Laurent Clerc Book Report

“Laurent Clerc: The Story of His Early Years” is a book based upon Laurent Clerc life as a deaf child and how he comes to find of others who were also deaf and learn school. In the first few chapter of the book Laurent Clerc is living at home with his family in La Balme. His mother takes him to see doctors and check him out but no one could seem to see what was wrong with him. They would perform all sorts of test on the boy, such as putting medicine in his ears. None of the doctor’s methods worked no matter how many times they came back and tried it. Since Laurent was deaf he did not attend school either and had a limited way of talking to his family. His brother and himself would make up signs that would mean things but the signs were normally long and made no sense to anyone else. One day his Uncle came to visit and Laurent had to say goodbye to his mother. He had no idea where he was going or why …show more content…
Thomas Gallaudet came to England and Paris so that he could bring Sign Language to America. A friend of Gallaudet’s had a daughter who was deaf and she was not getting a proper education and so Gallaudet went on a journey to find the very best communicators who taught it. When he arrived in Paris he met Sicard. Massieu, and Clerc where he studied under them and learned the art of sign language. Eventually he convinced Clerc to come back with him to America to open the first deaf school.
Before Clerc agreed to go with Gallaudet to America he had two terms that needed to be met. The first was that he needed to ask Abbe Sicard’s permission to go, that way he wasn’t just leaving the school high and dry, He wanted to make sure that it was alright that he went away and taught somewhere else. The second term was that he wanted to say goodbye to his mother. He didn’t want to leave the country and go to America without saying goodbye to his mother, plus he knew that she was still mourning Clerc’s father who passed away. Of course Gallaudet agreed to both of these