exhorts people to protest at the Alexander Graham Bell (AGBell) Conference later this month in Washington, DC. There is also an effort by notable deaf bloggers and commenters to mock AGBell by calling the organization “agBAD” (literally the organization’s acronyms).

We’re all familiar with the conflict; however, a brief glimpse of both arguments (aside from identity issues) by hearing parents would probably cede victory to oralism. In light of this call for a protest at the AGBell Conference, ASL advocates may need to re-evaluate a broken public strategy. Especially if they hope to have a breakthrough in the decision-making process of hearing parents who seek help from publicly available resources. One strike against the pro-ASL movement is that AGBell has a strong, central organization to advocate its position while the ASL supporters, seemingly a ratag group, don’t have that advantage.

Two personal experiences formed my personal conclusion about both ideologies, which I reveal later in this blog. One summer, I went to Clarke Camp at the renowned oral school in Northampton, MA. I actually signed with a good number of fellow campers. Several years later I attended the prestigious NAD Youth Leadership Camp (YLC) in Stayton, Oregon, which was conducted entirely in American Sign Language (ASL).

I experienced some duress at Clarke for signing. For example, I will never forget when the “hall maid” slapped my hands as I was signing. I thought those times had passed. Otherwise, there was some indirect propaganda about oralism and its virtues. There were some instances where I could not tolerate the condescending attitudes towards deaf people and sign language, thus earning me the “nonconformist” award at the camp’s closing ceremonies.

At YLC though, I experienced more direct propaganda. The most memorable was Charles Katz who sported a Rastafarian hat and told the story of Visma (he just set up shop at his blog). Katz’s story depicts Alexander Graham Bell (called “Dr. Volta”) as a criminal madman. Some YLC staff members shared his sentiment about anything that was not ASL. We had plenty of conflicts over what I perceived to be narrow-minded attitudes. This earned me the “punishment” of carrying a huge sign with the letter “R” and the word “Respect”.

Don’t get me wrong. Many of the lessons, workshops, and overall experiences at both camps were fabulous. Some staff members were open-minded; I would encourage children to attend both camps. The most valuable lesson learned: the choice of communication is not the crux of the problem, but rather, the attitudes and close-mindedness of the key individuals promoting their ideologies.

Neither ideology is mutually exclusive. I finally found a paper that somewhat reinforces my belief. “Oral Communication versus American Sign Language”, prepared by Kim Baker for the Interdisciplinary Research Conference, rationalizes the conflict in terms of philosophical theories. Baker makes a reasonable, moderate conclusion that communication methods should be tailored to the individual’s needs and that the deaf child should be exposed to both modes so the individual can decide which they want to continue to pursue later in life.

She compares the arguments in favor of oralism to the phenomenon facing Frankenstein, a hideous, unloved monster who yearns to conform to social norms.

…people wish for conformity or assimilation into the norm to avoid pain, segregation, and rejection. It is from these historical fears that Oralists acquire their fundamental value that assimilation into the hearing world is most beneficial for all involved.