Miss-Delectable
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Belleville Intelligencer - Ontario, CA
Some of them could not hear. Others could not speak. And as they wrestled through academic expectations and personal challenges at a local residential school, they knew they could always count on the reassuring presence of one man.
The man they respected and trusted was Samuel Thomas Greene. He was a teacher from, 1870-90 at Sir James Whitney School for the Deaf, at the time known as the Ontario Institution for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb. Greene, too, was hearing impaired.
In 1870, the 25-year-old Greene became the first hearing-impaired teacher at a recognized educational institution in Ontario.
Born in Portland, Me., in 1845, Greene was educated at the American School for the Deaf at Hartford, Conn.
As a youngster, Greene was influenced to become a teacher by two of his own teachers, Laurent Clerc and Edward Miner Gallaudet, founder of what has now become Gallaudet University in Washington, D. C.
When Greene first arrived at the then brand new school, he became one of the four-member teaching staff. The number of students registered the first day numbered only three.
Notably, the mandate of Belleville schools during the 1870s and 1880s, according to Charles J. Howe, author of "The Deaf-Mutes of Canada: A History of Their Education" was to "impart a general education as well as instruction in some professional or manual art to all deaf-mutes of both sexes between the ages of 7 and 20 residing in the Province of Ontario." Education was to be provided free of charge to all if the students were "sound in mind and body."
Thirteen years after he began teaching at the school, Greene wrote an enlightening essay titled "The Proper Mode of Teaching New Pupils" outlining methods he used to successfully educate the very new, and in some cases, frightened students expected to fulfil an exhausting list of academic goals under unfamiliar surroundings.
"When I undertake the charge of a perfectly untaught class, I do not at once begin to teach them anything. I devote two or three days, or perhaps the first week, to studying them. I try to teach them myself, who I am, that I am their friend, not their teacher merely, that I do love them good in every way, that their advancement is my pleasure, and that their sorrows grieve me. In this way, I encourage their confidence and try to win their affection," wrote Greene.
His strategy was to be patient, kind and firm with his students.
"My experience has convinced me that to force or cram a deafmute pupil does him a positive injury."
Some of them could not hear. Others could not speak. And as they wrestled through academic expectations and personal challenges at a local residential school, they knew they could always count on the reassuring presence of one man.
The man they respected and trusted was Samuel Thomas Greene. He was a teacher from, 1870-90 at Sir James Whitney School for the Deaf, at the time known as the Ontario Institution for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb. Greene, too, was hearing impaired.
In 1870, the 25-year-old Greene became the first hearing-impaired teacher at a recognized educational institution in Ontario.
Born in Portland, Me., in 1845, Greene was educated at the American School for the Deaf at Hartford, Conn.
As a youngster, Greene was influenced to become a teacher by two of his own teachers, Laurent Clerc and Edward Miner Gallaudet, founder of what has now become Gallaudet University in Washington, D. C.
When Greene first arrived at the then brand new school, he became one of the four-member teaching staff. The number of students registered the first day numbered only three.
Notably, the mandate of Belleville schools during the 1870s and 1880s, according to Charles J. Howe, author of "The Deaf-Mutes of Canada: A History of Their Education" was to "impart a general education as well as instruction in some professional or manual art to all deaf-mutes of both sexes between the ages of 7 and 20 residing in the Province of Ontario." Education was to be provided free of charge to all if the students were "sound in mind and body."
Thirteen years after he began teaching at the school, Greene wrote an enlightening essay titled "The Proper Mode of Teaching New Pupils" outlining methods he used to successfully educate the very new, and in some cases, frightened students expected to fulfil an exhausting list of academic goals under unfamiliar surroundings.
"When I undertake the charge of a perfectly untaught class, I do not at once begin to teach them anything. I devote two or three days, or perhaps the first week, to studying them. I try to teach them myself, who I am, that I am their friend, not their teacher merely, that I do love them good in every way, that their advancement is my pleasure, and that their sorrows grieve me. In this way, I encourage their confidence and try to win their affection," wrote Greene.
His strategy was to be patient, kind and firm with his students.
"My experience has convinced me that to force or cram a deafmute pupil does him a positive injury."