By: Philip A, Bellefleur

Philip A, Bellefleur — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 20:43:14 +0000

I was headmaster of the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf between 1967 and 1978. PSD was the third oldest and third largest facility for the deaf in the U.S. during my tenure reaching a population of 600 residential and day-school students around 1963. During those years we were successfully graduating and placing in employment over 90% of our graduates. Among the unique programs was radio frequency RTTY broadcast daily from the campus of the school to over 450 deaf families within our frequency compatible area. Also using RTTY we demonstrated our ability to allow students to connect with their home over an established pay phone in the dormitory that was connected through the Philadelphia Phone system. In those years before the Board of Visitors voted to close the school. PSD traveled to many other (free standing) schools for the deaf competing in football and basketball complete with our own cheerleaders. Mainstreaming in 1964+ killed the residential schools because what always has been unrealized by the hearing community that believes deafness is simply another disability when in fact deafness is a culture created by a speech/language disability and because it is and because it requires its own unique language it blossomed into a culture about 200 years ago. What we have done to the profoundly deaf people of this country remains a tragedy even as I write these words. Philip A. Bellefleur Ph.D. teacher of the deaf, retired

Comments on: Deafness and the Deaf

By: Philip A, Bellefleur