As a young deaf boy in Mexico, Ildefonso, watched other children go to school and gestured to his parents that he wanted to join them. They responded in mime that because he could not hear, he was too stupid to learn.
Ildefonso grew up without language – let alone the ability to read, do math or understand even the basics of handling money.
Having no language and no schooling, Ildefonso became part of an underground movement of deaf workers from Mexico who provide hard physical labor for minimal pay. Living together in a shed, never having been taught sign language, they mimed to communicate.
Brought to America to work, Ildefonso’s uncle took him to a reading class for deaf students, hoping his nephew would learn enough to improve his job options.
There Ildefonso met sign language interpreter Susan Schaller on the first day of a class called “The Reading Skills.” Schaller recorded their experience in her book, “A Man Without Words.”
Before he could learn to read, Ildefonso had to learn to sign. Before he could sign, he had to grasp the concept of language. To that end Schaller presented him with pictures of cats, the sign for cat and the written word cat. She drew invisible whiskers out from her face innumerable times for many days to convey the concept that one sign always meant the same thing as any picture of a cat and that the sign could be reduced to written symbols on a page.
After days of her acting out and signing cat, Ildefonso suddenly he understood. “He now knew that he and a cat and the table all had names … He could see the prison where he had existed alone, shut out of the human race for 27 years.”
His ability to communicate exploded as he absorbed sign language. With language his quest for understanding took off like a rocket. Ildefonso may not have had a language for his first 27 years, but he had seen the hatred between races. He observed people going to church. He wanted to know about the religious icons, pictures and symbols. He knew they meant something very special, but he did not know ‘what’ they meant.
He wanted to know everything, including why those with plenty snubbed and shoved around others as if they deserved to be given everything and others had to give it all to them. He wanted to know why people were like that and why they snubbed him for having a darker skin.
Schaller had to teach not just sign language and reading, but geography, history and social studies all at once to an adult who wanted to understand everything – right now. He finally had the tools to formulate questions and pursue answers.
For Ildefonso “thousands of experiences and sensations had etched impressions and stimulated thinking. But his mind was empty of all information that needs language as its conduit. … It didn’t matter how smart he was. No one can learn history in isolation unless he is able to live in all times and places,” Schaller wrote.
Later, Schaller worked with another group of deaf students and was astounded at their lack of interest in learning. She talked it over with the teacher.
“I told her how impatient Ildefonso had been to find out about everything and asked her why these students had been so passive. Her response was immediate: “Experience.” Those who had been protected and raised in sheltered environments had no questions. Those who had faced the frustrations and problems of life, as Ildefonso had, asked questions. … His independence and inquisitiveness stood out conspicuously in her otherwise passive group,” she wrote.
Her observation is something to consider in our constant quest to protect our children and insure them the best of everything – to clear the path of life for them at every turn. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Ildefonso’s parents wasted his first 27 years by denying him an education and a language. Yet at the same time, we waste young minds with hand-outs rather than hand-ups.
It is difficult to watch a child struggle with a problem we know we could solve instantly. It is anguishing to stand back when a crisis hits. But, it is worth the wait when their frustrations spur personal growth and necessitate improving their skills. No expensive hand-out ever replaces the joy of watching self-esteem bloom and personal power grow once they realize they can resolve their own crisis.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at joanh@everybody.org)