Interpreters

I was invited to speak with the Lakeview Middle School students during a disabilities program in early December. It was a wonderful opportunity to share information about Deaf and Hard of Hearing students.

I had a group of 40 -45 students with 4 rotations, a total of about 120-150 students that day. I started our session with, introduction of myself and what I do. We then touched on some history of sign language and talked about Gallaudet College.(The only liberal arts college in the world for Deaf students, and it is in the United States.)

Then we talked about sign languages, the differences between ASL (American Sign Language) and S.E.E. (Signing Exact English) and why the public schools us SEE.
Then we did an interesting experiment with earplugs. Depuy donated the earplugs for the experiment! THANK YOU DEPUY! We started the experiment with listening to soft music and
everyone could hear...then we put in our earplugs and listened to the same sound level of music, not many could hear, then by turning up and the volume, the students would raise their hands when they could hear the music, and then we did the same for when the volume was lowered again.

In the next part of the experiment, (earplugs were still in ears) I played soft music for background noise and I began to talk, first, facing them as I explained something, then I would move around the room and as I was explaining I would turn and end up with my back to them ... this simulated what it is like in the classroom with a teacher and background noise (being students talking in the back of the room) or (an extra sound in the room like water running). This brought lots of discussion on what it felt like to that student to be hard of hearing and deaf.

The last part of the experiment, the students took out one earplug and left one in, and then they were to talk to each other. This simulated what it is like to have a hearing aid in one ear and be hard of hearing. Again this brought about much conversation on what it felt like to the students. This experiment help create empathy for the Hard of Hearing and Deaf.

I then shared with the students some famous Deaf and Hard of Hearing actress and athletes. We learned finger spelling and how to sign some simple sentences. It was such a great group of students and the day was a success! Later I received wonderful Thank you letters from some of the students. I LOVE MY JOB!