There are many ways to learn about yourself and the world around you. As the world becomes more convoluted, the urge to find the answers to life’s most pressing questions becomes a quest. Some people used to travel or a new routine to change their perspective and mindset. Meanwhile, others prefer the spiritual route on their journey to meaning.
Religion can be a vice for finding these complicated answers to life, especially for the deaf community. Living in a world that isn’t entirely accessible makes religion an enticing answer. Let’s learn how faith is enhancing learning and exploration for the deaf community.
Education for the Deaf Community
Education is a work in progress for the deaf community. It is also one of the many barriers that they face in life. In the 1800s, educating the deaf started with priests and clergymen in the church. However, this avenue for educating deaf people was an excuse to save them from their deafness. The teaching methods were entirely oral and essentially forced lip reading. Eventually, that idea was revised. Deaf schools were established, and public schools implemented special programs.
Nowadays, children attend special programs at public schools while others go to public school during the day, and deaf programs a supplementary things. Or, they can fully enroll in a school that specializes in education for deaf children. Numerous deaf universities also created opportunities for the deaf community in higher education.
Education is a powerful tool that leads to a brighter future. For the deaf community, access to a quality and specialized education program can help them lead productive lives that will contribute to the larger part of society. Most importantly, it helps them understand the world that they live in.
Faith in the Deaf Community
Faith is the belief in a spiritual being based on apprehension rather than seeing it in real life. It’s a vice that keeps a person going in the challenging world we all find ourselves in. Faith can be the ingredient to living a more fulfilling life and leading to a healthier well-being.
Deaf people can follow a religion for that reason. They are a minority community that faces a lot of isolation from society. Though they have built a strong and very unique community. Most communities rely on religion in a cultural sense. That is why it is important to continue increasing awareness. To deny accessibility deprives the deaf community of their freedom of religion.
Separation Between Religion and Education
Most countries have a separation between religious studies and formal education. People believe separating the two is better for the common good. It’s seen this way because of classes such as science and history, which usually aren’t mutually exclusive towards religion. For example, the idea of Evolution can be a myth to some religions. And the idea of it being in schools has been denied by people who tend to fall on the agnostic or atheist beliefs.
The counterargument to this is by Peter Van Der Veer of the Max Plank Institute, who suggests that religion should coincide with formal education in the Secular Age. But what is meant by the Secular Age? Well, it is the 21st century. It is a time when it’s normal to not practice organized religion, and people can believe what they want.
Religion Coincides with Culture
According to Van Der Veer, education is the foundation of understanding religion. It starts with the early years before sending the child to school to understand socialization. Through religious exposure, a child learns about their society.
Children attend school to learn about their country and other parts of the world through history classes. And religion is typically incorporated into the curriculum, especially for public schools in North America. Religion relates to culture in terms of the belief system becoming part of society and how a set of morals is established.
Education in conjunction with religion accelerates students learning to understand the symbols and ideas presented in ritual practices. Van Der Veer relates this to the process of language learning. The worshipper needs to know how to read the text to interpret the words and follow the rituals respectfully.
Another idea by St. Lawrence High School in Wisconsin is that teachers encouraging religion in the classroom develop critical thinking skills toward explaining how the world works. That can happen on a conscious level. For example, before a company can do a construction project, the engineer who received a faith-based education can make a moral judgment about building a structure. Will that structure benefit or hurt the community?
Students with a faith-based education will develop the ability to ask the why questions, not simply yes or no. The key to a faith-based education is helping the students know the difference between right and wrong.
Religious Education Can Broaden Worldview
Most people don’t even consider religion as a huge part of culture, but it is a powerful force in understanding a culture. It helps outsiders understand how a society works. Having religious education is a challenging subject to understand forms of extremism with associated events in recent years.
Most importantly, religious education can broaden the perspectives of the deaf community, which can be isolated from the majority. Learning about their own faith and others that exist also emphasizes tolerance. Deaf people can potentially grow a wider acceptance for people who live by a different moral code than they do.
Why Religious Education Should Be Accessible
Religious education should be as accessible as a secular school for deaf people. Education in any fashion is a right, not a privilege. For example, in Indonesia, Islam at every level of education is required by law. In Indonesia, they firmly believe that a deaf student can perform at the same cognitive level as a hearing student. It opens the door to a world of further knowledge.
Teaching these students Islam in school makes room for a deeper understanding of their culture. It also contributes to religious development, where students can learn to be pious people who contribute positively to society.
Faith education is a positive aspect for the deaf community. It plays a part in personal development and empathy for others. It provides a strong foundation for better understanding oneself as an individual and becoming a well-rounded person.
For more on how faith plays a role in the deaf community and access to other services, visit https://www.unspokenasl.com/
Thumbnail Photo Credit to: Photo by John-Mark Smith: https://www.pexels.com/photo/pink-pencil-on-open-bible-page-and-pink-272337/
