fascinating lessons in silence
i'm still taking ASL lessons (american sign language). it's slow going, but i'm hoping it pays off in the end. maybe it will make me more marketable in the job search. the woman i met with last week encouraged me to include ASL in my resume's special skills section as soon as i feel proficient enough to converse in it. i think knowing ASL will be invaluable when i start working and seeing clients again. client confidentiality is much harder to uphold if you have a deaf client and have to use a 3rd party interpreter.
***************************
my first exposure to deaf culture happened in grad school. in my multicultural issues in counseling class, we were required to do a stepping-out assignment by experiencing a culture different from our own, presumably to make us aware of the issues in working with clients different from ourselves. so i chose to attend a deaf lecture, part of a series of deaf community events at the university. what an eye-opener it was!
i hadn't realized that there was a whole Deaf Culture (spelled with a capital-D). i have heard that some people perceive some elements of that culture as slightly militant because they're of the mindset that deafness is just like eye color or hair color, and that it shouldn't be seen as a problem in need of correction via cochlear implants. some of them oppose the term "hearing impaired" because it implies a defect.
the deaf lecture also made me think about invisible disability issues--an issue already close to my heart. what fascinated me the most about this experience was how i was in the minority, and yet, because hearing/deafness is invisible, most people there that evening probably assumed i was deaf or at that i knew sign language. instead of having a sign interpreter like at regular functions, the lecture was done in sign language, with one person speaking aloud for those who weren't deaf. more than anything, that made me feel like a minority there. and it made me think about how marginalized people in certain minority groups can feel. i had never reallly given it much thought before that.
and you know how when you arrive at a lecture or auditorium before an event, there are lots of people mingling and talking? this event was so bizarre. because instead of the usual buzz of voices in the lobby, there was an odd hush even though there were people standing around and animatedly interacting by signing.
the clincher though, was this: i was trying to hard to listen to the hearing interpreter speak. but it was a bit annoying because unlike at hearing-oriented events, there was constant, irritating background noise. people kept rustling papers, fidgeting, and opening bag zippers. and a baby kept crying incessantly. normally someone would hush the baby and take him/her outside. but i suppose that since the audience was mostly deaf, no one noticed these things or realized how much they would annoy guests like me who were trying to take in the lecture through their ears as opposed to visually through sign language.
...a fascinating lesson in silence...
