teaching the kids

[Kimberley Shaw]

Wow, thank you for sharing further details! I am so glad that people are now
"meeting in the middle" so much more in education, and realizing that
knowing how to sign isn't going to steal away all of a person's
English-learning abilities, but contrarily, can enhance them.
Strong person, you, to persevere despite such teachers!
It will be exciting to see the longterm results of the New Mexico,
Nicaragua, and German programs.
Best,
Kim

On 1/14/07, Valerie Sutton <signwriting at mac.com> wrote:
>
> SignWriting List
> January 14, 2007
>
> Kim -
> That would be an appropriate question about the kids in Albuquerque,
> New Mexico, who learned SignWriting officially for a period of years,
> in elementary school...they are now in Middle School...and the same
> question could be asked of James Shepard Kegl about the kids who
> learned SignWriting for years in Nicaragua, or to Stefan, whose
> students have learned SignWriting for years in Germany...
>
> but regarding the children who were introduced to SignWriting by me,
> for exactly ONE hour only, back in 1977...I never saw them again! And
> their teachers were angry to be interrupted by this weird woman who
> wanted to see if ASL-signing Deaf students, who were in a special
> class because their English skills were low, would take to writing
> ASL quickly or not...Their signing skills were high according to the
> principal...it was just their second language English which was a
> problem as it would have been for me too, if I were in those
> student's positions...
>
> The success was so obvious in just one hour, that it truly astonished
> me, and disappointed me, to see how angry the teachers were...they
> believed in presenting English without ASL...let alone writing
> it...this was back in 1977 when ASL was just becoming more
> accepted...and while they saw the excitement in the students...they
> were actually jealous of the attention I got...and I would also like
> to note that they were all hearing and did not necessarily know ASL
> themselves...so the teachers would have been at a disadvantage too,
> because they would have had to learn SignWriting to keep up with the
> class themselves...so how could they even consider teaching something
> they did not know themselves?
>
> Complicated psychology...But that was way back in 1977...
>
> Mainly the point is that even within one hour, signing Deaf children
> can become inspired by SignWriting...I am so happy that Cherie and
> Donna had that experience two days ago!
>
> And it was that first experience for me, that gave me the courage to
> continue working with SignWriting...I could see there might be some
> value someday, for someone in the world...
>
> Val ;-)
>
>
>
>
> Kimberley Shaw wrote:
> > Hello Val:
> > out of curiosity ... do you have any way of knowing what these now
> > grown-up kids are doing these days?
> > Any of them still use SW?
> > -- Kim from Boston
> >
> >
> > I presented SignWriting to ASL Deaf kids in New Hampshire in 1977,
> > for exactly one hour...they were writing in SignWriting all over the
> > board themselves, before I barely had a chance to start!
>
>
>
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