Background on Clarke School for the Deaf
Mabel Hubbard, the four year old daughter of Gardiner Green Hubbard, became deaf from scarlet fever in 1862. At the time, deaf children were often sent to schools and institutions where they learned to communicate using signs. There was no sustained effort in the United States to teach the deaf to speak but Hubbard believed that his daughter could speak and learn like hearing children. Mabel learned to speak with the help of Harriet B. Rogers, who had started tutoring deaf children following European articulation and lip-reading methods in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. After seeing the results of Rogers' tutoring, Hubbard decided to start a school to teach more deaf children to speak. With a $50,000 grant from philanthropist John Clarke and a charter from the Massachusetts State Legislature the Clarke Institution for Deaf Mutes opened in Northampton in 1867.
Clarke was the first school in the United States to teach deaf students using the oral method. Clarke differed philosophically from schools such as the American School for the Deaf, where sign language was used for instruction, stressing speech-reading and speech as the primary methods of communication. Clarke continues to use a spoken language program where they teach children to listen and speak rather than use sign language. The goal of the Clarke School then and now, is to help children succeed in mainstream classrooms with their hearing peers.
Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, was involved with the Clarke School and an advocate for oral education for most of his life. Bell had learned from his grandfather and father who were both teachers of speech. In 1871 he came to the Clarke School and began teaching students using Visual Speech, a system of symbols to assist people in speaking words without hearing them which was invented by his father. He eventually developed his own method of teaching speech and lip-reading to deaf children. Bell's endorsement of oral education led to sign language being eliminated in many schools and to a new national focus to mainstream deaf children with hearing children. Bell considered his greatest contribution to be his work on behalf of oral education rather than the invention of the telephone.
In addition to Alexander Graham Bell, Clarke School supporters include Grace Coolidge and Clarence W. Barron. Grace Coolidge taught at the Clarke School for the Deaf after earning her bachelor's Degree. Teaching deaf children continued to be important to her and her husband, President Calvin Coolidge, throughout their lives. Financial journalist Clarence W. Barron initiated the school's first endowment campaign, and the research department was named in his honor.
Clarke School has been a leader in the training of teachers as well as in the education of deaf children. A formal teacher education program was started by Caroline A. Yale in 1889 to prepare teachers for the Clarke School to teach in the oral method. In 1962, in collaboration with Smith College, they began offering a Masters in Deaf Education (M.e.D.) program. The program with Smith College ended in 2015 and Clarke School established a relationship with Fontbonne University. Fontbonne University, located in St. Louis offers online classes with the opportunity to work in one of the Clarke School locations.
In 2010 the school was renamed to Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech to reflect their mission of teaching children who are deaf and hard of hearing how to listen and talk. Today the Clarke School has four locations; Northampton, Boston (1995), Jacksonville (1996), New York (1999), and Philadelphia (2001). Clarke serves children from birth to age 15 through early intervention programs, preschool classes, elementary and middle school classes, and mainstreaming and speech and language services.
