The Legacy of Baghcheban

"One day three deaf boys were brought to the school. No one in all of Iran in all of its history had ever thought of educating a deaf person. Everyone believed the deaf to be uneducable; they were treated as imbeciles. But Baghcheban could not ignore these three children. He tried to make them laugh, to reach them, to connect. He went to sleep that night haunted by the confusion and loneliness he had seen in their eyes. He worked and worked at communication, first using mime and inventing hand signals, then he developed a visual hand alphabet. Baghcheban saw these boys through the eyes of a poet, and the poet had to give language to these isolated children. He did not see their deafness; he saw their need, a human hunger for self expression -- for poetry." A touching story of Iran's sign language pioneer -- and the continued ripples of his life.

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