Woohoo! I have been really looking forward to this week because I LOVE social emotional learning (SEL) and believe it needs to be integrated in every classroom. I think that so many problems and behavioral issues in the classroom can be solved or even prevented with the use of social emotional learning. With SEL, students learn to communicate their feelings in a variety of ways, and so often student’s feelings (regardless of being deaf or not) are communicated through body language. A lot of the research I have come across shows that integrating ASL into early childhood education or early elementary schools “promotes early communication, reduces frustration and temper tantrums, develops gross and fine motor skills, encourages early decision making, develops the brain, and increases processing skills” (Education and Behavior, 2020). It made me wonder (as I go into practicum with grade 6), will middle schoolers be willing to take on using some ASL to communicate if I initiate and model it in the classroom myself? I guess there is one way to find out…

For my resource video, I am returning to Meredith from last week because, well, she’s awesome!

So many great signs in this video!

Learning these signs was a little bit of a challenge because there are so many, and some use similar gestures! I am really excited to be learning to use them though, because (as I say in my video), I think these signs will be very useful for not only me understanding the feelings of deaf students, but to try and encourage nonverbal students or any students to use these symbols. I have an idea to try and use this in the morning as a check-in to see how students are doing… I think it could work!

  • Good
  • Bad
  • Sad
  • Mad
  • OK
  • So-so
  • Confused
  • Frustrated
  • Happy
  • Proud
  • Excited
  • Busy
  • Tired
  • Exhausted
  • Nervous
  • Worried
  • Surprised
  • Bored (nervous to introduce this one to middle schoolers-haha!)
I apologize for the vertical video! The file was too large to upload on its own so I had to go for Youtube. Next time will be horizontal I promise!

I found a cool photo I wanted to share below of a way some people have made masks that are more friendly for signing or generally expressing emotion. I have mentioned a few times in my videos that facial expressions are so important when signing, and these incredible homemade masks are a way to ‘differentiate’ if you will to suit the needs of the deaf and young children who rely on facial expressions for learning SEL.

Here is an Etsy site selling clear face masks. I wonder how many teachers were able to get their hands on some of these (especially those working with the deaf community or young children). It is a shame they are so expensive!

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

Finally, I came across another great video about the Dos and Don’ts of interacting with the deaf community by Chrissy.TruBiz! One thing it has really given me to think about is not to act as a teacher of ASL when I am absolutely a student. I was never going to try and do this, but it has made me even more mindful that if I (optionally) integrate any ASL symbols into my class, that I should make a disclaimer about myself learning ASL and also provide resources from the deaf community for my students if they are interested in learning more. It is so true that the deaf community has a long history of being oppressed and I would never want to appropriate deaf culture or diminish their experiences through my own privilege of being able to hear. This is such an important topic and I think I will do some more research and chat about it more in my next post!

Thank you for stopping by! Please feel free to leave a comment, I would love to hear your thoughts!

Ms. J