Margaret Korte
Print/Podcast Editor
“For a lot of deaf people, what makes it difficult for them, is that other people don’t know how to speak to them,” social studies teacher Amanda Golby said.
Golby is sponsoring the new American Sign Language (ASL) club, started by a group of freshmen in her social studies classes.
“I had a couple of students interested last semester so we spent that time planning and that sort of thing, and then when we came back in January, is when we really got going,” Golby said. “A couple of students were talking about sign language and ASL in my class. I have a background in ASL from a long time ago, and I myself know signing, and so I was interested [in the idea].”
The club meets on Tuesdays in Golby’s room, Room 293, from 3:30 to 4 p.m. Members focus on teaching the language, as well as exploring the culture behind it.
“It is very student-driven, but their goal is to kind of have a little mini-lesson each time, and then bringing in information about deaf culture as well,” Golby said. “We’ve only had one meeting, and so people are coming to, first, just learn some basics of, you know, how to introduce themselves, and learning how to fingerspell the alphabet.”
“Starting where we are right now, most of the kids who have come to the meeting do not have very much background knowledge in ASL, but we are very much open to people of all levels, so if somebody does know more sign, we would love to have them in the meeting, and really it’s a place to learn, and practice, and that kind of thing,” Golby said.
Golby said after its first meeting, the club had already learned about some aspects of deaf culture: “We already talked about sign names and the significance of sign names in deaf culture: a deaf person is who would give you your sign name, and so we already talked about that, as we are learning even just how to sign, ‘Hi, my name is So-and-So, nice to meet you.’”
Golby said sign language, and ASL specifically, is important to her because of the ability to communicate more effectively. “I think it’s important knowing a language. I’ve run into, several times, deaf people who I’ve been thankful that I know sign language so that I could talk with them.”
“I know one time I was canoeing, and our canoe got stuck, and there was a group of other canoers who were deaf, and there was a group of us I was happy I could sign to them, like, ‘we need help,’ and talk to them about what we needed,” Golby said.
“I love it. I always have a hard time learning auditory languages, so I’ve always found this language fascinating too, in addition to wanting to be able to talk to more people,” Golby said.
Overall, the club is open to members of any level of experience with ASL.
Golby said, “We would love to have more people coming in. If you know ASL or if you don’t know ASL, we’d love to have you.”
Public domain feature graphic is from Wikimedia Commons.
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Margaret Korte–Print/Podcast EditorThis will be Margaret Korte’s third year on ECHO staff. She made several contributions while taking journalism class her freshman year. |
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