Observations d'un sourd et muèt sur un cours élémentaire d'éducation des sourds

Desloges, Pierre, 1747-Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.5
Word count
75K words
Chapters
8

Tags

Foreign Language Books Education Disability RightsFrench EducationSpecial EducationSocial ObservationDeaf EducationPersonal ExperienceEducation CritiqueRights AdvocacyTeaching MethodsSelf-Reflection

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Observations d'un sourd et muèt sur un cours élémentaire d'éducation des sourdsAuthor: Desloges, Pierre, 1747-,Language: French, Class: HV: Social sciences: Social pathology, Social and Public Welfare, Release Date: Apr 3, 2012

Editor's review

This French-language pamphlet by the eighteenth-century deaf educator Desloges is a rare first-hand document in the history of deaf education. Drawing on personal experience, the author responds to contemporary debates over teaching methods for the deaf, discussing both the differences between sign-language and oral approaches and judgments about deaf children's cognitive abilities. Its value lies not in systematic theory but in showing how one individual involved spoke up for the right of deaf people to education; the writing is direct and strongly argumentative. The old-fashioned expressions and educational scenes preserved in the book allow today's readers to sense directly the conceptual tensions in special education during the Enlightenment. It is suitable as supplementary reading for the history of deaf education, disability history, and French-language source studies, and for readers interested in self-writing by marginalized groups. Readers should place it back in the context of eighteenth-century French deaf-education debates, note the author's position and the limitations of the era, and not expect a complete textbook or methodology in the modern sense.

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Reading tips

  1. First learn the background of eighteenth-century French deaf-education debates, then enter the text to understand whom the author is addressing.
  2. Read the author's observations on teaching methods alongside contemporaneous writings by hearing educators, noting differences in position.
  3. Mark passages concerning the status of sign language and deaf children's abilities to help trace the author's core arguments.
  4. If French reading is difficult, use a reliable translation or scholarly introduction as an aid, but verify key terms.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8

FAQ

Is this book a systematic textbook on deaf education? No. It is a deaf author's observations and arguments concerning a particular elementary course in deaf education of the time. It is brief and focuses on stating a position and responding to controversy rather than providing a complete teaching system or manual.
Can I read this book without knowing French? The original is in French, and direct reading requires a foundation in the language. Without French, look for a reliable translation or excerpts and discussion in related scholarship, but note that retelling may lose the original's argumentative tone and detail.
What background knowledge is needed before reading? It is advisable to first understand the basic outlines of the eighteenth-century French debate over sign language versus oral methods in deaf education, as well as common contemporary prejudices about deaf people's cognitive abilities, to better understand why the author rebuts them from personal experience.

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About the author

Desloges, Pierre, 1747- Author · French · 1747

Pierre Desloges (born 1747) was a French deaf writer about whom little public information is available. Himself deaf and mute, he recorded his own experience in writing and in 1779 published Observations d'un sourd et muèt sur un cours élémentaire d'éducation des sourds (Observations of a Deaf and Mute Person on an Elementary Course in the Education of the Deaf). Though framed as observations on a course of elementary education for the deaf, the work is an early first-person account by a deaf author, describing in his own words the gulf between the hearing and the linguistic world. It stands between argument and autobiography, with a direct and concrete style. At a time when deaf education was still disputed, such a text written by a deaf person was rare, and it is therefore valued as an important primary source for the study of early deaf self-expression and educational ideas, offering a first-hand view of the situation of deaf people in that era.