What Is It Like To Be A Bat Essay

The question of how acquisition of language takes place in children seems to me to be fundamental to the approach we take in education. Indeed, language is the medium through which we communicate with children, and the medium through which they begin to understand themselves and their culture, and begin to form their own identity. The Cox report (1989), recorded views of teachers on the importance of language in their profession, and the results show that this recognition of the importance of language is ubiquitous; statements such as the following show just how inextricably linked language is with not only a child’s development, but their wellbeing and sense of personal identity: "Language embodies social, cultural values and also carries
meanings related to each other's unique identity", and "A personal growth view focuses on the child: it emphasises the relationship between language and learning in the individual child, and the role of literature in developing children's imaginative and aesthetic lives.” However, what is not widespread is an agreement upon the approach which should be taken in teaching English to students.
My interest in this area of study finds its origin in my own experience with language learning as a child. I was exposed to a rich variation of dialects and languages, and recognised the effects that this can have on one’s life. My exposure to English began when I was a baby, and at the age of 2 or 3 years old, I learnt nursery rhymes or songs. This was the starting point of a journey which has culminated in my considering of English as my first language, the language in which I dream, think and express the most unfiltered emotion. My own experiences have taught me just how important, and daunting the learning of a language can be, and these considerations have formed the basis for the approach I would like to take in teaching English to my pupils in the future.
My case study of Adam, has exemplified to me just how counterproductive and damaging, the labelling of different abilities. I have observed the anxiety and stress, and confusion, which occurs when SEN pupils are being treated differently and imposing limits on their learning. This also prevents teachers from fulfilling their professional commitment to making positive differences to life of young people (Hart, et al. 2004).
In addition to these concerns, I have a particular interest in the way blind children learn to utilise language. Through language, The Bullock Report (1975) states:
“.....we symbolise, or represent to ourselves, the objects, people and events that make up our environment, and do so cumulatively, thus creating an inner representation of the world as we have encountered it.”
If this is true, it seems interesting to explore how children born with blindness use symbols to represent objects which they have never seen, or experienced in the same way as sighted people.
In the context of this question, we can ask if it makes any sense at all to approach the teaching of language to blind children in the same way as language teaching is generally approached. As Thomas Nagel argues in his lecture ‘What is it Like to be a Bat?’ (1974), we can clearly understand that people who perceive the world through different primary senses can have “experiences fully comparable in richness of detail to our own”, but these experiences “may be denied to us by the limits of our nature.” This paradox seems particularly important in regard to literature, as so much of what is taught relies on imagery, metaphor and symbolism. With so much of what is taught about language relying on visual elements (descriptions of people, objects and places, similes and metaphor), it seems pressing to understand how blind children use and relate to these linguistic tools. What can it mean to a child blind from birth to say “O my Luve's like a red, red rose”, when they have no experience of the qualities of a rose, or even redness. Such questions are not frivolous, as it is the connection between objects and language that solidifies our sense of place in the
world.