Boarding schools

Attending a boarding school

For deaf children, going to school typically meant moving away from home. During the early stages of deaf education, the goal was for the children to live with local artisans. Because of communication problems and negative attitudes, dormitories were established for the pupils.

In addition to gaining new skills and knowledge, pupils could now create social connections at the school. Life-long relationships were forged at school, which resulted in marriages between deaf people and families where sign language was passed on from one generation to the next. Spending time together helped students strengthen and maintain their sign language skills.

For many deaf people, the school years were the best time of their lives as they could socialise with other deaf people. Most of the pupils had not had any contact with other deaf people before school and typically they did not even realise that other deaf children existed. At home, the children did not always have a shared language with other family members and the time before starting school was sometimes called ‘the seven difficult years’. While leaving home for school could give rise to a sense of rejection, it often also resulted in the positive experience of meeting peers and finding a way of communicating. At schools, the older pupils took younger children under their wing and helped them cope.

At the end of the 19th century, the use of sign language was prohibited at schools and in the 1910s and 1920s, particularly, using it was not permitted even during recess or in the dormitory. However, the children learned sign language quickly because they used it in secrecy during their time off. At schools, the children formed a sense of community that nurtured language and culture and strengthened over generations.