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Francisco Goulão has
been a teacher of Visual Education
in the António Cândido Center,
Porto, for more than 14 years.
However, he has dedicated himself to
this profession for 32 years, after
graduating in Painting by the Fine
Arts School of the Lisbon
University. He’s Deaf “of soul and
heart” and 58 years old. We’re
talking about the Deaf teacher
Francisco Goulão.
He has been an indispensable
reference for many Deaf people who
in their majority have been his own
students, and also for many members
of the Deaf Community – at least
from those generations from a time
when Internet and many other current
technologies, such as cell phones,
were still not a reality.
At that time, there were only
newspapers, accessible only to those
who could understand written
Portuguese reasonably well. The
traditional and eternal TV News
keeps on banning the Deaf from the
precious access to information,
leaving only the complementary
elucidative images.
Professor Francisco Goulão was one
of the rare Deaf persons who had
domain of written Portuguese and
could read the papers whenever he
wanted. And he was also concerned
about informing the Deaf and keeping
them updated about what was going on
in the world, both nationally and
internationally. In other words, he
used to save them from the almost
total ignorance they were sentenced
to due to the absence of resources.
For those Deaf, Prof. Goulão was a
kind of “living” newspaper, through
whom they could have access to
general information.
The intention of the documentary is
to showcase by interviews some
situations where through his contact
with Prof. Goulão, a Deaf person
from a previous generation who can
read newspapers, an illiterate Deaf
man can maximize opportunities and
develop his won intrinsic
consciousness and his own personal
and general perspective of reality.
The central element of the
‘information bridge’ was the use of
gestural language. It’s one of those
cases where gestures not only sign
but also inform… And what is more,
through information one can teach
and learn in many ways, exploring
countless subjects and matters by
talking.
Vitor was one of Prof. Goulão’s
students. He used to share his
everyday routine with the teacher
inside and outside school, which
brought him benefits and influenced
the way that he leads his life
today. One important example was
when Vitor, already an adult,
received a letter from the Social
Security authorities. Because of the
guidance he had received from Prof.
Goulão, he was able to understand
clearly what the content of that
letter was. A seemingly trivial
situation to other people, to him
this was a significant milestone
that shows the importance of a Deaf
model to the Deaf students in order
for them to build their personal
identity and develop their cognitive
skills, among other benefits.
Translated into English by
Patricia and Walter Castro
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