Including Freire

The courses in Deaf Studies at Bristol  have a number of interlocking elements: BSL tuition, the study of the language, the study of deaf people and our attitudes to hearing loss.  Now we have begun to focus on the nature of bilingualism - how should professionals use bilingual approaches with deaf people?  We will examine how realistic language learning is under the circumstances which prevail.  It will probably indicate that while Johnson et al (1989) are right in their view that sign use in school is not sufficiently developed for deaf people to be able to access what the teacher is offering, the conditions offered to learners of language both here and in the USA are insufficient to meet the needs of a bilingual approach.  Hearing people just do not have enough of the right access to sign, for them to learn reliably. 

It is not just that there are not enough hours of tuition, but that the conditions for learning are not quite right.  Even though students on the course in Bristol continually ask for more tuition time, it is not the whole answer.  The issue is to do with the type of contact which is available and the attitude of the learner.  This attitude is not just the superficial one of feeling positive towards sign language and trying to understand how deaf people feel.  It is not just about the motivation which everyone has anyway.  It is about the deep-seated ideas about the way our society works and the way in which decisions are made about other people.

What is missing often is the insight which Freire(1972)  offers.  Not only is this insight necessary in order to understand why signing in school does not work yet, (and indeed, why sign interpreting does not work yet) but it is also essential for hearing people in their attempts to reach their own bilingualism in sign.

Freire’s views

The text in his book is difficult (it is written in Portuguese as he is Brazilian) but the messages are very clear.  He has worked with the Indians of South America and has tried to understand their educational needs.  The principles of working apply to all oppressed nations or groups.  In this sense oppression can mean the prevention of any group from achieving their full potential by artificial means or by assumed control - ie non-democratic. Mostly the oppression comes about because of finance or economics.  Mostly it arises in the labour situation and where there can be exploitation of one less advanced group by another more economically or technologically developed.  Very often it is a minority who are oppressing a majority.  Usually the oppressed group are divided and poorly organised.  In the last part of this paper we will consider the implications for deaf people.  The main points in the first part of Freire’s book are;

1. Humanisation is a priority in the world where oppression is an accepted part of life.  The relation between oppressor and oppressed is not an inevitable one but one which has occurred through injustice.

2.  Oppressors are not able to overcome the constraints of their oppression on their own - only the oppressed have the power to liberate the oppressor.

3.  At the same time the oppressed often collude in the oppression by accepting the value system offered by the oppressor - "to be is to be like and to be like is to be like the oppressor."

4.  "Any situation in which A objectively exploits B or hinders his pursuit of self-affirmation as a responsible person is one of oppression.  Such a situation in itself constitutes violence, even when sweetened by false generosity..."  (p 31)

5.  For the oppressor, there exists the right to live in peace in a social order which they have established - but the order is dependent on the social position of others.

6.  "... the oppressed cannot perceive clearly the order which serves the interests of the oppressors whose image they have internalised.  Chafing under the restrictions of this order, they often manifest a type of horizontal violence, striking out at their comrades for the pettiest reasons." (p 38)

7.  The struggle for freedom by the oppressed cannot be achieved by the helper, just because the helper implants the notion of freedom.  There is a need for dialogue.

8.   Education has often used a concept of "banking".  The teacher as expert, deposits information in the student.  Good students are those who accept these deposits most easily.

9.   The solution in education is "... not to integrate them into the structure of oppression, but to transform that structure so that they can become beings for themselves" (p 48)

10.  The education form which is to overcome this relation of oppression has to be a problem-posing one - not a banking one.

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This page was last modified January 29, 2007
jim.kyle@bris.ac.uk