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Wednesday, September 01, 2004

Who should be teaching ASL?

I have my own opinion on this issue.. I feel that it's a position only the Deaf can do best to bring the accurate information to students. However it's unfortunate that so many hearing people feels or think they are qualified to teach Deaf's language to other hearing people because they know the language..

Whenever I meet a hearing person and they announce that they teaches ASL class, it makes me irritate that they are taking jobs from Deaf person to teach our language.. I wish that they would realize that it offers a job to Deaf person and it would serve better purpose for a Deaf person to teach ASL with body language, facial expressions and the "slang" Deaf people use. There are PLENTY of jobs for hearing people but I don't know why they always pick jobs that would serve better for Deaf people..

There is a teacher at college that Bucky is attending.. She's nice lady but I feel that her signing skills isn't qualified for teaching other people. She tends to have other people coming in to help her teach her class such like having Bucky come in her class and give pointers etc. She gets paid but not Bucky.. I get aggravated with that because I felt that she doesn't need to get paid if she has someone else come in and help her with her class and that class would be better taught by a Deaf person.. I admit, I nag Bucky to not help in that class because he's just encouraging her to continue teaching and taking the job from a Deaf person..

I am happy that there are people out there that is truly interested in learning our language but wish they would be able to learn from Deaf person's hands.. I was very happy to meet Vicki (I did a previous post on her) as she's one of the students in that class in college and she's very eager to learn sign language. She wants to learn from Bucky and I. I feel that she's truly interested to learn and she's giving us the opportunity to teach her as well.. I just wish that more hearing people would be like her coming to Deaf people to learn..

Thanks for letting me vent, and post your opinion who should teach ASL? Deaf or Hearing?