AW: Analyzing SignWriting based on writer profile

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
June 15, 2004

Charles Butler wrote:
> I can see the helpfulness of having some sort of basic competency in 
> SW as part of any schooling program in the system.  Dance Writing 
> has been taught at Oberlin Conservatory, and I'm sure that those 
> students have to prove that they are competent in order to have credit 
> on their transcripts.

SW List, and Charles -
Thanks for this discussion. Actually, DanceWriting was a requirement 
for graduation in the Dance Department of the Boston Conservatory of 
Music, from 1976-1986...one decade. I have never heard of the Oberlin 
Conservatory - which you mention above, Charles...For those who are 
writing histories of the writing system, the best place to look for 
those kinds of details is on this web page:

SignWriting History
http://www.SignWriting.org/library/history

or for the mention of the Boston Conservatory:
http://signwriting.org/library/history/hist004.html

We no longer certify teachers in either DanceWriting or SignWriting, 
but there was a time when we had 80 certified teachers in DanceWriting 
and 30 in SignWriting back in the mid-1980's. Certification is a huge 
job and takes an administration office, to keep everyone up-to-date 
with their certification, and as an individual I could not continue 
doing everything...it was different before, when we were at the Boston 
Conservatory, because the certified DanceWriting teachers ran the 
certification process, requiring the teachers to take exams regularly 
to keep their certificate up-to-date...It was an interesting experience 
to run a certification program for a little while, but I personally 
will never do that again...The writing system has to be free to use 
around the world, without restriction, or it will not spread. In 
another decade or so, we will have more literature, and then other 
schools may want to certify their own teachers...but I am leaving that 
for the next generation...

And yes, of course, at the Conservatory, because the Freshman class was 
required to take DanceWriting or they could not graduate, there was a 
grading system established, and some of the students became truly 
amazing in the Shorthand...the DanceWriting Shorthand. I will never 
forget the experiences of training 50 students at one time, to write DW 
Shorthand on special tables, that helped them pull the paper at speed, 
rather than have to turn the page, which would lose too much 
time...There were some students who truly wrote dance at the speed of 
it happening...Of course they probably have forgotten now. Shorthand is 
a skill, and is not the same as Handwriting....and if you do not keep 
up the skill, you lose it.

Shorthand Tables (scroll down on both pages)
http://www.signwriting.org/forums/linguistics/ling005.html
http://www.signwriting.org/library/history/hist006.html

But we have digressed, now, from Stephen's original question!

Val ;-)