Pedagogical practice in deaf education

the intertwining of different approaches in the educational context

Abstract

This article seeks to build the history of Deaf Education in Brazil, based on the analysis of teaching approaches: Oralism, Total Communication and Bilingualism, based on discussions of pedagogical practices implemented in schools at different historical moments. The motto of this discussion and analysis are the pedagogical guidelines, and in particular the activities developed in the classroom. When thinking about Deaf Education and the implication of the approaches in the different periods one cannot construct a linear and sequential continuum, but there must be an existence diluted and diffused in different degrees in different historical periods. The didactic division of the three great approaches cannot compromise the understanding of this object, making it simplistic. The impacts of the different approaches for Deaf Education can be verified in the students’ schooling process. The fact that practices characterized by an approach that would theoretically belong to the nineteenth century are present in an effective way in the classroom and in pedagogical practices, in the teacher-student relationship and in our contemporary social representations of the deaf student in the school environment.