Saturday, February 7, 2009

Since starting back to school, I am able to make one of my dreams, hopefully, come true. That is learning to sign. What I mean by that for those who don't know what I am talking about is sign language. It is the ability to talk to the deaf.
I have learned so much in these past three weeks about the language, as well as the cruelty that the deaf have faced. One of the things that they have had to deal with is being labeled dumb. I remember as a child the phrase "deaf and dumb". I thought that saying had gone away. I recently saw a video of a judge cupping is hands over his mouth and screaming at a deaf man in court. As I was watching it, the flow of emotions for the deaf man just broke my heart. What an arrogant man, I have other words for him but I won't use them, to think that by screaming at a deaf man that he would be able to hear. I am sure he could of understood some words if the judge didn't cup his hands and hide his mouth. I have learned that the deaf see more things that the hearing are unaware of. The only way I can describe it would be to say the hearing have tunnel vision and the deaf see the whole world. We play a lot of games in the class to make us aware of our surroundings and the movements that go on around us. As a hearing person, I am not always aware of people moving around me.
To say that a deaf person is dumb is by far incredibly ignorant. I truly believe they are brighter than the hearing. They don't have all the hearing commotion going on around them. They are able to stay much more focused on things. Which leads me to wonder if they have ADD in their community of people. They are constantly having to move limbs in order to communicate. I wonder if it keeps kids calmed down to focus better on their school work. It was just a thought.
One of the other little tid bits I have learned is that the deaf put their whole body into saying something. The face has the most expression. The face and the hands tell a story. For the hearing people, if you just stop and watch a deaf person sign you may actually pick up what they are saying. It all makes sense. Oh yah, I forgot to mention my teacher is deaf.

2 comments:

  1. That must be a pretty cool class. It makes sense. One year at my church a girl signed instead of a dancer dancing (I think the song was called "Gloria"). More people understood and enjoyed the signer than the dancer. It was pretty cool. There's a reason people get away from the noise.

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  2. I took a sign class once and really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I didn't have anyone to sign with, so I didn't retain what I had learned.

    The example you gave of the judge shouting at the deaf man reminds me of how people will shout and speak slowly to people who don't speak English, thereby think that the volumn or speed is what is keeping them from knowing our language. I don't know who I feel more bad for - the deaf/foreign person or the idiot shouting at them.

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