Learning Sign

I am taking a sign class, and my teacher feels that it is very important for us to understand not only the vocab, and sentence structure (or lack thereof), but also the culture of the deaf.

She adopted a 6 year old girl, who was deaf, and she went to a school where there were other deaf children. They were at a meeting for her school one night, when her daughter was older, and she began to interpret what was being said for her daughter. Soon, everyone of those deaf children were looking at her, so that they could understand too, while the other parents were listening to the speaker that evening. Aftward, a fellow student came up to her and said "who is that lady?" and she brushed it of, "Thats just my mom." The other student in awe exclaimed, "Your mom can sign?!?!?!!"

In most places, according to my teacher, 90 - 95% of Hearing parents who have a deaf child, will never learn to sign. They expect the child to learn to lip read, to force them to adhere to a hearing world 100%, and will not adhere to the child's world, "the deaf world" at all. Nor will they allow the two to be integrated as it very well should be.

She put it this way:
A hearing Parent has a hearing child, "Hooray!!"
A hearing parent has a deaf child, "oh no! what are we going to do?"

A deaf parent has a deaf child, "Hooray!"
A deaf parent has a hearing child, "Oh... welll.... uhh... ok, how is that going to work."

Why? because its easier if you have a child who is the same as you.

In my class, we have a "hard-of- hearing" woman, who can barley hear at all. And she has come to freshen up on sign. As my teacher was speaking of this, she was nodding her head, and told us a bit about her childhood. He mom would not let her learn sign for a long time. As she got older, her mom realized that she probably needed to learn it. However, her dad refused. He said that there would be no signing under his roof. She lip reads well, and has fit into a hearing well completely. She has even learned to voice and has a big job as a nurse. She has learned what sign she could from friends, but wants more, so is taking our class with us. (Her boyfriend who is hearing, is taking it too. He wants to be there for her %100.)

Because of this radical percentile of families who are this way, the percent of teenage deaf children who are "hard to deal with", is high. But they need to be loved, and they need people to fit into their world as they work to fit into ours as well. (It makes me want to go adopt a deaf child... in fact I have a friend going to work at a deaf orphanage in peru....)

One of the main points that my teacher stresses, is that the deaf LOVE to socialize. They will be patient with your signs, and they love to dramatize. So if you don't know how to sign what your trying to say, act it out. They will understand. In fact, they do it too, rather than signing the words especially when telling a story. They will stand close to you, they will ask lots of questions that may seem nosey. Is it nosey? No! Its their culture. They will be-friend you quickly because of it. And... they really, truly, actually pay attention to what your saying. Why? Because they have to focus on you to see what your saying. Their hands and eyes cannot be somewhere else, or doing something else while they are in conversation, like us - doing dishes while talking on the phone, and thinking about what we are going to make for dinner.

I am excited to learn more. She also gave us a handy worksheet about the structure of sentences - I will post it soon!

Cheers!
Jessi