A School for the Deaf

Text by MALINI SESHADRI Photographs by USHA KRIS

Inspired by the Clarke School for the Deaf in Massachusetts, alumnus Leelavathy Patrick started a similar school in Chennai. Today, it not only helps to "mainstream" the deaf, but it also looks after mentally retarded children.

The theater lights dim; the curtain goes up. Children in colorful costumes swirl onto the stage. They dance in rhythm with the lilting music, obviously enjoying themselves. When the music stops, the children bow low with folded hands. The applause is deafening. But not for the performers. For all of them are deaf. They are students of the Clarke School for the Deaf in Chennai, and they have been patiently rehearsing for months under the skillful guidance of their teachers.

The troupe is called "Sadhana," which loosely translates as "endeavor." The children have performed with distinction in several parts of India, winning admira­tion for their talent and determination.

The story of the Chennai Clarke School is inextricably interwoven with the life of one woman, Leelavathy Patrick, who is currently its director.

Patrick comes from a family that has always valued social service. She was a teacher at a school for handicapped chil­dren in Chennai, when she won a Ful-bright scholarship to America in 1968 to pursue graduate studies in education at Smith College, Massachusetts. She went on to specialize in the education of the deaf, spending two years learning the very latest in the field at the Clarke School for the Deaf in Massachusetts.

Talking of her experiences there, Pat­rick says, "Though I had worked with handicapped children before, I knew nothing about specialized methods for teaching the deaf until I went to Clarke School. Apart from taking my master's degree in education with special emphasis on the handicapped, I learnt all about audiology and speech coordination. I also had the privilege of working with Dr. David Manning for three months, setting up an 'integrated preschool program' in which normal and deaf children study together. Manning is even now continu­ing to concentrate on 'mainstreaming' deaf children at Clarke School."

Clarke School, Massachusetts, is now more than 100 years old. It recently cele­brated the centenary of its first teacher-training program. It is named after a rich merchant who had a deaf child, and do­nated a generous sum toward setting up a specialist teaching and rehabilitation cen­ter for the deaf. The name of Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, figures in the list of past faculty mem­bers. Today this school is an interna­tionally recognized resource center for teaching the deaf.

Returning to India, Patrick was fired with the idea of establishing a school for the deaf in Chennai, named after her U.S. alma mater, and run along the same principles. Clarke School for the Deaf, Chennai, was born in 1970, in a tiny rented house, with just three children one deaf and two multiply handicapped. By the end of that year, the number had grown to 68. Clarke School was well on its way.

In the beginning financial resources were very limited, and Patrick often had to dig into her own purse to keep the school going. She received valuable help in those early years from a handful of others who shared her dream. Dr. S.K. Nagarajan, a medical practitioner, of­fered his services in the evenings free of charge. Today, retired from his medical practice, he continues to serve as sec­retary of the society that runs the school. He is also the medical consultant for the school's antdeafness programs and its teaching equipment. And all this in an honorary capacity.

Some of the teachers have been with the school virtually from the beginning. Says Seetha Mahalakshmi, "I can't imagine myself doing anything else or working anywhere else. This is my life, and it gives me enormous satisfaction."

Today, the school owns its own prop­erty, has expanded the old building, and put up a new block. Apart from its main activity of educating and rehabilitating deaf children, Clarke School has, over the years, added sections for the mentally handicapped and multiply handicapped children.

'Some people think that we are spread­ing our resources too thin by taking on these other categories of handicapped children," says Patrick, "but we have found that we are able to help these children in a special way because we concentrate on imparting communica­tion skills. This is a common need for all children—to learn how to communicate and interact with the outside world.

"We concentrate on reaching the child early, saving and enhancing any resi­dual hearing with the help of appropriate hearing aids, and training the child to communicate and learn through normal speech. Since we want to train these children to function effectively in normal society, we also concentrate on building their self-confidence and their personalities."

Clarke School's educational and train­ing methods reflect the philosophy as well as the orientation of its founder-director. For instance, sign language and "finger alphabets" are not part of the curriculum; the emphasis is on rescuing and enhanc­ing any residual hearing that the child may possess, instead of allowing such hearing to atrophy through disuse. Good sound amplification is provided through hearing aids and the children are trained to comprehend normal speech. As a cor­ollary, they are encouraged to commu­nicate verbally rather than by signs. "Our purpose is to teach them how to commu­nicate with hearing people," says Nagarajan, "and not merely to communi­cate with other deaf people."

As part of this philosophy, Clarke School's deaf children are given many opportunities to spend time with children from regular schools, participate in their school competitions and activities, and go for picnics and outings with normal chil­dren. "The result is," says Patrick, "that our children become self-confident, and don't develop complexes."

This is very important, for Clarke School sees itself not as a sanctuary for the deaf, but as an interim training ground to help the hearing-impaired to fit into society and become productive citi­zens. Mainstreaming is the goal, and whenever a child is educationally and psychologically ready, he or she goes to a regular school. Over the years, many Clarke School alumni have joined the regular educational stream, coped successfully, and even gone on to univer­sity studies. But behind every such success story lie years of persistent struggle, pa­tience, and dedication.

"It can sometimes get to be profoundly depressing and frustrating for us," says Jayakumari, a teacher. "Some days, when I've been trying so hard and I just can't get through to the children, I wonder whether I can ever make a difference. But, over a period of time, when I find a child suddenly responding, grasping a lesson, or going fearlessly up on the stage to perform at a cultural program, I realize it is worth every minute of it. The shaping of these personalities is in out hands, and the satisfaction we get from working with these deaf children is infinitely more than we could ever feel as teachers of hearing children." And these efforts are amply rewarded.

Several alumni of the school are living examples of the power of persistence and endeavor. Apitha Saravanamuthu, one of the first children at the school, is now doing her master's degree in com­merce at the University of Madras. She secured first place in a bank recruitment examination, and has been offered an attractive job in the bank. Satish Babu received a degree in fine arts, and is now a successful commercial artist. Mapala, a Zambian youngster who left Clarke School about six years ago, now heads his own organization in his native country, and corresponds regularly with his alma mater.

Many other Clarke School alumni are employed in government offices as well as private organizations. The teacher train­ees too have fanned out to various places, taking their skills to needy children else­where. One trainee, Narmada, has set up a school for deaf children in Coimbatore.

For the teachers of these deaf children there are other types of rewards too. Says Vimala, one of the experienced teachers at the Clarke School, "Our work here helps us to look at life in a different perspective. We learn to see problems as challenges. I have tried to watch TV with the sound turned down just to put myself in the shoes of these children. What an enormous problem they face, and how trivial our own problems seem."

Clarke School has set itself ambitious goals. Apart from imparting communica­tion and social skills, it runs a general education program to prepare children to take the regular grade examinations held by the state government. Also, from grade seven onward, typewriting is a com­pulsory subject. "This has multiple advantages," says Nagarajan. "Typewrit­ing improves coordination and motor skills, and also language skills and vocabulary. Besides, it prepares them for a possible career."

The school runs regular training pro­grams for its own teachers as well as for others. The Clarke School's two-year intensive training program is now rec­ognized by the Indian National Institute for the Hearing Impaired. Emphasis is on the "maternal reflective" method, which seeks to continually reinforce learning experiences in a natural way, by stimulat­ing verbal responses. Some teachers, including school principal Dipti Karnad, received specialized training at the In­stitute Voor Doven in the Netherlands.

Karnad says, "The teachers there always speak in normal tones and at normal speed to the deaf. Just because they are deaf, it doesn't mean they are dull. We follow that method here, and we consciously try to avoid talking to the children in an extra loud or exag­gerated way."

She leads the way on a quick tour of the school. Each class has just a handful of children, so that the teacher can reach everyone with the lesson. Students are divided into grades not by age alone but by their capacity to grasp and by their performance. As we enter each class-room, the children promptly stand up, smile, greet us with folded hands and even call out a welcome. One or two of the bolder ones ask, "What is your name?" When I tell them, they rush to the black­board to write it down. Have they got it right? They look at their teacher questioningly. Their voices sound strange to my ears. Many are shrill, others squeaky. But, considering that they can­not hear themselves speak, they do a remarkably good job.

In another wing are the mentally and multiply handicapped. Some have been classified as educable, and they are taught using special methods. Others are just looked after with diligence and love.

Since Clarke School received its first audiometer way back in 1976 from a voluntary service organization called Tri ple H in the United States, a lot of other equipment and instruments have been added. There are now several audiom­eters, the latest in hearing aids (including frequency-modulated aids that minimize sound distortion), vibrators, and a visible speech unit, whereby a deaf child who is learning how to articulate can see the corresponding patterns on a screen.

Every new child is thoroughly screened, physically and psychologically, the degree of handicap is assessed, and an appropriate hearing aid is fitted before he or she is assigned to a class.

Weekend orientation and basic aware­ness classes are conducted for the parents of day scholars. They are taught how to talk to their children, how to help them with home assignments, and how to ex­pose them to various kinds of experi­ences. "It is amazing how positively they complement our efforts," says Karnad. "Whether they are rich or poor, whatever their social status or income level, the parents are one hundred percent with us."

Patrick adds her own observations: "During one of our deafness-detection camps, we identified several children in a slum in Nungambakkam, who needed hearing aids and special help. Later, some of them joined our school. One of these children comes from a Telugu-speaking family. Since we teach only in English and Tamil, the boy's mother selected English as the medium of education for her son.

Then, she came here regularly to take lessons in English so that she could help him. That is the level of cooperation we receive from the parents." Patrick and her col­leagues do not wish to be B limited by the con­straints of time and space. Since they cannot accommodate everybody who knocks on their door, they run counseling classes for families of deaf children in their own homes, so that the parents can do their best for their own children until vacancies arise in a special­ized school. Clarke School teachers volun­teer their time free of charge for this service, and also for the numerous field surveys and deafness-detection camps car­ried out in factories, schools, and slums. Not content with merely an urban pres­ence, Clarke School has launched a bold new experiment in a village on the out­skirts of Madras city. A day-care center and an integrated school catering to both hearing and deaf children are staffed by teachers trained at Clarke School.

The school also has a program to edu­cate the general public about avoidable deafness. "We have launched a war against otitis media, or middle ear infection," says Nagarajan. "Repeated infections often lead to ruptured ear­drums and consequent deafness. In our field trips, we warn parents not to neglect their children's earaches." The campaign also stresses the dangers of maternal ru­bella [German measles] during preg­nancy, loud music, fireworks, industrial noise, and other such deafness-inducing hazards. Posters, pamphlets, school vis­its, and radio and television programs are used to spread the message of safeguard­ing the gift of hearing. And to those who never had that gift, or who have lost it, Clarke School holds out the hope of bringing some music into their world of silence.

Clockwise from top left: School principal Dipti Karnad teaches the older children who have come a long way in their education; a mentally handicapped boy happily concentrates on the task at hand; teachers at the Clarke School, not merely colleagues but friends, are seen here in the director's office with their wards; Dr. S.K. Nagarajan, a full-time volunteer member of the faculty, gives speech training to a student; and a student gets help from a computer.