Author: jamieb12 (Page 1 of 2)

Wow, I can’t believe it is already the end of the semester! This has been an incredible learning journey and even though the semester is coming to a close, I plan on continuing learning ASL and hopefully engaging in some real classes, rather than me teaching myself online. I hope you enjoy my final reflection!

This inquiry project started from a point of thinking about accessibility and creating an inclusive learning environment for all learners. I have been wanting to learn ASL for some time now, so when this project was introduced, I knew exactly what I wanted to dive into. Now, I knew that this learning would be barely scratching the surface… but everyone has to start somewhere, right? From starting with the alphabet to learning more about deaf culture, I have covered a fair bit of ground this semester. Check out my video below for a little montage of my learning basic signs!

I think when I began this project, I envisioned myself simply watching Youtube videos and learning a lot of signs, but partway through I realized that I was missing something incredibly important-learning about deaf culture! It is true of so many things we learn about in teaching-everything needs context! So my question to myself was: who was I to be learning ASL without learning about deaf culture and from those who really are deaf? This led me down an awesome avenue of watching Ted Talks and following deaf You-tubers to listen about their experience. Even my Tik Tok algorithm has lots of ASL showing up!

Initially, I wanted to learn ASL to have some signs on-hand that I can use if I ever have a deaf student. Although I still believe this is true and something I want to pursue, I had this realization that the context and doing the research into deaf culture and the history of oppression is an even more important starting point to have a more inclusive mindset that can be translated into the classroom. If we do not have any sympathy for some of the struggles our diverse students have, then how are we ever supposed to help them feel included? I feel like this realization translated to more than just my inquiry, and helped to put things in perspective for how I want to be in my classroom and how I want to form relationships with my students.

Another thing I have been reflecting on is how deaf culture can be represented in the classroom so anyone who is deaf can feel welcome and included. I plan on tracking down an ASL alphabet chart to have in my classroom and trying to be mindful of how I deliver instruction and what accommodations to make for my students. Visuals are always a good go-to for students, and now I must keep in mind that having different methods for delivering instructions (verbal, visual, written etc.) is also important. During my research, I had a really fun time seeing how the deaf community is getting more representation in mainstream media. Audible was a great movie on Netflix that I reviewed in my last post, and CODA is a movie about deaf people WITH deaf actors that just won an Oscar! I remember my parents watching it and loving it-so I am going to need to find out which service it is offered on! I will. put the trailer below.

Ultimately, this inquiry project has been a great learning experience and I feel like I took away a lot from it! Not only that, but I plan on continuing to learn ASL (and hopefully enrolling in a class of some kind to hold me accountable for that goal)! I mean, how awesome would it be for me to have a deaf student in my class and be able to communicate freely with them? With this in mind, I am going to list some of my favourite Youtube channels, Ted Talks, and resources I have found that have enhanced my learning journey. Thank you again for this opportunity for learning and growth! Onto the next learning adventure… practicum!

Youtube Channels/Videos

• Sign Duo
• Chrissy
• Learn How to Sign
• Take Lessons
• ASL Meredith

Ted Talks

• Protecting and Interpreting Deaf Culture, Glenna Cooper
• Making Education Accessible to Deaf Children, Nyle MiMarco

THANK YOU!

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

Ms. J

As promised, I am starting with a reflection on the Netflix movie “Audible” (shoutout to Alex for the recommendation). Wow, this was an incredibly powerful film. From dealing with feelings of isolation in non-deaf society to processing trauma, this movie pulled at my heartstrings. It is all about the students at Maryland School for the Deaf and their experience in high-school losing a friend to suicide after he was incessantly bullied in the public school for being deaf. I highly recommend this film because it truly highlights the struggle in living as a deaf person in a hearing community. One of the scenes that struck me most was when the main character, Amaree, was sitting at the table with his whole family who were all chatting and laughing (but nobody was signing, although it should be mentioned that his mother knows some ASL). Amaree gets up and leaves the table and goes back to his room, where he signs how lonely it feels sometimes, being the only deaf person in the family. I can’t imagine what that would feel like.

Another takeaway I had from the movie was just seeing how tight-knit the school community and football team were. In the movie, they talk about how a lot of hearing teams don’t want to play their team because they don’t like losing to a deaf team (Maryland School for the Deaf has an incredible football team). This reminds me about earlier posts where one of the Ted Talk speakers spoke about the harmful misconception of deaf people being less capable than hearing people. Finally, my last takeaway was hearing about Amaree’s nerves for graduating high school and moving out into the hearing community. Even the football coach signed about how difficult he feared it would be for his players. I think it just further reinforced my reflecting and thinking about how in many ways, our world is not inclusive of the deaf, and how that needs to change.

So where is Amaree now? The last I could find online, Amaree graduated from Maryland School for the Deaf in 2020 and lives in Indiana, attending the Community College of Baltimore County. Another interview I found with Amaree quotes him saying, “I want to say something to Black people. I want you to be yourself and find your own identity. Don’t follow other people… I’m trying not to say “the white system,” but don’t try so hard to fit in. Stay with your upbringing, where you came from, your environment, your hood, whether it is with the white community or the Black community, anything, just be yourself”.

Well, it’s a bit of a shorter post for me this week, but it is, unfortunately, the capacity I had! I truly loved this movie and did a lot of thinking about it. I also found out that it was an Oscar nominee for the best short documentary film! Go check it out on Netflix!

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

Ms. J

Thinking about the weekly topics I planned on doing in my first post compared to where my weekly topics have evolved is quite interesting! Last week, I kind of had the realization that I jumped straight into learning ASL signs before researching the context of deaf culture and learning from deaf people themselves. This week, I want to do more of a combination… since starting this inquiry project, the algorithms on my tech devices know that I am interested in deaf culture and learning ASL, so those kinds of videos have been appearing on my Tik Tok ‘for you’ page, my Youtube recommendations, and on my other social media platforms. In some cases, that tracking and listening that my phone does is quite creepy, but in this case it has actually been quite useful!

Get ready for a mish-mash of different things for my blog post this week… we’ve got Youtube videos, we’ve got a Netflix movie, and we are going back to learn helpful ASL signs for the classroom… let’s go!

First up, we have a video I found on Youtube by Sign Duo. This is a couple that both sign ASL, but the man is deaf and the woman can hear. I discovered one of their videos (that I will link below) that shows how they order at a drive-thru. It is one of those things that I would never have had a second-thought about… mostly because of my privilege to hear. All of these videos and research I have been doing have definitely raised my awareness of accessibility and what so many people deal with in an (at-times) inaccessible world. The couple start off by discussing an experience where they tried out ordering at a drive-thru window and were treated terribly. The workers did not believe the man was deaf and actually wouldn’t give him his food. It is quite heartbreaking to see how he is treated, but also really important to see what he goes though! In the video, he signs that this is the reason why he doesn’t like to go out in public by himself, because this is often typical treatment he receives. At the beginning of the video, he talks about how much easier everything would be for him if everyone knew even a few basic ASL signs-which is exactly what I aim to do! They also talk about Skillshare which I have heard of before, and I am considering signing up to see what it is all about! I am thinking that it might provide me with some more structure for learning ASL than what I have been doing online.

Another video I watched created by the same couple shows a good experience they had while ordering at Starbucks. It was a good redemption video to the other viral video and restored some of my faith in humanity. I am going to put some of my key takeaways below.

• Drive-thru windows should have an accessibility button. In both videos, the man (Ryan) has to drive straight past the order window because there is no accessibility. Especially for these multi-million/billion corporations, this should be an easy fix.
• There should be mandatory trainings for staff (not just at restaurants, but anywhere you interact with people) on accessibility and the procedure for when you encounter someone who may need accommodations.
• Basic ASL should be taught in schools at all grade levels! If this was normalized, this would be a more comfortable and inclusive world for the deaf.

Next up, we actually have a movie that Alex recommended to me after reading one of my blog posts! Shout out to Alex for not only making the movie recommendation but for also purchasing some of the accessible masks I wrote about in one of my previous posts! Now that the mask mandate has been lifted, I am waiting to see what the school environment will be like for practicum before buying masks. From what I gather, most educators are planning to continue wearing their masks, in which case I will definitely order some accessibility masks prior to starting my practicum! Anyways, the movie Alex recommended tome is on Netflix and it is called ‘Audible’, check out the trailer below!

So I haven’t quite had the time to actually watch the film yet (Wednesday came faster than I anticipated, but I plan on doing so over the next couple of days and will be writing about it in next week’s blog post). I am mostly putting it here for now in case others are interested, and I will be writing my reflection on this piece as soon as I watch it! I am excited! The trailer already makes me think about my last blog post and how in one of the Ted Talks, the man talks about going to public school and being excluded from sports teams because of being deaf. I am excited to see what I learn from watching this film!

Alright, so we are back this week to learning some more signs and re-learning some that I have been slacking on practicing. Something that I have noticed, though, is that I have been picking up different signs and words in ASL from just watching people sign and watching these Youtube videos! I mean it makes sense, the same thing happens when you are immersed in a different verbal language. I think that sometimes I separate ASL from other languages when this is wrong and not the case at all. As I have said before and learned, ASL is it’s own unique language with different syntax and culture behind it! Below I am going to put some of the resources I have found useful this week, and I will be encompassing many of these signs in a self-recorded video for next week. Thanks for following along!

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

Ms. J

This week’s topic that I planned out since week 1 aligns well with the accessibility lesson from last week! Last week we focused on a broad scale of how to utilize accessible technology for neurodiverse students, and I want to know general ways to differentiate or make learning more accessible for deaf students in my classroom. As much as I love learning ASL and will continue to practice, I am nowhere near fluency (yet), and I want to be prepared for how to create an inclusive classroom for all students. Below, I am going to put some resources I have found/used as well as some of my key takeaways!

This Ted Talk by Nyle DiMarco is a really interesting insight into the experience of a deaf person who primarily attended deaf schools and his experience of attending public school for a year in grade 5. Nyle was born deaf, and talks about how he never knew anything different, and comes from a family with a history of deafness. Nyle talks about how he had a great experience in his deaf school growing up, but when he began attending public school, everything shifted for the worst. Not only was it difficult for him to interact socially with other students (who did not know how to sign), but teachers treated him differently and excluded him from activities and sports. This heartbreaking story illustrates the harm of isolating a student for any reason, or assuming they are not capable of achieving the same things as hearing students. Furthermore, Nyle talks about visiting deaf schools later on in life, and being shocked by the lack of resources and quality of education. Nyle urged the audience to advocate for better funding of deaf schooling, to better support the deaf community and provide accessibility to equal education.

One of my takeaways from this Ted Talk is another aspect of accessibility that I have not spent a lot of time thinking about. As much as I have learned and spent time thinking about accessibility of integrating students into the public school environment and advocating for accessible resources and tech use, I hadn’t really considered the importance of having other options for students when the public school environment is not beneficial for them. If there was better funding for deaf schools and they could hire great teachers to sign, is that not an equally as important form of accessibility? Obviously I agree that students should be welcomed and given the tools to achieve in any environment, but I do wonder what might accompany having more deaf schools and resources in that aspect available? Would deaf students receive a better quality education? Would this foster a more comfortable learning environment? Or could this potentially become isolating where deaf students and hearing students have minimal interaction? I am honestly curious to know because I do think the ideal situation is for a deaf student to have an interpreter and be given all of the resources the need and be held to the same standards as other students… but what if those resources don’t exist in the public school setting? I clearly have more research to do…

WOW! What an amazing talk by Glenna Cooper. Glenna has opened my eyes to the history of the deaf community and the systemic oppression they have faced (continuing to today). Glenna first gives some hilarious insight into deaf culture, specifically the bluntness of their speech. I have heard this before, but the ways she talks about it is too funny. She insists that hearing people are incredibly polite, and would never say something like “you’ve gained weight, are you okay??”. She also talks about how much deaf people like to talk and how they are a bunch of social butterflies with each other! This made me think back to my first post with the interpreter at the rap concert, and how fast that woman was able to sign. I know some people who talk incredibly fast, and I don’t think my hands could ever move that fast-even if I wasn’t signing anything!

Glenna also talks about the dark history of oppression the deaf community has faced. She says that deaf schools and communicating were really normal many years ago but in 1880 there was a conference held that deemed oral education superior to signing and banned all sign language in schools. As a result, deaf students were forced to learn to lip read and make-do with the oral teachings in the schools. As you can imagine, this drastically reduced their education and deaf students were put at a complete disadvantage, and their resulting lack of education was devastating.

There are many things I learned from Glenna’s Ted Talk, but I will list a couple more below:

• ASL is its own complete language with unique phrasing, syntax, and vocabulary. ASL is not based on English and should be thought of as its own completely unique language.
• Long after the ban on ASL, researchers observed the patterns in how deaf people communicated with each other, and ‘discovered’ that they were communicating in their own unique language.

To conclude her Ted Talk, Glenna poses an interesting question: if the ban on ASL in schools in 1880 had never happened, would we all be able to communicate in ASL today? It was so normal and accessible, it makes me think of how it would be beneficial to have it be incorporated in schools as a language to learn, like French or Spanish!

To conclude the post for this week, I am going to link two YouTube videos in a series on how to teach deaf students in an inclusive classroom. I will link part 1 & part 2. Initially, I was a bit skeptical since the videos are 10 years old, but I did learn some important tips for creating a more inclusive classroom environment for deaf students.

1. Address the student directly. Even if the student has an interpreter, it is so important that the teacher addresses the student and talks to them, not solely the interpreter. Don’t ask an interpreter, “can you tell them this…”, it belittles the student and isolates them. Just as we have learned time and time again… relationships, relationships, relationships!
2. Hold deaf students to the same standard as other students. We have learned about this for students with neurodiversitites and how all students should be held to high expectations. Just because a student cannot hear, dow not mean they cannot learn! Deafness is not associated with being any less capable to learn.
3. Get to know your student and their history. Do their parents/home-team use ASL with them at home? What kinds of things do they like? Connect with them!
4. Face the student in the classroom and use facial expressions. Not all deaf students can lip read, but they can read your expressions! Before the school year starts, work with the student, their family, and their interpreter to find the best spot in the classroom for them to sit. It should likely be near the front but not too close, so they can see what is going on with other students in the class.
5. Give think time! It may take a little time for the student to process what another student has said before responding. Don’t be in a rush to assume they do not understand-give them time!

Many of these seem like common sense, but I imagine that when dealing with 30 students, some of the mindfulness of giving the student what they need could be swept under the rug. I think it is a good reminder to take a breath and a moment to remind yourself of who you are in the classroom for and what the priorities should be (the wellbeing of your students)!

Finally, listening to these speakers has given me so much to think about and it makes me think that maybe I jumped into learning signs too quickly, and maybe I should have started with educating myself about deaf culture and the experiences of the deaf community. I feel like this has given me a deeper appreciation for what so many people go through and the struggle to receive the resources and support they need. I think moving forward in this inquiry and beyond, I would like to do a better job of integrating my learning of new signs with articles, Ted Talks, and videos from the deaf community so I can work towards having more mindfulness as I learn more ASL.

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

Ms. J

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!

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 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!

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