Children to children -letters?

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
July 3, 2003

On Thursday, July 3, 2003, at 03:09 PM, Angus B. Grieve-Smith wrote:
> Maria, I think that for your pen-pal idea to work, you'd either
> have to have ASL classes in Malta or Maltese Sign classes in the US.  I
> think it'd be great for the kids at Hodgin to take classes in another
> sign
> language, but try getting that through the educational bureaucracy...

Ha! The irony to this is that SignWriting is taught and used at Hodgin,
without ever being an official part of the schools' curriculum...We
have written approval from the administration to use SignWriting there,
but on the other hand, the educational bureaucracy has never officially
incorporated it or even acknowledged it ...It is left up to the
individual teachers...if they want to use it, they can, but no one is
forcing them to do so...So that means that the teachers really want to
use SignWriting, since it is not required of them, and it sure feels
good to see they continue to use it year after year...and new teachers
are now starting...

So since the SignWriting education is already on such a relaxed basis,
there is nothing stopping the teachers from encouraging a pen pal
club...it would give the children a positive project, and if nothing
more, the effort they make to write in their own language will be the
skills they will take with them as adults...so even if they can't read
the letters from Malta, they can at least have a reason to write to
someone - smile - and that will help their own writing skills...

  Val ;-)