ASL 101-01
Take Home Mid-Term
Essay
By
William Burkhalter
In an effort
to write the best essay possible, I first sat down and tried to figure out what
to write about within the parameters of American Sign Language (ASL) that would
be informative, engaging, and interesting. Then I threw away ten or fifteen half-finished
pieces of paper and decided to do what has always worked best for me, writing
from the heart and hoping that the paper shows the passion for the subject that
I am writing about.
This essay asks, what I think is a
fundamental question that should be asked whenever anyone undertakes a new way
of doing things, especially trying to tackle a new language. It asks “what is the best thing about this class, my
progress in it, and why?” While taking great pains to avoid the “please the
teacher channel” one would be hard pressed to find a more poignant example of
why this class is as enjoyable or as successful as it is without looking to the
teacher.
My first experience with ASL was purely by chance. As an Air
Force member for nine years, my first assignment was in the Washington D.C.
area. During that assignment I was routinely assigned to present the colors at
corporate and educational events during the national anthem. On one such
occasion in 2002 I was sent to a college in town called Gallaudet University. Prior
to leaving my team was told nothing except that this was to be a color team
like any other. After arriving, it became quickly apparent that this school was
different though we couldn’t put a finger on why. All we noticed was that it
was the quietest place I had ever been. Long story short, while preparing for
the event, one of my team made a comment quietly to another. While I didn’t hear
this comment, I was approached a few moments later by our point of contact and
asked if I wouldn’t mind telling my team that this was a university for deaf
and hard of hearing and that it wasn’t uncommon for the staff and students to
have the ability to read lips from some distance. The woman was never impolite
or unprofessional, but rather just gentle in the way you might address a child
who had no idea what he was doing. I remember thinking that this was an
incredible adaptation and ability that would serve anyone well. Thus began my
fascination with sign language, deaf culture and the psychology involved in
both. After transferring to Clackamas Community College this past summer, and
realizing that I still needed a foreign language to attain my transfer degree, I
glumly started looking at the catalogue. Low and behold, there was ASL staring
me in the face….i was hooked.
Now, I, personally have three full semesters of the same Spanish
class under my belt, and not a passing grade to show for it. But in hind sight, I believe the problem was
in the methodology of teaching it as much as it was the difficult nature (for
me at least) of the subject material. These other instructors, while trying
their best to teach an overflowing classroom had taken on the saying “you can
lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink” and changed it to “you
can lead a youth to knowledge, but you cannot make him think” and for good
measure they learned, too late to do any good, that you can drown him in the
process of trying to make him think.
Professor Carl approaches us from a peer mentality, even
though his knowledge is vastly a superior to our own, at least in this early
stage, and teaches with a style and sense of humor that turns a two hour and twenty
minute class into, what feels like a thirty minute experience where you leave
with your sides hurting form laughing so hard and not until the next day do you
find that everyone is looking at you funny because as you talk to people you’re
making the signs as well completely unconsciously.
As to my progress in this class, I have to admit that while I
am growing in sign language slowly, the basic intuitiveness and easy leaning
environment are making my progress astounding by my own relatively conservative
standards. More than once, I’ve woken myself up from a dead sleep by trying to
sign in a dream and realizing that my special borders were way too far off and
accidentally bumping my girlfriend. She was, as you can imagine none too
thrilled with this initially until I explained why it was that I was doing it
and then she, reluctantly, forgave me and went back to sleep.
In closing, I find that the mixture of welcoming environment,
intuitive structure, and general interest in ASL has led, dramatically, to my
growing love of this means of communication as well as my desire to continue
learning well after this class ends. I firmly believe that every American should
be required to speak a language other than that of his birth anyway, but in my
case, to not only learn another language but another entire way of
communicating (manually instead of verbally) is a skill that I believe can only
provide benefit and a rarified skill to any business professional or human
being in general. It is my ardent hope, that this class becomes not only the
gateway to a new way of communicating, but a new way of thinking and
approaching life as a whole. Thank you.
