Most people in the Deaf community recognizes CSDR as a renowned school for DHH students in Southern California, but they are not aware that CSDR was once an oral school. It seems hard to believe in view of the fact that the school embraces ASL and English for bilingual and bilateral education, started in the 1990s. Yes, the school went from one end of the spectrum on communication philosophy to the other over a period of 21-25 years. Quite a fast switch for any school, but CSDR did.
Below is one of CSDR’s most successful oralists - James Van Den Brock in the former Class of 1968. He is hard of hearing, thereby increasing the likelihood of his speech success.
In the world of work, he was once a security guard with a pistol for armored Brink trucks transportating bags of money between banks and stores. Now in his mid-70s, he is retired and lives in Menifee outside Riverside.
Here is a word of caution: his success with speech is an exception rather than a rule. James is in a tiny minority with outstanding speech that he can function independently in the speech-dominated society.
In order to understand how oralism was selected over manualism (the archaic terms from the 1940s), it is necessary to travel back in time for background understanding.
The following motivators for placing CSDR on the oral track:
1) In Fall 1880, the International Congress on Education of the Deaf (ICED) had its conference in Milan, Italy where the gathering casted its long shadow on deaf people on a global level. The attendees made an unfortunate decision that oralism was superior to manualism for all grades not only in Europe, but also overseas. The switch on communication method represents a dark age for the deaf everywhere, including the US, albeit a little later.
The Milan Conference didn’t have immediate impact on the US, but its aftereffects made their way across Atlantic Ocean to influence one school after another on the mainland. The oral education method reached its zenith in the 1920s with 80% of the schools for the deaf across the country. Gallaudet University and CSD at Berkeley were in the minority that chose to stick with sign language as the preferred method of communication.
CSDR Founder Perry Seely was fired as a printing teacher at the Nebraska School for the Deaf for his constant battle with Superintendent Frank Booth over his request to the Nebraska legislature to legislate a law to focus on oral training in the 1920s. Frank Booth betrayed his deaf father, Edmund Booth, on his communication method switch.
Edmund Booth was a charter member of the National Association of the Deaf in 1880. Booth was nominated to be the first NAD president, but he politely declined and preferred someone younger. Robert McGregor eventually took the honor to be elected president instead.
The NAD was formed in response to the new mandate from the ICED conference in Italy in the same year. About forty years later, Frank dishonored his father for banning the natural language of the deaf and encouraging oralism as superior at NSD and in the state.
Due to Seely’s firing as a school teacher, he soon left Nebraska and headed west to California for a new life in 1927. His departure from the state was a loss to the deaf community in Nebraska and a gain for California because he became president of the California Association of the Deaf in 1936 and volunteered his time in the 1930s and the 1940s to make a new CSD in Riverside a reality 18 years later.
Unfortunately, the California Department of Education chose oral education for the new school. The reign of the oral method lasted from the 1900s to the late 1960 and the early 1970s in the US.
2) The director of the State Special Schools for the Deaf and the Blind in 1950 was Dr Herbert R Stolz, MD. He was a physician by training. As with all other physicians, Dr Stolz insisted on oralism and lip reading for deaf people to communicate by. He frowned on sign language. He hired Dr Brill who had made a promise to practice the oral philosophy at the new school.
3) The oral education was no stranger for Dr Brill because he was born on the campus of the oral school for the deaf in Connecticut where his mother was a teacher and his father a principal. They were strong adherents.
4) Dr Brill didn’t want to upset his parents (Tobias and Ella) with their 50 years of careers in oral deaf education.
Aforementioned, the CDE made oralism the official policy at CSDR. Dr Stolz as a physician thought he was doing a favor for deaf children to stay away from manual communication filled with stigma. Dr Brill accepted the job offer provided that he led a new school on the oral track.
CSDR was an oral school with fingerspelling allowed for input for the first 15 years from February 2, 1953 until June 1968. Although the school had an official position of oral training, many students and staffers continued to sign behind Dr Brill’s back even from the beginning. Teachers and students especially in the upper grades made a pact that they signed in the classroom with the door closed. If visitors came in, they put their hands down and talked orally like normal people.
The following motivators for unshackling the feet of struggling students from the iron chain of oralism:
1) In Fall 2000, James Hoxie stopped by in my middle school classroom with a draft copy on the Brill Administration Era for his review and feedback for my first edition book published in 2003. Hoxie was the assistant superintendent for instruction from 1962 to 1979 and worked closely with Dr Brill. They also played golf together on weekends. Hoxie informed me that he was instrumental of convincing his boss to give up on oral communication and switch to simultaneous communication with the use of both sign language and speech as the preferred method of communication and instruction for all grades at CSDR.
Hoxie argued with Brill that he saw too many students fell through cracks on their education for a lack of communication clarity and convenience. For the first time since Fall 1950, Brill finally relented and said it was a time for a change for better educational outcomes.
2) Dr Brill also saw in the recent professional literature that there was no evidence on the use of sign language to hinder the oral skill development.
3) It was in Spring 1968 at the peak of Total Communication movement spreading like a wild fire across the country. Like black dominos, one by one school nationwide switched back to sign language.
4) The damning Congressional Babbidge Committee Report was released in 1965 to the public, lamenting the utter failure of oral education for the deaf on the national level.
5) Dr Roy Holcomb (deaf) from Orange County in California led the Total Communication protest to swing back the clock pendulum to the natural language of the deaf for school and life. His son, Sam, went to CSDR and graduated in 1974. Roy probably sat down with Dr Brill for a frank talk on the benefits of signing.
Although we say firmly we will never allow others take our sign language from us again, we agree to let students with potential for success in speech to continue speech therapy throughout the grades as a compromise between the manualists and oralists.
In 2000, Greg Decker, ‘66, and I paid a visit at the home of Miss Grace Paxson on Madison Street in Riverside. She was the Lower School principal from 1953 to 1975. In a two-hour interview, she made a confession that oral method posed a poor risk for deaf students for language delay and education retardation. Only students with a good amount of residual hearing showed promise for success. However, with sign language, no one failed. Hence, it was a good change, albeit long overdue.
In conclusion, we learn from the past that pure oralism even with fingerspelling is not the panacea for the vast majority of deaf children. It may be successful for hard of hearing students like James Van Den Brock, but most students at CSDR are classified as auditorial deaf. We must consider them in their best interest. As for speech therapy, students and their parents can make a request through IEPs to continue speech practice on an individual basis. Further, students are welcome to wear hearing aids for amplification if they wish. Again, sign language must stay on campus for today and the posterity.
The California Department of Education in Sacramento gives its blessing to the two state special schools for the deaf at Fremont and Riverside for their bilingual practices with an equal weight on American Sign Language and English.
From the above, CSDR Founder Perry Seely (1886-1949) is looking down at us with a beaming smile that we have known from the beginning what is the best for ourselves. We hold history as a lesson for our survival in life.
Kevin Struxness, ‘76, MA
Editor, CSDR Old Times
30 December 2024
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