Miss-Delectable
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Neighbors: Corning native, Keuka junior, interns at school for the deaf | Press & Sun-Bulletin | pressconnects.com
Twice a week, Nicole Caparulo of Corning commutes an hour each way to her job with Steuben County ARC. But this month, she's halfway across the globe, conducting an internship at a residential school for deaf children in Senegal, West Africa.
The Keuka College junior is a unified childhood/special education major with a concentration in American Sign Language, or ASL. She discovered the West African school through Martha French, an associate professor, whose friend, Angela Bednarczyk, is an assistant to the educational director at the Renaissance School for the Deaf in Dakar, Senegal's capital.
The school, founded in 2007, serves 35 students whose ages range from four to 16, has five classrooms, five teachers and a deaf teacher in training, according to Angela.
While some elements of ASL will carry over to the sign language used in Senegal, Nicole compared it more to a dialect.
"I am very interested in deaf education, special education, diversity and being open and accepting differences and ways to do things," Nicole said. "That plays a major part in education, because you need to be able to do things and experience them."
Nicole oversees one of ARC's residential homes in Corning, a job she says she loves.
"My dream job would essentially be a small classroom with students with different gifts and abilities, and I definitely think the special education classroom is where I'm meant to be."
Her travel expenses were defrayed through a $2,200 Judith Oliver Brown Memorial Award she received through Keuka's Center for Experiential learning.
"This will be an experience that will allow me to incorporate other aspects and other ways of doing things and learning and things I probably can't even imagine," Nicole said.
Twice a week, Nicole Caparulo of Corning commutes an hour each way to her job with Steuben County ARC. But this month, she's halfway across the globe, conducting an internship at a residential school for deaf children in Senegal, West Africa.
The Keuka College junior is a unified childhood/special education major with a concentration in American Sign Language, or ASL. She discovered the West African school through Martha French, an associate professor, whose friend, Angela Bednarczyk, is an assistant to the educational director at the Renaissance School for the Deaf in Dakar, Senegal's capital.
The school, founded in 2007, serves 35 students whose ages range from four to 16, has five classrooms, five teachers and a deaf teacher in training, according to Angela.
While some elements of ASL will carry over to the sign language used in Senegal, Nicole compared it more to a dialect.
"I am very interested in deaf education, special education, diversity and being open and accepting differences and ways to do things," Nicole said. "That plays a major part in education, because you need to be able to do things and experience them."
Nicole oversees one of ARC's residential homes in Corning, a job she says she loves.
"My dream job would essentially be a small classroom with students with different gifts and abilities, and I definitely think the special education classroom is where I'm meant to be."
Her travel expenses were defrayed through a $2,200 Judith Oliver Brown Memorial Award she received through Keuka's Center for Experiential learning.
"This will be an experience that will allow me to incorporate other aspects and other ways of doing things and learning and things I probably can't even imagine," Nicole said.