Sign language

Just checking my email before going to dinner with Bill (I'm treating him because he was so wonderful letting me stay at his place for about half of the month of August), and I thought I'd pop in and write a little something.

Tonight I had two classes. I was late to Academic Spanish because I had to be in the office while someone came to look at a malfunctioning printer. I know that I should put my classes before work, but I have that annoying sense of responsibility that messes up my priorities sometimes.

Then I had Foundations of Bilingual/Bicultural Education, and today's lecture was about deaf education as bilingual education. It was pretty amazing. We had a deaf guest lecturer who signed the entire lecture and had two interpreters. I feel like I should learn sign language. Shouldn't everyone learn it? I feel like it's my duty to society. (Is that the same sense of responsibility that keeps me at work longer than I need to be there?) Just think of all the cool deaf people I haven't gotten to know because I don't know sign language! And what if I get a deaf student in a class? And what if I don't? I could still teach hearing people some sign language. And it could be a secret language you could share with someone across larger distances!

At one point in the lecture, we had to discuss some statistics about the large percentage of parents who do not sign with their deaf children. When I said to my partner, a girl from China in my program, "Why wouldn't a parent want to learn a language to communicate with their child?" she said, "You can use other ways of communicating." But you can't have in-depth communication through just lip-reading, writing, and gestures. I said, "Well, if I had a deaf child I would learn sign language." And she said, "Well, you'd better not. You'd better not have a deaf child." I said, "But it could happen." I said, "We should all learn sign language." And she said, "That would make the deaf people happy."

I thought that was a little strange.