Additions To School For The Deaf: Opened At Fielding By Archbishop McKeefry

“The beginnings of St. Dominic’s School for the Deaf were very humble. The work began in a house at Island Bay, Wellington, on March 7, 1944. The roll at that time listed nine pupils. Very soon, as the number of pupils grew, and with many applications flowing in from parents of deaf children all parts of the country for places in the school, it became evident that the Wellington property was too small and that a larger and more suitable property would have to be acquired. Besides the overcrowding in the building there was also a serious lack of playground area for the children. A diligent search finally brought to light an eminently suitable property of twenty-three acres a mile or so on the Palmerston North side of Feilding.

Set back across the railway line from the highway was a fine old country mansion framed by trees and lawns. To one side of the house were barns and stables. The whole property was acquired for £8,000.

Since it was essential that the school for the deaf be transferred to the new property as soon as possible, it was decided that the mansion should be used for accommodation for both Sisters and pupils, while the outbuildings – the former barns and stables – should be converted into temporary classrooms.

The house itself needed some alterations to make it suitable for its new purpose. It was first extended to provide a new kitchen, serveries, a children’s dining-room and additional toilet accommodation on the first floor. These additions have provided a spacious kitchen and dining-room, well-equipped and designed to admit the maximum of air and sunlight. The kitchen especially is the admiration of all visitors. As only one Sister is available to do all the cooking, the architect so planned it as to cut walking to a minimum. It is equipped with many modern labour-saving devices.

A large billiard room in the house lent itself admirably to conversion into a chapel, having a high, coved ceiling with a large laylight and walls lined with well-matured timber panelling. The only alterations required in this room to make it a really beautiful chapel were the provision of exterior doors from a covered way and a small extension making a simple and effective sanctuary with access to a new sacristy.

 

The next perquisite was an outside children’s toilet block with shoe lockers, which in the final scheme, now completed, is situated between the classroom and dormitory wings on the one hand and the chapel and refectory on the other. All these buildings are connected by a covered way which is surrounded by lawns and gardens.

When these additions and alterations to the original house had been completed, St. Dominic’s School for the Deaf was able to be transferred from the original Island Bay house to its new home in Feilding. On February 4, 1953, a new era began for the school when the transfer was effected.

By this time the architects, Messrs, King, Cook and Dawson, of Wellington, had completed the working drawings and specifications for the new classroom and dormitory blocks.

While the new buildings, which were opened last Sunday were being built, the children were housed in the original mansion and taught in laundry outbuildings, such as the garage and stables. Conditions were very difficult for both Sisters and pupils during all this time. However, the children were compensated for the loss of their Island Bay house for the freedom of the unaccustomed open spaces on the new property. With twenty acres of land to romp around in they forgot other difficulties. As for the Sisters, they prefer to forget the last couple of years.

The new classroom and dormitory section form one building, with the focal point in the entrance hall, which gives access to the recreation hall, the classroom wing and the two boys’ dormitories on the ground floor, while stairs lead up to the three girls’ dormitories on the first floor.

On each floor of the dormitory block is one dormitory for six smaller children and one for fourteen. The first floor has an additional dormitory which will accommodate eight. The larger dormitories are partially divided down the middle by a bank of presses back to back, one for each child, containing hanging space and shelves. As these are not full height there is ample cross ventilation. The dormitory wing runs north and south thus ensuring plenty of morning and afternoon sun.

All the dormitories are divided into bays with low partitions, each bay containing two beds and a small press with a drawer, cupboard and towel rail for each child. Rooms are provided alongside the dormitories for the two supervising Sisters.

There are also a small infirmary, a small pantry, a visitor’s room, a drying room, box rooms and toilet facilities on each floor. Each toilet section has bath and shower compartments and a tiled footbath.

The classroom wing runs at right angles to the dormitory block and is so sited as to make the most of the sunshine through the length of the school day. The classrooms are served by a passage on the south side and cross ventilation to the classrooms is provided by clerestory windows above the flat roof of this passage. Classroom accommodation consists of five classrooms (each to cater for ten pupils, who are normally placed in a semi-circle for speech instruction) and an arts and crafts room used for sewing and art work. It will also serve as a library.

The classrooms, in general, are similar to the latest type provided by the education boards, but they have been fitted with acoustic ceilings to minimize disturbing echoes in hearing aids. The south wall is lined from dado to doorhead with sheet cork as pin-up space in view of the high degree of visual training employed. The classrooms open out on to a concrete apron on the north side as dry play space, or where classes can at times be conducted in the sunshine. Brick wing walls project between each pair of classrooms to shield outside classes from disturbing influences.

The remaining unit in the new buildings is the recreation hall, which is accessible from the entrance hall, the covered way on from the play space outside the classrooms. The hall provides approximately 1100 square feet of floor plus a permanent stage area of over 300 square feet. The whole area is amply supplied with daylight and ventilation.

In the angle between the bathroom and dormitory wings, is situated the boiler house. This contains an oil-fired boiler, providing heating by means of hot water radiators to the classrooms, dormitories and recreation hall, and a coil for which provides the hot water for the washrooms.

The whole of the interior of these buildings where liable to damage is lined with a heart rimu plywood dado. Walls and ceilings are painted with a variety of colours, intended to provide a pleasant, cheerful atmosphere, but not so striking as to be disturbing. Grey, green, yellow, blue and pink are all used in light shades with emphasis given to the colours by means of white window sashes and architraves, while doors are stained to match the dado. Washrooms are lined generally with glazed asbestos. The entrance hall is lined to the ceiling with plywood and a feature of the entrance is a large sheet of plate glass with an etched and sandblasted crest.

The exterior linings are a combination of weatherboards, plaster and brickwork, with shiplap redwood boards on the first floor of the dormitory section.

The last section of the work to be completed was the final conversion of the first floor of the original house into the Sisters’ cells. This building with its high ceilings and generous proportions has resulted in a convent of considerable dignity, particularly well suited to its purpose.

The whole group of buildings is beautifully placed amid trees and open space, and as the surroundings are further developed, the buildings will fit gracefully into a very pleasing scene.

The Sisters and pupils, as can easily be seen, now have a splendid school in which deaf and dumb children can be prepared to face life confidently despite their handicap. Few people perhaps realize what is involved in the education and spiritual formation of the deaf and dumb.

Lucretius, the Roman poet, and Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, both believed that the plight of the deaf was hopeless; one of the poems Lucretius has left behind includes the words: “To instruct the deaf, no art could ever reach; no care improve them, and no wisdom teach.”

Although Aristotle realized that all our knowledge comes to us through our senses, he did not push things to quite their logical conclusion; neither he nor any of the other ancients, when they talked about the “deaf and dumb,” realized that they were dumb precisely, and only, because they were deaf. But if the “sound barrier”—the barrier of deafness—can be broken, the deaf can be taught to speak; and if they cannot be taught to hear with their ears, they can at least be taught to understand, to hear with their eyes.

A Spanish friar, Fra Pedro Ponce de Leon, made this momentous discovery, and turned it to good account. His is the first recorded occasion in history when an attempt was made to teach the deaf; the one pupil he began with soon became a school full of pupils, and his fame soon came to be noised abroad. It is said he left a manuscript containing details of his methods, but nothing is now known of it.

One thing is certain: that specialized methods have to be used in teaching children who are born deaf. Sign language is one way, but an imperfect way. The modern method—the oral method—enables deaf people to mix with those who have their hearing, and speak a common language—not a restricted sign language.

In New Zealand, there are three schools for the deaf—two conducted by the State, and one by the Sisters of St. Dominic. The reason for having St. Dominic’s School is not that other New Zealand schools for the deaf are technically inferior, but because they can cater only for the material education of children. But education must be more than that; as Frank Sheed insists, “education is the ability to see all things in relation to the Totality of Being.”

St. Dominic’s School for the Deaf was begun to minister to the spiritual needs of Catholic deaf children. Although it accepts pupils of any denomination, its first purpose remains. Naturally, it is also a source of conversion. During the past five years, five children have, at their parents’ request, been received into the Church; thirty have made their first Communion; twenty-two have been confirmed.

St. Dominic’s School for the Deaf caters for two classes of children—those who are born deaf, and those who lose their hearing at an early age through sickness or accident.

The basis of the teaching method is to teach children as far as possible to speak without the aid of hearing. The oral method is followed—speech and lip-reading—and every opportunity is taken to make the pupils speech minded. One of the greatest advantages of the oral method is that it helps to refine and clarify thought; those who receive and communicate ideas only by sign language inevitably think only of signs and symbols. Those who are taught by the “oral” method think more of words and ideas.

Average pupils can become fluent and efficient in lip-reading, to a degree that will amaze an outside observer.

Also assisting the pupils in hearing sound is the method by which microphones and headphones are used. The teacher speaks into a microphone and the headphones can be adjusted to individual levels for each child. This method is of inestimable advantage when a pupil has some residue of hearing left; through hearing sound, teaching can be speeded up immeasurably.

Results count; in spirituality, the work the nuns are accomplishing for Catholic children can hardly be measured. In the field of bringing a new world to them, so that they can live much like the others in the world, the results are astounding.

Captions:

• Top left image: View from the main vestibule to the main front door (centre) of the dormitory block; the door to the assembly hall is on the right.
• Top right image: The infants’ class. One of the Sisters is teaching with the assistance of a microphone and headphones.
• Bottom left image: View of the new school block from the north, across the tennis courts. The assembly hall runs off to the far right.
• Bottom right image: The new dormitory and school block from the main drive, showing the main entrance to the building. The girls’ dormitories are upstairs, the boys’ downstairs.