Unsound: The Legacy of Alexander Graham Bell
If you’re a hearing person you probably know Alexander Graham Bell as the inventor of the telephone. But for many Deaf people he is known for his oppressive oralist approach to education. His life's true passion, and the project he focused on his entire life and funded with his earnings from the telephone, was the 'education' of deaf people. He was part of a movement called oralism and believed all deaf people should learn to lipread and speak rather than use sign language.
But not all deaf people can learn to speak. Or believe they should. And the harm of oralism still reverberates today.
My documentary Unsound: The legacy of Alexander Graham Bell aired on CBC Ideas. And we also provided a full ASL version which you can watch below.