During the Experiential Term, we learned ASL and immersed ourselves into Deaf culture. We worked as a group to make a micromentary that answered a question that we were passionate about answering. We all had roles that we took on during this project. We learned how to work together and listen to each others ideas. What we are most proud of is how our micromentary came together. We worked really hard on it. Watch our video below!
How May Deaf Culture Become Mainstream Culture? from GCE on Vimeo.
We learned that as early as 1000 BC the Deaf were discriminated against due to their permanent loss of hearing and outrageous claims that deafness was a sign from God to show his anger towards humanity. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, there were very high limitations in educational opportunities for Deaf children in America. In the 1800’s there were about 30 deaf schools that opened across America. The Cobbs School, Alexander Graham Bell School and Gallaudet were the first schools to present curriculum based on oral learning and ASL for both educational and cultural purposes.
We watched Sound & Fury a documentary following a 5-year old girl with the desire to learn spoken language by getting a cochlear implant. Her parents were deaf and proud members of the Deaf community and feared losing their daughter to the hearing world. This showcased the struggles of being a member of both the Deaf community and the hearing world. There is much controversy surrounding cochlear implants which is believed to be a cure to deafness. This technology is controversial because it threatens the survival of the thriving Deaf language and Culture.
Today, it is easy to see the importance and prominence of Deaf culture in schools, sports, and Art. We visited the Children of Peace School in Chicago that focuses on integrating hearing and deaf education. We were surprised to see hearing, hard of hearing, and deaf students learning in the same classroom. We also attended a basketball torment for the Deaf where Deaf teams from as far as Boston competed for the title of champion. I was in awe by how highly athletic these players were and how everyone knew each other. We witnessed the same type of talent and friendship when we watched the documentary Deaf Jam, which showed a group piece performed by Aneta, a Deaf poet and Tahani a spoken word poet .They captured the vision of Deaf and hearing worlds coexisting.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Monday, March 24, 2014
The Art of Signing
During the Experiential Term, I learned so much about Deaf culture and sign language. The purpose of this term, as the school defines it, is to immerse ourselves into Deaf culture and to walk in members of the Deaf community's shoes. In my own words, I believe it was so much more than that. I got to feel sad, proud, inspired, happy and even sometimes stressed out. I believe this is one experience I will take with me for the rest of my life because now I feel that there is another world out there, the Deaf community. I want to explore it to the fullest by continuing to learn ASL and diving deep into the Deaf world. We learned basic ASL such as "Hello, my name is", fingerspelling, numbers, colors, animals, transportation, 5 w's, direction, states, countries, art, school, school years, vehicles, scenery, clothing, technology, disability, weather, food. Honestly I am proud of almost everything I did this term but I am most proud of all the progress I made in ASL language and the comprehension of it.
For an external event I attended the Children of Peace School to get inside information on the Deaf community and also see how Deaf and hearing kids cooperate in school. I attended the Children of Peace School and had the opportunity to visit two different classrooms, one was kindergarten and the other was 5th grade. When I went to the kindergarten class, I saw hearing kids and Deaf kids and also some hard of hearing kids playing together and communicating with each other. Something I found cool was, when I went to the kindergarten class I got to teach the kids new signs and also they taught me some signs. Then, I went to the 5th grade class and got to see them practice their signing and they even had a special time where they practice their speech. When it was time to practice their speech, I loved seeing how the teacher pushed them to do it well and strives for them to have successful speech.
One person that inspired me this term was my ASL teacher Thomas because of the stories he told. He told us how he had to speak, even though he was Deaf until he was 25 because he was never supported to learn sign language. I also found him inspirational because he is so nice and funny and I view deafness differently now because of him. After talking to Thomas, I don't think of deafness as a disability anymore, now I think of a person that is Deaf as normal. He also inspired me by the way he tried and tried to get us to learn ASL even when it got a little stressful he never gave up on us and continued to teach us the best he could. ASL and Thomas has changed my worldview by making me realize that everyone can communicate if you just put in effort and there is nothing wrong with being Deaf.
For the group action project, I found it difficult to work in a group because there was very little communication between group members which made it hard to accomplish anything. One thing I did like was the way we took videos and pictures from FE and put it all together to make a great and successful video. My roles for the group micromentary were interviewer and also editor. In all honesty, I do not feel like I helped much with editing because I only helped a little. But as an interviewer I feel like I got a lot of information and also asked good questions to the guests. I learned a lot but not so much from working in the group but, I learned a lot from the ASL part of the course.
I was able to live another person's life and step into their shoes by breaking the barrier between the Deaf community and the hearing world by learning their language so I can communicate with them. I connected with the culture by talking with deaf students, teachers that teach them, learning about cochlear implants and how the Deaf community feels about the implant.
If the video does not show the captions that I have provided for you, then I suggest you see the video on YouTube.
For an external event I attended the Children of Peace School to get inside information on the Deaf community and also see how Deaf and hearing kids cooperate in school. I attended the Children of Peace School and had the opportunity to visit two different classrooms, one was kindergarten and the other was 5th grade. When I went to the kindergarten class, I saw hearing kids and Deaf kids and also some hard of hearing kids playing together and communicating with each other. Something I found cool was, when I went to the kindergarten class I got to teach the kids new signs and also they taught me some signs. Then, I went to the 5th grade class and got to see them practice their signing and they even had a special time where they practice their speech. When it was time to practice their speech, I loved seeing how the teacher pushed them to do it well and strives for them to have successful speech.
One person that inspired me this term was my ASL teacher Thomas because of the stories he told. He told us how he had to speak, even though he was Deaf until he was 25 because he was never supported to learn sign language. I also found him inspirational because he is so nice and funny and I view deafness differently now because of him. After talking to Thomas, I don't think of deafness as a disability anymore, now I think of a person that is Deaf as normal. He also inspired me by the way he tried and tried to get us to learn ASL even when it got a little stressful he never gave up on us and continued to teach us the best he could. ASL and Thomas has changed my worldview by making me realize that everyone can communicate if you just put in effort and there is nothing wrong with being Deaf.
For the group action project, I found it difficult to work in a group because there was very little communication between group members which made it hard to accomplish anything. One thing I did like was the way we took videos and pictures from FE and put it all together to make a great and successful video. My roles for the group micromentary were interviewer and also editor. In all honesty, I do not feel like I helped much with editing because I only helped a little. But as an interviewer I feel like I got a lot of information and also asked good questions to the guests. I learned a lot but not so much from working in the group but, I learned a lot from the ASL part of the course.
I was able to live another person's life and step into their shoes by breaking the barrier between the Deaf community and the hearing world by learning their language so I can communicate with them. I connected with the culture by talking with deaf students, teachers that teach them, learning about cochlear implants and how the Deaf community feels about the implant.
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