decoding device. By 1993, the FCC requires that all newly manufactured televisions have the decoding chip.
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| Cochlear Implants Approved 1985 |
The cochlear implant is approved for clinical trials in people 18 and older. The device is a mechanical prosthesis of sorts for the inner ear. It bypasses the bones of the inner ear, placing electrodes directly into the cochlea, where sound waves are absorbed and interpreted by the auditory nerve.
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The Deaf Way
Conference 1989
In 1989 Gallaudet is again the focus of international attention when The Deaf Way brings together 5,000 deaf people from accross the globe. The event further boosts deaf pride and cultural awareness.
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| Worship and Programming Resources |
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Voices of Deafness
Videos
What is it like to live in a world without sound? If you were born deaf, would you want to have surgery to enhance your ability to hear? To find out, we talked with eight deaf people who told us about their experiences living in a hearing world. We also spoke with the hearing mother of one deaf child who explained her family's decision to opt for cochlear implant surgery. Our interviewees present diverse opinions: some have cochlear implants and love them, while others do not have or want them. In this feature, you can read a bit about each person and their ideas, and then watch a short video clip from the interview.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/s
oundandfury/culture/voices.html
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Many Different
Sign Languages
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Deaffinity
Deaf Awareness 2012
 | | Deaffinity.com |
Three moving vignettes taken from the lives of those who are deaf showing the challenges and life threatening circumstances these individuals live with daily.
The first is entitled Painful Communications. The second is Alone on the Platform and begins at 2:04. The final segement is entitled Lucky Escape and begins at 4:26.
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| Worship and Programming Resources continued.... |
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Edwin Kelly
Resurrection MCC
 | | Edwin Kelly |
We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder
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Central Texas MCC
From the Heart ASL Choir
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Stop the
Bullying
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