The Lessons In Laughter By Deaf Actor Bernard Bragg

The Lessons in Laughter is an autobiography by deaf actor Bernard Bragg. The book goes over Bragg’s life starting when he was a young boy and describes everything that he seen and learned over the years. Starting from the deaf school he went to and the teachers that he encountered. His best friend Silver later stated how he wanted to kill him and Bragg fear him even later when he went to Gallaudet. The book follows Braggs when he gets into acting just as father was into also. His father was an amateur deaf actor that everyone loved. It shows how Bragg grew and how he became the successful actor that he is today.
There are things that I learned about deaf culture in America and other countries around the world. When hearing people think of

When he was little he attended a deaf school which he lived at. This school rather being deaf based they focused on trying to make the kids speak. Bragg wrote that when he was little his teacher made him say the letters in the alphabet and afterwards she brought in another teacher and said “Look, Bernard can talk” as if he was an animal that she taught to speak. When Bragg tried to say the letter k apparently it wasn’t to the teachers liking and she made Bragg repeat it over and over again until he got it. The school held an Open House where the kids went on stage to recite a nursery rhyme that they learned but Bragg had to recite the letter k. This experience that Bragg shared with is showed how the world was focused on the hearing and pleasing them rather than teaching the children based on their own culture. Another point in Braggs life that I want to point out is when his teacher Mr. Ryder hated the children’s laugh saying how if they could hear themselves laugh they would be nauseated so he taught them how to laugh. As Mr. Ryder taught the kids he “ordered Sam to sit in the back, all by himself, isolated from us, simply because he had failed the lesson in laughter”. When Bragg met Sam again years later Braggs hearing friends said that Sam didn’t make a laugh when he laughed. This showed how Mr. Ryder messed with Sam’s laugh. The way we laugh comes to us naturally but since the teacher was trying to change the way they laughed and Sam had a hard time with it Sam just shut his laugh off