Our seventh grade students have embarked on an eight week course in American Sign Language (ASL). They are being introduced to the fundamentals of sign from both a grammatical and a social-historical point of view; with lessons focusing on basic communication (finger-spelling, vocabulary related to social settings and introducing oneself) as well as the origins of ASL, and a look at its place in a predominantly hearing world.

Students are gaining an understanding of ASL as a conceptual language, and how it differs grammatically from spoken and written English. Creativity and critical thinking are promoted, while inviting students to recognize the logic behind iconic signs, and to think of what it might be like to have to communicate in alternative ways to those which they are used to, as hearing members of society.

At the beginning of this course, the seventh graders and their teacher, Ms. Ferretti, helped them come up with signed names for each other. A signed name is often representative of a person’s physical or intellectual characteristics and is given to us by others. Within this context, reference was made to some examples of prominent Renaissance figures, whose names, as we know them, were not their actual birth-names: Lorenzo il Magnifico (was “The Magnificent” son of Cosimo dei Medici) and Rosso Fiorentino (The “Red Florentine”, was born Giovanni Battista, but given his artistic moniker by the Florentine people, because of his fiery red hair). 

Maria Caterina Ferretti, the ASL teacher, has described her experience at WSL as “moving”. “Sharing the experience of sign language with such wonderful, open-minded and creative, critical thinkers leaves me inspired and energized after every lesson.”

“What matters deafness of the ears when the mind hears? The one true deafness, the incurable deafness, is that of the mind.”—Victor Hugo