Year: 2010
Type: article
Abstract: The history of oral teacher preparation in America is both significant and diverse.There are numerous individuals and events that shifted and defined the professional practices of individuals who promote the listening and spoken language development of children with hearing loss.This article provides an overview of this rich history and offers a background to the current state of teacher preparation for listening and spoken language practitioners.for the Improved Instruction of Deaf-Mutes and opened with two classrooms and 14 pupils.The school flourished and within 6 years was serving more than 90 pupils.It would become an acknowledged leader in the field of oral education, and eventually be renamed the Lexington Avenue School for the Deaf 6 (Connor, 1992).In 1862, Gardiner Greene Hubbard and his wife, Gertrude, of Cambridge, MA, experienced a crisis similar to the Rosenfelds when their 4-year-old daughter, Mabel, lost her hearing to scarlet fever.Wanting to preserve her already-established speech, they were dismayed to learn from the experts in Hartford that she would become mute and could then enroll as a pupil at age 10.Undaunted by this news, they began to search for alternatives.They learned of two other families in the region, the Lippetts and Cushings, whose young daughters were similarly affected by childhood illnesses.Like the Rosenfelds, all were prominent, well-educated members of their communities determined to act decisively on behalf of their children.By 1864, the Cushings had engaged a young teacher named Harriet Rogers to work with their daughter, Fannie.Miss Rogers had read about, but had had no practical experience with, the German oral method. 7 Under Hubbard's leadership and with the help of Samuel Gridley Howe, the families petitioned the Massachusetts legislature on March 16, 1864, to grant a charter for an oral school, but the Hartford opposition to the articulation method prevailed again and the effort failed.Ultimately, the Hubbards and Cushings pooled their financial resources and convinced Miss Rogers to accept the challenge of teaching by oral methods to a class of seven students, ages 8 to 17, in a rented room in Chelmsford, MA.The families resubmitted a charter petition to the legislature in spring 1867.This time Miss Rogers and some of her pupils were invited to Boston to provide direct evidence of the effectiveness of her method of instruction.The legislature was easily convinced and sent a bill authorizing the charter of an "articulation school" to Governor Bullock, which he signed on June 1, 1867.Concurrent with, but apparently independent of this petition, a wealthy merchant banker named John Clarke, who resided in Northampton in western Massachusetts, had informed the governor of his desire to endow a school for children who were deaf in the amount of $50,000 on the condition that the school be located in his home town. 8Miss Rogers and the families of the Dudley, L.
Source: The Volta Review
Author: Alan L. Marvelli
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W313416563