Sir, - Mr Brian Crean (May 13th) is correct in criticising what might be called the tyranny of oralism - that system of education of deaf children, appropriate for some, but imposed on many, which typified his schooldays. He is not correct, however, in characterising the behaviour of teachers of partially and profoundly deaf children as he did. I was a young teacher in Cabra at that time and I can assure any reader that his assertion is false.
It is easy with hindsight to criticise the educational failures of a quarter-century ago, but also easy to identify some causes of these failures. In the case of inappropriate "oralism", one of the causes, as Mr Crean will know, was the pressure for this approach which came, not from schools or the Department, but from parents well-known to him, who today still seek to influence educational approaches, though this time in a very different direction.
Today, principles and practices in education of deaf children are dramatically different, but it is still good that they be challenged and that any interest group should promote its own perspectives and objectives. It is not good however, that in doing so, strong assertions and unsubstantiated statistics be presented as facts and that the concerns, however genuine, of a minority, should be presented as anything else.
The real challenge for those genuinely concerned with the education of children who have any degree of hearing loss is to recognise the great diversity of individual circumstances within the relatively small group about which we speak; to respect each individual involved and his/her wishes and to maintain sufficient flexibility in order to provide adequately for each individual situation. To do otherwise, would be to replace one "tyranny", already referred to, with another.
Finally, while not wishing to get into a controversy on the matter - though deaf education in Ireland seems to continually lurch from one controversy to another - it is unfortunate that Mr Crean's generalisations give a less than balanced picture of today's realities. At the risk of sounding complacent, it is my experience that while there is always room for improvement, the situation today is one of dedicated and hardworking parents, committed and very qualified teachers (pace, Mr Crean!), deaf students attaining higher educational levels and deaf people in the community who are certainly not, as Mr Crean asserts, "excluded from any lucrative jobs in the booming economy". - Yours, etc.,
Gerry McCarthy,
Dalysfort Road, Galway.