THE BUTTERFLY CAGE

Zemach presents a memoir of Deaf education from a former teacher’s perspective.

In her first book, the author, a former educator of Deaf students at a California public school, offers what could be described as part autobiography, part manifesto. Zemach begins with her own story of growing up hearing and then becoming Deaf, but she focuses most of the book on her life as a teacher and advocate for Deaf students and growing into her own identity as a Deaf person. The book is full of anecdotes about the challenges and prejudices she faced and occasional tragedies she encountered while teaching “mainstreamed” Deaf students in the public schools, ending with her resignation because she felt that “Deaf culture was simply not seen as valid” there. Zemach includes great background material on the history of Deaf people in the United States, including a short history of sign language and Deaf culture. In this section, she makes a case for the importance of American Sign Language in people’s lives and demonstrates the problems with the hearing world’s promotion of Signed Exact English—a form of signing that aims to replicate English vocabulary and grammar—and why cochlear implants are not necessarily in the best interest of Deaf children, as well as why “mainstreaming” Deaf students in hearing classes doesn’t always work. Zemach offers readers a powerful book that clearly makes a case for Deaf as an identity and questions the notion of teaching Deaf people to speak, rather than teaching hearing people to sign. The book concludes with helpful resources for parents, friends, school administrators, and others.

A powerful overview of one Deaf woman’s experience and the issues that Deaf people face in America.