Interesting post at the D&C Henrietta blog
Peter Boulay has an interesting post up at the Henrietta blog about American Sign Language in Henrietta schools:
Tomorrow night at the Henrietta School Board’s meeting there will be a decision made removing ASL (American Sign Language) from the Middle School level of options for students and dropping it to be just an elective in the High School ranks.
Now, I know that public schools are getting pressures from a million different directions. And I know that there are only a limited number of things that a school can require or offer. But I do think that the high proportion of people who speak ASL in Rochester is one of the things that makes the area special, even unique (we did a post about this a while back).
I generally avoid relating anecdotes from my life here — that sort of thing is probably best left to Tom Tobin — but you’ll have indulge me tonight….The other day I was getting a coffee at the Starbucks on Mt. Hope near Elmwood and there were two young women there speaking in sign language to each other. One of them was hearing-impaired and the other wasn’t. An Aretha Franklin song was playing and the one who wasn’t hearing-impaired was swaying a bit to the music. Her friend asked what the song was saying (or something like that — I don’t know since I don’t speak ASL) and her friend sang to her “that’s what I’m gonna do” (lyrics from the song) while signing these words to her. I don’t know why but I found this very sweet and touching.
Don’t change that URL, your usual (cynical, angry) blogging will resume shortly.
Related posts:
I used to use ASL with my autistic son before he was verbal. I taught him to say “mommy” with his hands because he couldn’t enunciate clearly. I bought an ASL children’s video and taught my entire family the rudimentary signs. Think I never use it? The other day at Wegman’s in Chili, the cashier turned out to be deaf and mute and she was trying to tell a customer behind me something. Because I had used that video I was able to do a rudimentary translation and later thanked the cashier in sign language. I always try to go through her line when she works because we’re both New England sports fans, and we know this because we can communicate. Nothing wrong with relating real life anecdotes because that’s how you reach people.
It is amazing how many people in Rochester speak ASL. I’m glad that ASL has helped you communicate with your son and we all hope he is doing well.