Chicago to Sacramento to Berkeley

Traveling also upsets schedules and routines and blog habits.

Good day, all. So much has happened, I will begin at the end and fill you in at my next blog. I have just finished an article on James Castle. Here is the beginning (draft). The editor of Works & Conversations is editiing it this week - I will get the final version to you soon.
Keep Talking, James Castle

My 19-yr-old son is enjoying not having an everyday mother, and sometimes pretends he is in a different city from me. I was grateful, therefore, when he called and informed me that BAM, the Berkeley Art Museum, was exhibiting the work of a languageless deaf man, knowing I would be interested since meeting such an unimaginable person changed my life. I wrote about meeting the languageless, adult Ildefonso in A Man Without Words (UC Press, Berkeley).

I was also grateful to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, BAM and many others who brought James Castle to us. I read the latest (January/February 2010) “BAM/PFA Art & Film Notes” introducing me to James Castle, born deaf in 1899 into a rural, hearing family, in Idaho. I read: “Although he attended the Idaho School for the Deaf and blind, Castle did not learn to read, write, speak, sign, or lip read, perhaps by chose.” And, “Castle’s fascination with images…– postcards, magazines, and advertising flyers – certainly was fueled by the Garden Valley years when every sort of matter and printed paper passed through the family post office and general store. Packaging, calendars, and comics all caught his eye. He would copy images precisely and then use them in part and whole in various other drawings and handmade books.” [Lucinda Barnes, p. 6 BAM/PFA Art & Film Notes]

A film by Jeffrey Wolfe at BAM, my next stop, showed artists comparing his art to other art and James Castle to other artists. Family members described a boy who took his drawings to family gatherings and to every visitor. One relative said the mother did everything for him, allowing him to draw all day. An old Deaf man appeared, signing that his research showed that “James Castle” appeared on the books of the Idaho School for the Deaf, for five years. The Deaf man explained that the pedagogy James would have been exposed to, oralism, focused on speech: “ his hands would have been hit with a ruler, and he would be forced to sit on them” In my imagination, I saw the languageless, deaf boy attempting to ask where he was, why had his parents abandoned him. The answer was the ruler hitting his hands. Speech therapy techniques for deaf children were pictured: hands on throats, candle flames to show the puff of air from a p and a teacher’s mouth inches away from the deaf student’s eyes. There was no comment or question on the difference between language and speech or any inquiry about the consequences of oral deaf education in 1910 (or, indeed, today).

Jon Yau, an artist and a poet, seemed braver than the other speakers, venturing a little closer. He found looking at the drawings “incredibly painful.” I left the film and ran two flights up to see James Castle’s drawings, dolls, animals and many bound books – all made out of scraps of paper, cardboard, string, twine or thread, and painted with sticks, his saliva and soot.

At the first stop, I read that James Castle had “refused to learn.” ...

Anyone who can, go see his work,and see how much he teaches us about how much he CHOSE to learn.

I am speaking at the Bread Workshop, University av, Berkeley, Su, Apr. 18, 7:30

Helen Keller, Ildefonso, James Castle: Self with No Language

soon, susan schaller

Grateful to be back, Grateful to all who Helped in Chicago/Mich.

Traveling often expands time - I feel I've been gone for a month.

Thank you, Debra, for your comment, insights and information. I am glad you brought up bonding. Loving one's child, seeing the child's needs naturally includes communication in the easiest and most natural ways. Visual communication for visual babies makes sense and encourages the natural bonding. Coincidentally, I met with a cognitive science lab of Susan Goldin-Meadow, who has done research answering your question about language acquisition relating to early visual input. She and her lab have shown in many studies that deaf babies who have gesture (not signing) do better at learning language,even with a late start, than those who have no home-signing (less sophisticated signing -gestures).

And thank you, Debra, for the point about bilingualism. Sign from the cradle, when it is easy and natural for a visual baby, then add French or English. How rich we all would be if we had all of your languages and windows into different cultures.
The more signing is truly accepted as equal, then the easier it will be for parents and families to learn to communicate with their deaf babies.

A public thank-you to DBC for all of your hard work and, especially, Tami, for your perserverance and great generosity. Excuse the brief blog. I will write more when I have caught up on my sleep.
As always - language for ALL babies,
susan