Paddy Ladd

A Final Frontier? How Deaf Cultures and Deaf Pedagogies Can Revolutionalise Deaf Education.

Since the 1760s, Deaf educational systems have tried many philosophies and methodologies – yet Deaf communities and others find the ‘results’ to still be unsatisfactory. However, one ‘frontier’ in particular remains virtually unexplored – Deaf educators’ own pedagogical theories and praxis – and by implication their potential role as leaders of Deaf educational systems rather than as passive consumers of them.
This paper examines Goncalves (2010) and Ladd’s (forthcoming) research on Deaf educators’ pedagogies - in Brazil, the UK and the USA. It analyses features found in common across all three countries and identifies six developmental stages through which the educators guide Deaf children.
It describes how these are underpinned by the principle of ‘cultural holism’ – ie. that Deaf educators utilise their experiences as members of language communities with their own collectivist cultures and histories. From these experiences they devise strategies intended to ensure that Deaf children become bilingual, bicultural citizens, capable of making positive contributions to both cultures, but with a particular focus on improving the quality of life of Deaf communities, who in turn pass these qualities on to the next generations of Deaf children. These culturally holistic approaches are described as manifestations of Ladd’s Deafhood concept as utilised in educational praxis, and exhibit ‘the unrecognised curriculum of Deaf education’.  
The paper proposes that useful parallels exist in the educational praxis developed by some Native peoples, offering initial thoughts on how these might be explored. Finally it suggests that the remarkable similarities between Deaf educators’ praxis across three countries, given the minimal contact between these three groups, offers evidence that there may exist powerful transnational Deafhood qualities held in common by the visuo-gesturo-tactile cultures of these ‘Peoples of the Eye’, which deserve further exploration.