dreamchaser

Why couldn't Deafies volunteer an hour a month to teach ASL to public school students? That way the Education Board could not say that it costs too much. Would you be willing to volunteer an hour a month to promote ASL and try to make it a secondary national language?

Deafness

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jillio

Why in the world should Deafies forego a salary for teaching ASL as a second language in high schools when Spanish teachers and French teachers are being paid for the same work? That in and of itself places not just ASL in an inferior position, but the deaf teacher in a devalued position.

If a Deaf individual teaches ASL as a second language to high school students, they are to be paid at the same level as any teacher that performs the same function.

pippen

I work in a school district and at our high school, we have three staff ASL instructors. Two are Deaf and one hearing. The classes are packed and popular. Several students have gone into ITPs or became TODs. Our D/hh students are very lucky to have a student population who can communicate with them in their language!! Wish more ASL instructors were out there and more districts willing to recognize ASL as another language to offer.

VamPyroX

There's nothing wrong with setting up an ASL club.

A couple students did that at RIT. They set up a weekly program called No Voice Zone where volunteers can show up and teach others who show up to learn.

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Interpretrator

Great thought. Language teaching is not something that should either be done by an unskilled volunteer in a formal classroom setting (high school or otherwise), nor should it be done for free by a qualified teacher. But a club is a great informal setting where d/Deaf people could come and share their knowledge without concern about pay or teaching credentials. (Of course it would be nice to provide refreshments or possibly a small honorarium for gas money or the like.)

dreamchaser

I am sorry if that sounded that way. The proposal I was thinking of (and I could be very wrong, that is why I am asking) was to start ASL in preschool, and all the way up on a volunteer basis. Once it was shown to be successful, of course the teachers would be paid. Maybe do an experiment with a couple of schools for a year voluntarily until you could prove it was a success. I was thinking that seniors and Codas could help. Like I said, once it was proven that the kids could learn it fairly easily, (age appropriate) then it could be adopted as a regular curriculum. I am just trying to think of something that would work that would infiltrate the system. America needs a visual language for a seond language instead of a foreign language. But if administrators think it will cost a lot to do it, they never will. Do you have any suggestions of how to get ASL into our public schools that I can try to promote here in Oregon? It has to start somewhere, and it is so needed, especially since there are so many children being mainstreamed? I don't mean to sound ignorant, but I really can't think of a way to do this. Do you think it would be a good thing to have ASL as a national, secondary language? I really want to know what everyone thinks.

Interpretrator

I can't agree with this. I absolutely agree that ASL should be available in schools as an option along with spoken foreign languages, but not "instead of." Students should have the option to learn spoken foreign languages if they want; consider the case of children of immigrants who would like to learn their heritage language, or students with a particular interest in a culture who want to learn that language.

ASL should not be forced on people who don't want to take it, since we've seen what kind of negative behaviors and attitudes (cheating, etc.) take place in ASL classrooms with students who don't really want to learn the language.

jillio

I don't know what area you live in, but in my area it has already been shown to be successful. Thew public school lecated a few miles from my son's Deaf school, for instance, not only taught sign, but arranged extra-curricular activiites between the hearing ASL students and the students at St. Rita.

jillio

Agreed. There is an ASL club on my campus as well, and they sponsor several silent activities.

Interpretrator

There is no "national language" currently and I don't believe there should be one.

Deaf Mortgage

Google up and see if you can find...

Milwaukee Sign Language School (k-8)
Foster and William High school (9-12).

Its in Milwaukee, Wisconsin... They have bibi program there and doing ok so far. Need more strength into their program to be fully bibi. They do have several deaf teachers inolved in classroom as main teacher with hearing students. Also have few ASL teacher on staff to teach sign language directly to hearing students. Have nice size amount of deaf student program there as well.

They are working with bibi concept with K4, k5 kids and hopefully will graduate with full concept of ASL by 12th grade. Its very cool place to teach if you do not mind intercities kids.

By the way... they are working on converting into charter school from Milwaukee Public School. Once they switch over to charter, they will explode to much better progams.

Again... I perfer high-qualified licensed teachers to teach ASL. I dont want us to water down our skills while teaching, it requires a lot energy of our time to invest our knowledge and skills into Hearing community. May we sow and reap plentiful afterward.

jillio

Agreed. Opens the way for further discriminaion of minority language populations.

dreamchaser

Wow, great input. Didn't think of it that way. I only know that many people I talk to and myself would like to see our kids learn ASL along with english as a counterpart. I was never advocating doing away with foreign languages. Not at all. Most other countries automatically teach their kids multiple languages all through school.

I guess what I am feeling is that ASL can help so many people. Autistic children and people who are speech impaired can benefit from ASL or some form of it. I just think that communication is so important, and I hate to think of any person feeling isolated because of a lack of english skills. I don't know what to do with that feeling. I was just looking for some sort of solution that would help tear down some of the walls between people. Everyone needs to express themselves and be heard by someone. That is what makes life worth living. Maybe I shouldn't care so much, or maybe I should just realize that I am not the one that is able to come up with a solution. I only know that it hurts my heart to see anyone feel lonely because they aren't heard. I just thought that having a national, secondary visual language would be one step to inclusiveness. Sorry if I offended you. I truly am.

dreamchaser

I live in Oregon. Our Deaf school has an open ASL class one night a week when they can. It is not always easy for people to attend and there is a cost. But it would be cool to try a club or something of that sort. I guess I took it for granted that little kids would learn basic sign fairly easily as a beginning, just like parents can teach baby sign. I was not thinking of an informal teacher for the older age groups when the vocabulary and grammar, syntax etc are more complicated. I was just wishing that all little kids could have the advantage of, or at least the taste of ASL. My mistake. I will look into the extracuricullar activities in our schools. I do know that my son's high school does not have any free type clubs for fellowshipping etc. I guess it was stupid idea. So, thanks for the input. I can quit worrying about it now.

Deaf Mortgage

Here's another thought...

If a person is really motivated to learn ASL... they will need to marry the language to excel and become fluent in ASL. As deaf individual, we fell love and married to ASL. We learned all kinds of structures that is not covered in the classroom.

The fastest way to learn is to "marry" the language as attending any deaf social events and have a deaf friend to social with.

Otherwise... its a waste of time to open a club or weekly classes where they will be limited to book information. Life experinces is best way to learn...

dreamchaser

I totally agree about watering down the skills. I guess I thought that most native signers would teach good ASL, and only Deaf signers or Codas would be allowed. Heck,,, I don't know what I thought. I just wish that everyone could sign so nobody ever gets left out because of a hearing loss or speech problem.. I am glad that I asked though, because there was much to consider and I was looking for input to widen my perspective. Thanks so much for your reply.

VamPyroX

Right.

Sometimes, people aren't sure about whether they want to learn it or not. Providing it as a class leaves them with 2 choices... to forget about it completely or to be forced to learn it without backing out.

By offering it as optional, it gives people a chance to get a taste of it and decide if they want to go further in a serious manner.

With a club or a program like that, people can come to learn sign language. If they realize that they actually enjoy it and want to go further by taking it as a class, then they can take the class the next semester.

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VamPyroX

A cost? How much?

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VamPyroX

Who says you have to "marry" ASL to excel in it?

Interpreters aren't "married" to ASL. They took class and became skilled because they put their learnings to good use. Yet, they don't follow ASL or Deaf Culture in their daily activities all the time.

I've seen interpreters who sign better ASL than those who claim to be strongly involved in Deaf Culture.

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dreamchaser

I totally agree. You have to love ASL, but the way you do that as a hearing person is to fall in love with your Deaf friends or family. Unfotunately, so many people don't ever even meet a Deaf person because they are afraid they don't know how to commuicate. Some hearies are shy and afraid to offend, and some just don't really give a !@#$ about anything but themselves. You wouldn't want to know them anyway.

I remember that I cried when I started reading about Deaf culture. I got every book I could, and I was so pissed off when I read about ASL being taken away from the children in their own schools. Now, I look around me and I see Deaf schools struggling to survive. They teach more pigeon than ASL, and hearing people don't even know that it is happening. They are thinking everything is just fine, because it never hits the news.

Last summer, the administrators in Oregon tried to merge the Deaf and Blind school because the Blind school is sitting on a prime piece of property. It was all a money thing. Both communities - the Deaf and the Blind - were against it. We rallied and petitioned and we handed out flyers and raised a stink. The sale was postponed. But, as I was talking to people and trying to get them involved, I found out that they had no clue that it was happening. They were shocked. The newspaper had a few small articles, but the news didn't carry it. I guess I am afraid that if the school here gets shut down over funding, all of the kids will be in public schools and they will not be able to communicate. I just wish that all kids could know both sign and english. Hearing and Deaf alike. If the hearing community expects Deaf people to learn to speech read and be oral or to be fluent in writen English, then why can't they meet half way and learn sign?

Deaf Mortgage

Interesting...

Hearing coming half way? Only handful has came half way while rest of them expect us to be "perfect" as oralism, ability to hear, speeches... When we are already perfect as way we are.

Hearing people need to learn to accept and learn the language. Willing to go extra mile to learn. It another new unexplored world for the Hearing to explore of ASL. It rocks their world if they once learned.

My own quote, "ASL is music to our eyes".

dreamchaser

I heard it was 50 dollars. It falls on a Tuesday night which is a class night for me so I can't go. I hate that. We have a Deaf night at Boarders book store, and that is way cool.

I guess I was not very clear in my first posting. I was trying to keep it short. But I was really thinking about the lower grades. High schools already have ASL as a FOREIGN language. (AMERICAN sign language is foreign?) Anyway, if little kids started to learn it along with english, by the time they got to the higher grades, they would have a basic vocabulary at least to be able to communicte with the mainstreamed Deaf kids.???? I was hoping that it would also irradicate some of the misconceptions about Deaf people and break down some barriers if little kids were exposed to it in the lower grades. I wish I would have been.

dreamchaser

That is a most beautiful quote.. I sometimes call ASL like a beautiful painting made on a canvas of air. So, how can we reach the hearing world and get them to come half way if they are stuck in ignorance that was handed down through the generations? They are not all bad, but stupid. If they had been taught ASL in preschool etc. it would have been natural to accept Deaf people. There would have communication. There would have been sharing of talents and ideas and LOVE> I am so convinced that it is probably a Deaf child that is holding the keys to the cures for AIDS and cancer in their minds, but they will need to cooperate and communicate with hearies to be able to see their full potential. If hearies came half way, wouldn't that be beautiful? It may not be possible in this generation, but if it had seeds planted now, maybe the next generation would reap the fruit of a non biased and loving communication. Isolation is not a necessary evil!!!

Cousin Vinny

Some general thoughts about ASL... If it is to be offered in a high school setting, offer it as an elective. I can't see ASL being offered as a class in primary settings (i.e., elementary schools) because most states have standardized curriculums and testing in place, and adding in a foreign language to the mix may be too much to ask.

My suggestion is to 'target' a center school in your area. What I mean is that there is usually a feeder high school that accepts a concentrated area of DHH students and provides interpreting services. There, the attitudes towards ASL is much healthier, and you may find a receptive audience in pitching an ASL class. Pitch it as a 'vocational' class, or better, as an elective class, where ASL is treated as a path onto a rewarding career in the Deaf field.

Oddly enough, the center school in my area used to have an ASL class for several years, before the administrators closed it down. I don't have the specifics, though. It looks the the trend is towards less ASL classes, not more, for my area. YMMV for other areas in the country...