Escutando sinais : a escola pela perspectiva de crianças surdas

Abstract

This study aimed to discuss the process of education of deaf children from three goals: to understand the school from the perspective of the deaf children's childhood and deafness, to discuss the school they have and what they would change or expand in their school context. We investigate how deaf children can contribute to issues related to deaf education, bilingualism, childhood and school inclusion processes, since they are themes that are predominantly discussed in academic works from the perspective of Laws, from the faculty and from the family of the deaf child. Therefore, much is said about children, but not necessarily about them. In this sense, we carried out a study of three cases with deaf children, aged between 6 and 7 years, that compose a classroom with a bilingual proposal in a municipal school in Recife. We developed drawing, collage and photography workshops with the purpose of getting to know their opinions about the school in a playful and visual language. From the data analysis, we realized that the children participating in the research bring a school perspective much more visualized by the lenses of childhood than deafness. They questioned the lack of a playground and digital gadgets at school and the love for playing. In addition, they greatly value the friendship between their peers. It is also noteworthy that what they most want from a school is its ability to provide means for them to express affectively and corporately the particularities of the childhood. This fact makes us reflect that the school education of deaf children tends to consider them only as a deaf student, without realizing the child who is subjectivised under that condition of deafness. Deaf children are first and foremost children. Thus, we believe that it is necessary to interweave the studies of deafness (bilingualism, representativity, etc.) and of childhood (the child in the present time, ludicity, movement, etc.) in more depth, aiming to think of an education process that contemplates the child by the nuances of deafness and childhood, concomitantly.