ASL vs. English: What the F...?

I don't see why you can't use ASL and then use spoken/written English at separate times?

All ASL-English bilingual schools I know (only 4 or 5 out there in the entire country!) provide instructions in both ASL and English for all subjects (not sim-com). They also provide intensive speech trainings too. Those who had access to ASL from birth are more likely to have better speaking and listening skills than those who were raised orally and joined our school at an older age.

Again, I'm sharing based on my collective knowledge and experiences... I come from 4 generations of Deaf families, and all of my family members were/are educators. My parents both were raised orally in educational settings (all schools banned sign language in the 1950s and 1960s). My grandfather deliberately brought in sign language to classrooms by inventing the total communication philosophy in the 1970s. My grandmother was on the SEE committee, and developed SEE along with other prominent Deaf members. Deaf people throughout the history have always tried and tried different approaches to help Deaf children acquire English. Deaf people never rejected spoken or written languages, and have always valued English in our lives. We only ask hearing people to recognize the importance of ASL. Every time I talk about ASL, people (including my classmates here) are quick to defend English. Where did I say English was not important? Where did I say English should be omitted from our lives? Are people here feeling threatened by the notion that we should value ASL? Why shouldn't we value ASL when it's the ONLY language that is 100%, not 99% or 98%, 100% accessible to Deaf babies.

Deaf people have always tried and tried to come up with the best, natural, and holistic approaches to teach Deaf children English. When we see that the approaches do not work, we simply try different ones. Hearing people always ride off our OLD and OUTDATED ideas and refuse to follow our lead on the NEW, UPDATED, and more effective ones.

In the past twenty years, Deaf educators and intellectuals have found many promising results in the path of ASL-English bilingualism. We are very excited about that because with this approach, ASL actually supports English acquisition in all forms (reading, writing, and speaking). This is actually an all inclusive approach! Yet, we are constantly being framed as the ones who refuse to give parents "choices," who are militants, who are advocating for an "ASL only" route (there was never an ASL-only route, ever), and all the false and ugly labels. In contrast, the oral advocates are framed as the ones who are giving the parents choice while the oral route is nowhere close to being inclusive and is actually a route of taking risks and chances for most Deaf babies.

Anyway, my point here is... I'll say this again and again... be Deaf-centric in all Deaf-related affairs. :) Deaf people in the Deaf community interact with Deaf children, watch them grow into Deaf teenagers, and work with them as adults. We share the same community, attend the same events, have the same friends, co-workers, bosses, and so on. We are constantly exchanging experiences, thoughts, and ideas based on our educational experiences. We explicitly see patterns in what works and what does not. We are always evolving and improving in our best practices with educating Deaf children. However, one thing that remains throughout hundreds of years of documentation in the Deaf community... nobody has ever said, "I wish I didn't learn sign language."