As a sophomore at Assumption College, I have taken classes here that have encouraged me to learn more about the world and many different cultures. One class in particular that I really enjoyed and taught me a lot about the deaf culture, is Sign Language.
Sign Language is another form of language in which you are using your hands to communicate with others. Deaf and hard of hearing people use this as a way to talk to others. Sign Language is such an important language because you never know who you will run into someday. For example, say you are working in a hospital and you meet someone who comes in with a serious injury or illness and just so happens to be hard of hearing or deaf. If you are fluent in sign language, you can probably help the nurses and doctors and figure out what the patient is saying. If you do not understand what they are saying, another thing you can do that I learned in Sign Language is to act it out. Acting something out may help them to understand what you are exactly trying to say. When in doubt, act it out!
Not only did I learn basic sign language in this class but I also learned what it is like to be hard of hearing or deaf. One of our homework assignments was to watch a television show with subtitles on and have the sound completely turned off and watch a show with no subtitles and no sound and compare it to what it is like to watch a show with sound on. I will have to say, watching a television show without the sound on even with subtitles is really hard to watch because we are all so used to hearing voices of people. The hardest part was watching the show with no sound and no subtitles. It’s amazing how much a show can change when you aren’t hearing anything. It was much harder to understand how character was feeling emotionally as well.
One other thing that I did for this class was I had to attend a deaf event and observe the deaf community. I decided to go to a deaf church in Providence, Rhode Island. The service was nothing what I expected, in fact it was not even close to what I expected. One thing that really stuck out to me was that there was music being played but the beat was so loud that you could feel it in your body almost like when you go to a concert and you can hear the beat inside you. I thought that since deaf people cannot hear they do this so that they can sing the song but feel the beat inside them. Everybody looked like they were family at this church and it was nice to see everyone interacting with one another in sign language.
Sign Language really is a special and interesting language to learn. When I go home on breaks I always show my parents and sister new words in sign language and they are learning sign language through me which makes me feel really special. I remember I learned a few signs back in elementary school like hello and goodbye and even the pledge of allegiance but this class has gone far and beyond that. I can say after taking this class for a semester I can have a simple conversation with someone. Considering my major is Human Services and Rehabilitation studies I plan on becoming fluent in sign language and learning more about the deaf culture and to hopefully become a hospital social worker because I love to help people and hope to follow in my parent’s footsteps and work in healthcare. I definitely recommend to take this class as it is a completely different classroom setting and is more then just taking notes but actually interacting with the professor. “The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice.” – Brian Herbert
