A REPORT ABOUT THE EDUCATION OF DEAF STUDENTS IN THE CITY OF CHAPECÓ (SC)

ABSTRACT

This article aims to highlight the education of the deaf in the city of Chapecó (SC), explaining the structural theoretical foundations and the processes of teacher education for this specificity in the period 1996 to 2016. The question that guided the investigation is: How was the education for the deaf developed from 1996 to 2016 in the municipal education network of Chapecó and what are the structuring theoretical foundations in teacher training processes? The research is characterized as qualitative in a post-structuralist perspective. Three municipal education secretaries participated in the study, who exercised the function for the longest time in each municipal administration during the researched period. In addition to documentary research, semi-structured interviews were conducted, recorded, transcribed and organized into thematic groups. The empirical materialities were examined through discourse analysis with Foucaultian references. The study shows that truths about deaf education are established at each time and that theoretical-methodological approaches, adopted in broader historical and geographical contexts, are also manifested in the investigated region.

Keywords:
Special education; deaf education; inclusive education

RESUMO

Este artigo objetiva evidenciar a educação de surdos no município de Chapecó (SC), explicitando os fundamentos teóricos estruturantes e os processos de formação docente para esta especificidade no período de 1996 a 2016. A pergunta que orientou a investigação assim se constitui: Como a educação de surdos foi desenvolvida de 1996 a 2016 na rede municipal de educação de Chapecó e quais os fundamentos teóricos estruturantes nos processos de formação docente? A pesquisa se caracteriza como qualitativa numa perspectiva pós-estruturalista. Participaram do estudo três secretários municipais de educação que exerceram a função por maior tempo em cada gestão municipal do período pesquisado. Além de pesquisa documental, foram realizadas entrevistas semiestruturadas, gravadas, transcritas e organizadas em agrupamentos temáticos. As materialidades empíricas foram examinadas por meio da análise do discurso com referenciais foucaultianos. O estudo evidencia que em cada tempo são instituídas verdades acerca da educação de surdos e que abordagens teórico-metodológicas, adotadas em contextos históricos e geográficos mais amplos, se manifestam também na região investigada.

Palavras-chave:
Educação especial; educação de surdos; educação inclusiva

RESUMEN

En este artículo se tiene como objetivo evidenciar la educación de sordos en el municipio de Chapecó (SC), explicitando los fundamentos teóricos estructurantes y los procesos de formación docente para esta especificidad en el período de 1996 a 2016. La pregunta que orientó la investigación fue: ¿Cómo la educación de sordos fue desarrollada de 1996 a 2016 en la red municipal de educación de Chapecó y cuáles son los fundamentos teóricos estructurantes en los procesos de formación docente? La investigación se caracteriza como cualitativa en una perspectiva posestructuralista. Participaron del estudio tres secretarios municipales de educación que ejercieron la función por más tiempo en cada gestión municipal del período investigado. Además de investigación documental, se realizaron entrevistas semiestructuradas, gravadas, transcriptas y organizadas en grupos temáticos. Las materialidades empíricas se examinaron por intermedio del análisis del discurso con referenciales foucaultianos. El estudio evidencia que en cada tiempo son instituidas verdades acerca de la educación de sordos y que abordajes teórico-metodológicas, adoptadas en contextos históricos y geográficos más amplios, se manifiestan también en la región investigada.

Palabras clave:
Educación especial; educación para sordos; educación inclusiva

INTRODUCTION

This article aims to highlight the education of the deaf in the city of Chapecó (SC) and the structural theoretical foundations for the processes of teacher training for working with the specified audience, in the period 1996 to 2016. This text is an excerpt from a project of broader research, developed by professors linked to a Graduate Program in Education at a university located in the west of Santa Catarina. The general objective of the investigation, in its breadth, was to identify and understand the political and epistemological challenges present in the continuing education process of Basic Education teachers, implemented by the Municipal Education Network of Chapecó (SC), from 1996 (year of approval of the Law of Guidelines and Bases for National Education - LDB) to 2016 (the year the research project was approved) as to its training guidelines and its epistemic-pedagogical dimensions.

In the education/schooling of deaf people in different world contexts, three theoretical and methodological approaches were predominant: the oralism, the total communication and the bilingualism. At each time, some truths about deaf education were predominant. According to Lopes, deaf education occupied the attention of experts from different areas of knowledge, especially supported by clinical discourses. Most of these discourses produced classifications and knowledge that influenced society to conceive the deaf as subjects to be “[...] ‘treated’, ‘corrected’ and ‘normalized’ through therapies, orofacial training, prosthetization, cochlear implants and others advanced technologies that seek, through the cyborgization of the body, the condition of normality.” (Lopes, 2011, p. 9).

The study showed that it was in the clinical setting that, from the 1970s to the 1980s, deaf education began in the studied municipality. During this period, the concern was with the oralization of the deaf, and equipment such as mirrors, microphones, wind and suction instruments were part of the resources used by teachers, in partnership with speech therapists, who worked in the same space. Later, the municipality offered rooms for the deaf in a school for deaf and hearing people. In recent years, these classrooms have been closed and municipal education for the deaf takes place in common classes, in accordance with school inclusion policies. In the period of time cut out for the investigation, bilingual education predominated, a proposal that was consolidated and assumed different configurations. Sperb and Thoma understand bilingual education “[...] as the proposal that aims to guarantee deaf people access to sign language as L1 (first language) and PL as L2, respecting the condition of linguistic and cultural difference of Deaf Subjects” (2012, p. 55).

In this study, based on post-structuralist methodological references, there is no intention of judging the way deaf people in Chapecó were educated or formulating the truth about the ideal school for this audience, but rather to encourage reflection on the curriculum and of deaf schooling based on different theoretical-methodological conceptions.

METHODOLOGICAL PROCEDURES

The development of a research project presupposes the definition of a science conception and methodological paths. I agree with Costa (2006, p. 72), when he states that theoretical tools “[...] are like glasses, lenses that allow us to see some things and not others. Our analytical perspectives not only help us to understand a problem, they help us to compose the problem.”

After the project was approved by the Research Ethics Committee, the first contact was with the municipal education department of Chapecó. The meeting consisted of presenting the project and seeking information about the professionals who worked as education secretaries in the defined period. We also obtained authorization from the education department to collect information from documentary sources relating to records of programs, projects and continuing education actions promoted for teachers working in basic education.

We interviewed the education secretaries who remained in office for the longest time in each administration. Three secretaries constitute our research sample. A script of topics guided the researchers during the dialogue with the interlocutors. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, organized into thematic groups and later examined based on discourse analysis with Foucaultian references. According to Foucault (2006, p. 254), “[...] it is necessary to consider the discourse as a series of events, as political events, through which power is linked and guided”. Discourses are conditioned by practices, they constitute the reality. For the author, it is necessary: ​​“[...] to no longer treat discourses as a set of signs (significant elements that refer to content or representations), but as practices that systematically form the objects they speak about.” (Foucault, 2013, pp. 54-55).

Thus, discourse is taken as a “set of statements (which can be utterable) that are supported by the same discursive formation” (Foucault, 2013, p. 131). The utterance is “a function that crosses a domain of possible structures and units and makes [these] appear, with concrete content, in time and space” (Foucault, 2013, p. 143).

Discourse analysis was applied both to the empirical material from the interviews and to the documental¹ sources analyzed. In addition to documents indicated by the interviewees, others were added, which are in the public domain, so that they could support the understanding of the practices of the two decades investigated.

Although the interviews contemplated broader aspects in relation to the continuing education process of Basic Education teachers, the dialogue was conducted by questioning about the education of the deaf in the city and teacher education to work with this public. Likewise, the other researchers involved with the project questioned aspects related to their objects of investigation, so that the material provided us with different elements for analysis.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Teacher training and practices in deaf education derived from different theoretical-methodological conceptions

The study showed that, in each historical period, different theoretical-methodological conceptions guided the teaching practices in deaf education. In the early 1980s, orofacial exercises, blowing and sucking (blowing small pieces of paper with a straw of soda, causing their movement, spreading or sucking them), movement of the tongue (removal of food from the palate, such as gelatin powder or powdered milk); repetition of sounds looking at the professionals’ lips and at the mirror; repetition of names of figures, among other activities, constituted the educational curriculum for the deaf. Oralism prevailed as the predominant philosophy in the period from 1880 to 1960, “[...] making the entire schooling of the Deaf, as well as access to knowledge (informal or scientific) dependent on the possibility of oralization, which, in in most cases, it did not happen (Fernandes, 2012, p. 39). However, in the Chapecó region this methodology persisted until the mid-1980s.

Later, the proposal of Total Communication for deaf students, which included simultaneous oralization and signaling, gained evidence. Goldfeld (2001, p. 38) emphasizes that this philosophy “is also concerned with the learning of oral language by deaf children, but believes that the cognitive, emotional and social aspects should not be left aside, in favor of exclusive language learning oral”.

According to Goldfeld, total communication showed greater efficiency, compared to oralism, “[...] since it takes into account important aspects of child development and emphasizes the fundamental role of hearing parents in the education of their deaf children” (Goldfeld, 2001, p. 42). The signs adopted in total communication represent gestures, but do not characterize a language, according to Goldfeld. In this sense, both oralism and total communication were not considered successful prospects.

Fernandes (2012, p. 35) expresses that, although sign language was prohibited for long decades, “it survived in the classroom until 1957, continuing to be used, secretly, by students, in the bathrooms, patios and school corridors, far from the watchful eye of the careful masters”, in a movement of deaf resistance, which fostered the consolidation of bilingualism, whose objective is “to lead the deaf child to acquire proficiency in LIBRAS and Portuguese” (Capovilla, Raphael, & Mauricio, 2012, p 73).

Libras, recognized in Brazil by Law 10,436, of April 24, 2002, is defined in its Article 1, sole paragraph, as “[...] the form of communication and expression, in which the linguistic system of a visual nature-motor, with its own grammatical structure, constitutes a linguistic system for transmitting ideas and facts, coming from communities of deaf people in Brazil”.

Decree no. 5626/2005, in its Article 2, defines that “a deaf person is considered to be a person who, due to a hearing loss, understands and interacts with the world through visual experiences, expressing their culture mainly through the use of Brazilian Sign Language - Pounds”.

The municipality of Chapecó, at the time, was innovative in the recognition of the Sign Language - Libras, through Complementary Law No. 108 of October 23, 2000, which “recognizes the Brazilian Sign Language as an objective means of communication in current use. - Libras and provides for its implementation in the municipal education system for the deaf and makes other arrangements”.

Studies that show the period prior to 1996 (Luchese, 2016), indicate that the training of active teachers with deaf students in Chapecó, at each time, followed national trends. The provision of education for the deaf in the municipality locus of the research took place, until the end of the 1990s, in state schools and the Fundação Catarinense de Educação Especial (FCEE)², linked to the State Department of Education, was decisive in the professional training of teachers acting with the deaf. Studies carried out at the Instituto Nacional de Educação de Surdos(INES)³, in Rio de Janeiro, they were also of great relevance for the training of teachers for the deaf in Chapecó.

From 2000 to 2010, Chapecó experienced the transition from total communication to bilingualism. Bilingual education rooms were created at the São Cristóvão Municipal Basic School, in which deaf and hearing students and teachers lived.

From 2005, the municipality of Chapecó started to assume, following the national trend, the inclusion of deaf people in regular classes as an educational proposal, as provided for in the National Policy for Special Education in the Perspective of Inclusive Education (MEC, 2008).

In the last years of the period investigated, the municipality of Chapecó takes on Inclusive Education, contemplating the proposal of Atendimento Educacional Especializado (AEE)⁴, provided for in Resolution No. 4, of October 2, 2009, which institutes Operational Guidelines for Specialized Educational Service in Basic Education, Special Education modality.

According to the Basic Education Political Pedagogical Project of the Chapecó Municipal Education Network (Chapecó Education Department, 2013)⁵, in 2006, the Centro de Referência em Educação Especial (CREESP)⁶ was implemented, composed of professionals in the clinical area: Neuropediatrics, Speech Therapy, Psychology, Psychopedagogy. The document also records the progressive installation of the Multifunctional Resource Rooms and the intensification of the offer of Libras courses for teachers.

The Political Pedagogical Project of Basic Education of the Municipal Teaching Network of Chapecó emphasizes that, in 2010, the SASE project (Serviço de Atenção à Saúde Escolar)⁷ was created, in partnership with the Health Department, with the objective of “serving students referred by the Special Education sector of the municipality who need evaluation and specialized care, which will be done by a team formed by: Psychologists, Speech-Language Pathologists, Psychopedagogists and Doctor”. (Chapecó Education Department, 2013, p. 63).

COMED Resolution No. 001, of November 30, 2011, sets standards for Special Education in the Municipal Teaching System of Chapecó and, in Chapter II, deals with resources and services, with regard to the education of the deaf.

The discourse of educational leaders

To deepen the notions of discourse and discourse analysis in Foucault’s perspective, it is important to emphasize the author’s definition, in the understanding that analyzing the materiality collected in interviews with educational managers does not presuppose unveiling hidden issues in their statements. Fischer (2001), supported by Foucault, emphasizes that in order to analyze discourses, we need to refuse easy interpretations, the insistent search for the ultimate or hidden meaning. She states that, for Foucault, “[...] there are statements and relationships, which the discourse itself puts into operation. Analyzing the discourse would be to account for exactly this: historical relations, very concrete practices, which are ‘alive’ in the discourses”. (Fischer, 2001, pp. 198-199).

As mentioned in the text, three professionals who occupied the position of education secretaries, in the time frame of the research, were interviewed. With regard to deaf education, we asked about the provision of deaf education and teacher training. The narratives show the predominant theoretical-methodological conceptions in each period.

Interviewee A reports his concerns about special education and, in this context, the education of the deaf. He highlights the creation of a school for the deaf as an important undertaking in that administration, with seven exclusive classes inserted in a Basic Education school in the regular network.

Special education, I think, is still unresolved today. [...] How did we get to the deaf school? We listened to the deaf community. It was APADAC⁸and there was an association for the deaf, I think there were two entities. [...] There were two entities of the deaf population. And they came with the very high demand to regulate sign language. [...] So, the right to Libras, that’s what they brought, and the right to education. And both associations defended the issue of the deaf, including this concept that the first language is the sign language, that Portuguese is the second. They defended the right to bilingual education for the deaf. So, that’s when we created it. [...] in the debate with entities and the deaf community, we came to the conclusion that the path was to build exclusive deaf education. [...] We made the assessment that it could be interesting to build together with another school of listeners. [...] Having the physical space, we built it there in São Cristóvão. So we had the deaf education classes in the same place, but the cafeteria, the gymnasium, the common spaces of the school, for recess and such, were common. Then there were deaf people and there were listeners and bilingual teachers to work with the children and call the entire deaf community. They even formed several groups of adults. [...] adult people who had gone to school for 10, 15 years [...] and who were not literate. [...] I think that few also knew their own sign language.

Interviewee A reiterates his conviction that deaf people need access to schools or classes exclusively for the deaf, at least in kindergarten and elementary school. He highlights the way in which the proposal was built, with the participation of the deaf community, of teachers who worked in the education of deaf people, university professors and researchers, and not as a municipal imposition.

With regard to teacher education in the period, he states that, from the very construction of the proposal for deaf education, they sought the knowledge that deaf entities had, as well as that of university professors. There was the involvement of teachers from the network who studied this area, and seminars, readings and courses were offered. After the classes were organized and started to function, the experience generated new demands, including the creation of study groups and continuing education, valuing practical experiences.

Next, Interviewee B explains actions taken during his term:

I think we’ve advanced in special education. Mainly in deaf education. We’ve come a long way. We created a school. We create the legislation. Yeah, sign language is mandatory. [...] Special education is very broad, very complex. I think that what we left to be most lacking was inclusion in the school in the regular network. This difficulty we had. It’s not that there was the difficulty, it’s that we prioritized as much as possible. But, we have advanced a lot in the relationship with the deaf, so much so that many students have graduated. We started to bring the (sic) Libras debate into the regular network. [...] But, I would say that in special education we still did little in the face of the great challenge we had.

Regarding teacher education, the respondent states that they implemented the Libras debate in the regular network, knowledge that was still marginalized. He states that teachers for the deaf participated in general teacher training, but continued to be part of the study strategy highlighted by the previous interviewee, and also in the role of trainers for teachers in the network who did not work with deaf people.

Interviewee C highlights the inclusion policy, an option that has gained strength in the country and is also incorporated in the context of the research. It states:

Inclusion. Inclusion. Inclusion. But, that’s when we started to understand, that it’s no use. So we started writing the Libras course that Chapecó didn’t have. We had three, four professionals teaching classes, six, seven years ago. And then we started to create the Libras course within the Department of Education. They took the course at night, we did it at the secretariat. [...] Today, we have a CEIM⁹that has a teacher who teaches Libras to children. It’s a wonder that. See the little ones. So, now we have Libras teachers in all of them and I think this issue has evolved a lot.

Interviewee C also highlights the creation and functioning of the School Health Care Service (SASE).

[...] We started to realize that inclusion didn’t really happen at school. Inclusion was inclusion on paper, I always say, inclusion in quotes. So, in schools, we didn’t have a resource room, for example. Today, it is available in all schools, in all early childhood education centers. [...] We have qualified teachers. There must be more than 700 children, I don’t know the number, but (sic) children with disabilities who are assisted in the shift and after school time, precisely with trained, qualified people. I think that there was also an opening for our professionals to train and understand reality. And these kids being really well taken care of. What did we have at the beginning? We had a head teacher and it was usually an intern who attended to the child together. [...] Why did we create SASE? Because we needed a space where this child could be cared for individually outside of school, with health professionals. Why? Because when we referred the children to health care, we realized that there wasn’t even the kind of care they should have there, specific to their conditions. [...] So, when we created SASE and the father, the biggest problem for people, those people who have special needs, disabilities, parents sometimes deny the child. They also have problems. [...] So, I always say: a disabled person, we don’t have 700 students with SASE problems, we have four times that. [...]. They don’t admit it and don’t want to be helped too often and so on. So sometimes you have to treat the mother too, or the father. And, sometimes, they don’t take medicine, they don’t give medicine to the child.

Debates and doubts about the best place for deaf education still remain: in special schools/classes or included in regular classes? Some authors, such as Thoma (2006, p. 22), point out weaknesses in the experiences of inclusion of deaf students in regular classes, mostly hearing, “associated with a wide range of issues that were not properly planned and planned by schools, by the teachers and by the management”. The author warns that the inclusion has not produced the desired results. “Perhaps the complex set of relationships, discourses and representations about those to be included that constitute the educational proposals and that constitute us in the relationship with strangers and abnormals has not been recognized.” (Thoma, 2006, p. 22).

Tensing inclusion does not mean defending times when segregation was naturalized, but highlighting the complexity of the process. “Tensioning inclusion is reflecting on processes that subject and govern us, that make us assume as presupposed truths that caused us, or will cause us to feel strange for some time.” (Pieczkowski, 2014, p. 189).

Different studies show the importance of coexistence among deaf people for learning sign language, since the most part of the deaf people are born into hearing families. The fact that deaf people live together does not necessarily mean homogenization, since each deaf person is unique, different. This can be an argument to claim that a deaf class or school does not necessarily represent a segregated space, since diversity is present in this context.

Deaf people have different manifestations about the desired space for schooling: special schools, exclusive classes for the deaf in regular schools, or common classes, in which deaf and hearing people live together. For Lopes and Veiga-Neto (2006, p. 93), “School and deaf community seem to be concepts and spaces that are confused in the deaf imagination. There are many deaf testimonies that, when speaking of their preference for the school for the deaf, enunciate the possibility of encounter and political movement [...]”. In the words of the authors “Although the school for the deaf continues to be one of the places where the deaf approach takes place without generating great social and family resistance, it continues to have a different task than that which we could attribute to an organized deaf association” (p. 97). Lopes and Veiga-Neto (2006) highlight the research with testimonies of deaf adolescents who declare that the school for the deaf is better for deaf interaction and coexistence, but that it is deficient as a teaching and learning space.

Cerejo (2017), in his Master’s thesis in Education, entitled “Queixas escolares: um estudo sobre o encaminhamento de crianças ao Serviço de Atenção à Saúde do Escolar (SASE)”¹⁰, having as locus of study the municipality of Chapecó, states that, when analyzing the process of operation of the service, noticed the weakness of dialogue between the professionals of the school and SASE, both in the elaboration of the diagnosis and in the care process. He points out that “[...] both institutions seem to share the understanding that the problem occurs in the individual student, and he is the bearer of a mismatch that needs to be treated”. (Cerejo, 2017, p. 84). The author concludes his study by pointing out that “[...] in the current situation, the care model that is effective in SASE reproduces the traditional pattern of clinical care for the child, understood as a being in maladjustment and that needs to be adapted.” (Cerejo, 2017, p. 85).

Regarding deaf education, the listening culture has historically predominated within the clinical model and demonstrates the tactics of repairing and correcting deafness, considered a defect and subject to normalization. Wrigley alerts to the auditory logic, that deaf people are people with defective ears. “Blacks are white people who have dark skin. If we could fix the skin, they would be white. Women are men with the wrong genitalia...; and so on.” (Wrigley, 1996, cited by Ströbel, 2007, p. 24).

In order to understand discourses and how the effects of truth are produced, I relied on Foucault, in his understanding that discourses in themselves are neither true nor false. Foucault seeks to work the truth over time and this gives originality to his work. In this sense, Lockmann (2013, p. 60) states that, for each era and each society,

[...] specific traits of particular rationality can be identified, guided by certain principles considered true in that period. This rationality is not only produced by these true principles, but it also produces and manifests itself through specific regimes of truth that will, at the same time, guide the subjects’ behavior and update themselves through these conduction practices. It is, then, an always immanent relationship, from which rationality is, at the same time, a product and producer of regimes of truth.

In this sense, Revel (2005), supported by Foucault, highlights those truths are produced throughout history and are connected to power relations, they are regimes of truth established by a certain society and time. Machado (2011, p. XI) shows that for Foucault, every theory is temporary “[...] accidental, dependent on a state of research development, which accepts its limits, its unfinished, its partiality, formulating the concepts that clarify the data [...]”. That is, truths are produced according to

[...] the types of discourse they welcome and make work as true; the mechanisms and instances that make it possible to distinguish true or false statements, the way in which one and the other are sanctioned; the techniques and procedures that are valued for obtaining the truth; the status of those who have the power to say what works as true (Revel, 2005, p. 86).

Thus, power structures and different theoretical contributions define different conceptions of deafness, professional training to work with deaf students and different schooling proposals for this public. The investigated context went through oralization, total communication and, more recently, includes bilingual education. It also went through the segregation and inclusion of deaf students in the classes of regular schools, a proposal adopted today. However, Decree No. 10.502 of September 30, 2020, which institutes the National Policy on Special Education: Equitable, Inclusive and with Lifelong Learning, indicates, in Article 2, items VIII and IX, for the possibility of bilingual schools for the deaf and bilingual classes for the deaf. The Decree has generated many reactions and criticisms from institutions, families, people with disabilities, researchers and professionals. Due to the recent publication and its uncertain developments, the content of the Decree will not be further elaborated in this article.

It is noteworthy that each theoretical and methodological perspective about the education of deaf people reveals its complexity. To stress inclusion does not mean to refute, deny or be against, but to reflect on this option as something natural, unquestionable, self-justified and understand it as a contemporary imperative, established in the complexity of a neoliberal society.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

The study showed that Chapecó Municipal Education Policy for the Deaf, in the period investigated, it had already prioritized the schooling of deaf people in special classes, inserted in a regular school, in which deaf and hearing people lived, interacted, and learned the Brazilian Sign Language (Libras), school content taught by bilingual teachers, in addition to collectively experiencing the deaf culture. It is also evident, in the statements, the investment in understanding and accepting the demands of the deaf community.

In the last years of the period investigated, gradually, the education of the deaf started to happen in regular schools, extinguishing the exclusive classes of deaf people, accepting the National Policy for Special Education. The movement is towards the availability of interpreters and instructors of Libras and bilingual teachers in common classes and in Specialized Educational Service (AEE) in Multifunctional Resource Rooms, which also starts to be consolidated. Hearing and deaf people access Libras with increasing intensity. The municipality also invests in the School Health Care Service (SASE), as a school support for special education and inclusion policies.

In the interviewees’ narratives, distinct representations operating in the statements are identified: pedagogical, clinical-pathological, psychological discourses, among others. Pedagogical discourses indicate curricular adaptations, offer of services and professionals, as well as changes in school strategies. The clinic-pathological discourses seek to identify the student’s diagnosis and their absence in relation to those considered “normal”, as if it were necessary to trigger pedagogical movements of normalization and correction. In turn, psychological discourses generalize and justify attitudes or behaviors of individuals with disabilities, as well as their families. Sometimes such speeches get mixed up, they get mixed up.

The study encourages new investigations, such as understanding the trajectory of deaf students who attended classes exclusively for the deaf in regular schools. Does the deaf access Libras and live with other deaf people in childhood represent a differential for learning and development? This would be a longitudinal study, anchored in the clarity that there are many factors that influence the learning and development of any student, therefore, it is difficult to conclude. However, many studies point to the importance of children having contact with deaf culture and Sign Language as early as possible, considering that the most part of the deaf people are born in hearing families and, therefore, live as foreigners in their own country, in the family itself and in other social spaces.

I agree with Veiga-Neto and Lopes, when they warn that it is necessary to be prudent when faced with inclusive practices, not rashly assuming value judgments about them and that the way inclusion policies have been formulated and implemented in Brazil “[...] they seem to ignore the difference itself. Thus, instead of promoting education for all, they run the risk of excluding differences” (Veiga-Neto & Lopes, 2007, p. 947).

I am convinced of the gains made possible by the presence of children with different forms of disability/difference in regular education networks, as the separation, segregation, limited the life and learning of those who had been denied the right of access, learning, social interaction at school, a place of diversity, par excellence. However, I question whether the schooling of deaf people in exclusive classrooms, in the first years of education/schooling, which favors the appropriation of sign language, would not be a form of inclusion. I recognize immense advances in the appropriation and recognition of sign language and in the successful experiences of inclusion. In other words, there is no truth about the education of deaf people, but different ways to build this path, based, especially, on the recognition of difference, on the right to be different and to be understood in their own claims.

Finally, I consider it necessary to have prudence in clinical views and practices, so that there is no setback in the concept of deafness, the deaf subject or subjects who have disabilities.

Foucault, in his writings, teaches us to denaturalize what is in place, what we think and do, and to create new alternatives for action. Thus, it helps us to understand the complexity of the inclusion process and to stress the school that classifies, imposes rules and seeks to normalize all the difference.

REFERÊNCIAS

• Lei n. 10.436, de 24 de abril de 2002 Dispõe sobre a Língua Brasileira de Sinais - Libras e dá outras providências. Diário Oficial [da] República Federativa do Brasil, Brasília, DF.
• Decreto n. 5.626, de 22 de dezembro de 2005 Regulamenta a Lei no 10.436, de 24 de abril de 2002, que dispõe sobre a Língua Brasileira de Sinais - LIBRAS, e o art. 18 da Lei no 10.098, de 19 de dezembro de 2000. Diário Oficial [da] República Federativa do Brasil, Brasília, DF .
• Ministério da Educação [MEC] (2008). Política Nacional de Educação Especial na Perspectiva da Educação Inclusiva MEC: Secretaria de Educação Especial.
• Decreto nº 10.502, de 30 de setembro de 2020 Institui a Política Nacional de Educação Especial: Equitativa, Inclusiva e com Aprendizado ao Longo da Vida. Diário Oficial[da] República Federativa do Brasil, Brasília, DF .
• Capovilla, F. C.; Raphael, W. D.; Mauricio, A. C. L. (2012). Novo Deit-Libras: dicionário enciclopédico ilustrado trilíngue: língua brasileira de sinais São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo.
• Cerejo, J. (2017). Queixas escolares: um estudo sobre o encaminhamento de crianças ao Serviço de Atenção à Saúde do Escolar (SASE) (Dissertação de Mestrado). Universidade Comunitária da Região de Chapecó - Unochapecó, Chapecó (SC). Recuperado de: http://konrad.unochapeco.edu.br:8080/pergamumweb/vinculos/0000f6/0000f68d.pdf
  » http://konrad.unochapeco.edu.br:8080/pergamumweb/vinculos/0000f6/0000f68d.pdf
• Lei Complementar nº 108, de 23 de outubro de 2000 Reconhece como meio de comunicação objetiva e de uso corrente a Língua Brasileira de Sinais - Libras e dispõe sobre sua implantação na rede municipal de ensino para surdos e dá outras providências. Câmara Municipal do Chapecó, Chapecó, SC.
• Resolução COMED nº 001 de 30 de novembro de 2011 Fixa normas para a Educação Especial do Sistema Municipal de Ensino de Chapecó. Conselho Municipal de Educação - COMED, Chapecó, SC.
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• 1
  Complementary Law No. 108 (2000); COMED Resolution No. 001 (2011); Chapecó Education Department (2013).
• 2
  Santa Catarina Foundation for Special Education.
• 3
  National Institute of Education for the Deaf.
• 4
  Specialized Educational Service.
• 5
  The Pedagogical Political Project of Basic Education of the Municipal Education Network of Chapecó has a new version, updated in 2018, which was not analyzed for this text, as it does not include the period of the study developed.
• 6
  Special Education Reference Center.
• 7
  School Health Care Service.
• 8
  Making reference to the Association of Parents and Friends of the Hearing Impaired of Chapecó.
• 9
  Referencing an Early Childhood Education Center
• 10
  “School complaints: a study on the referral of children to the School Health Care Service (SASE)”.

• The research was financed by public funding FAPESC /2015 - support for research groups of ACAFE institutions (Catarinense Association of Educational Foundations).
• This paper was translated from Portuguese by Ana Maria Pereira Dionísio.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  12 Nov 2021
• Date of issue
  2021

History

• Received
  01 June 2019
• Accepted
  10 Oct 2020