Deaf Ways of Education 71
As paternalism and oralism blocked any information that included the percep-
tion that deaf people were an ethnolinguistic minority, and they themselves did
not have access to majority society and the liberating rhetoric developed in other
minority groups, Flemish deaf individuals needed to come into contact with their
signing peers from abroad in order to acquire deaf cultural rhetoric and become
empowered.
The alternative to a banking approach to education is dialogue (Freire, 2005).
Dialogue, questions and answers, and discussions were core themes in the life sto-
ries collected in my case study, and through this process, passivity and acceptance
were replaced by critical thinking (Freire, 2005). Starting from the concrete real-
ity of Flemish everyday experience and confrontation with a better reality in deaf
dream worlds, dialogue will wake up Flemish deaf people. The world is no longer
something outside deaf people’s lives but becomes a world that can be changed and
in which deaf people actively participate (Freire, 2005). Jerry (translated interview,
2004), a Flemish deaf leader, reflected on this process, which he experienced when
he met empowered deaf people in Denmark and at Gallaudet:Then there was a study trip to Denmark. The first day of our trip, my eyes
opened several times. It was already enough for me. It was too much for me to
deal with. After that, X set up another study trip to Gallaudet. That was a five-
day trip, one week. I joined. Then I started to feel, “oh, actually I lost many
years.” Then it all started.
Back in Flanders, I was really strong. I had changed. Then I became really
active.... Also, I will never forget that—I was on my honeymoon in the
south of France. I was young and we were married. And then there were
two people: “Are you deaf too?” “yeah, we are deaf too.” Those people were
Americans, Jews. That was a smart man. very interesting. The things he told
me! He signed very relaxedly. And I looked and looked... with my mouth
open. At night, in bed, I couldn’t sleep. It swirled around in my head. oh,
that was such an interesting man! There are deaf people who can do that!
That man is an interesting deaf man! That is possible! I wanted to turn
myself into an interesting deaf man too; I had to. Because of those people
I met, always because of those people I met. And afterward I was thinking,
and I realized, “I can do that too!” The school had never showed me: I can
do the same things.
It is only through meeting deaf adults who were smart that I started think-
ing and got the feeling, “I would like to become the same! I am strong! I can
do that too!”... We had direct communication, we had eye contact, and in
one hour I grabbed so much information.... And then, at the deaf school, it
took me so long for that. Through signs, I understood everything easily, and
I let it all come, absorbed it all.Flemish deaf people, who lack a strong Flemish deaf cultural identity and share
the transnational commonalities of deaf lives in a hearing world (Murray, 2008)
easily connect with empowered deaf people from abroad. This also illustrates the