ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION Within living memory, some schools for the Deaf made pupils sit on their hands and in other ways tried to prevent them from using Sign Language. Except in their own clubs and a few very small communities, Deaf people are a minority, and minority languages have often been sidelined in education. Perhaps you would say that the majority must have precedence. But think how speakers of a minority language feel when informed that their language is not going to be taught in schools, or when – as in the history of Deaf education – it is actively discouraged. Another example is that children in the Alsace border area of France used to be punished for speaking Alsatian – their local Germanic language – anywhere on school premises, including the playground. As an introduction to this unit about language issues that impinge on education, it is worth seeing how the policy of discouraging sign languages in schools came about, and why the idea is nowadays rejected almost everywhere.
