Mark Drolsbaugh is the author of Deaf Again, and the co-editor of Deaf Esprit: Inspiration, Humor, and Wisdom from the Deaf Community.
Below are some comments about education of the deaf by Mark Drolsbaugh:
"I am probably not qualified to discuss the Bi-Bi philosophy as I have never personally experienced it -- I was the only deaf child in my school, and it was getting an ASL interpreter that helped me immensely (without the'terp I would have had to transfer to another school).
Even though I technically have no experience with Bi-Bi, I can still vouch for the use of ASL itself. Here's my two bits:
The advantage of ASL is that it is the most accessible language for most deaf people. Even though I can and do use speech, I still cannot hear, and no technology is 100 percent effective in allowing me to hear and understand spoken conversations. But ASL is a visual language, which for me, is 100 percent accessible. With my own speech and hearing skills, I am able to have one-on-one conversations but cannot keep up with a classroom or group discussion; with ASL, classroom and group discussions become accessible.
It was an ASL interpreter that not only allowed me to understand 100 percent of what my teachers were saying, but also what my classmates were saying -- a very valuable resource, as I didn't realize until then that students can also learn a lot from each other.
It is also significantly easier to absorb information in ASL -- lipreading takes a lot of effort. For some strange reason, some people equate "easier" with lazy -- but with this "easier" method, I absorbed more academic content
and my grades greatly improved. Were it not for the interpreter, I would not have been able to graduate from my high school... so it was ASL that opened doors for me in a wonderful way."