The Deaf Way: Perspectives from the International Conference on Deaf Culture

ASL Is Finally Accepted as a Foreign Language in High Schools!

ANN BILLINGTON-BAHL igh schools and universities throughout the United States are ............_ now beginning to incorporate for-credit courses in American Sign Language into their foreign language curricula. Why is this happening now instead of years ago? American Sign Language (ASL) is at least 200 years old and is one of the most commonly used languages in the country. Only during the past twenty years, however, have linguists officially "discovered" ASL as a true language with its own grammatical rules, which are very different from those of English. This is a major breakthrough for deaf people all over the country. How will the students who are taking German or Spanish classes in high school keep up their skills in the years to come? One way is to travel to other countries and experience the cultures there. Those who are taking American Sign Language, however, have a great opportunity to use it right where they are. As a result of the movie Children ofa Lesser God and the Gallaudet protest for a deaf president, more sign language classes are forming than ever before, and enrollments are overflowing. With media exposure, American Sign Language is becoming much more visible. At least once a day you can observe American Sign Language on a TV program or a commercial. Children as young as one to three years old are learning sign language by watching Sesame Street every day. It is time for colleges, universities, and high schools to accept and incorporate American Sign Language into their foreign language curricula. Doing so will greatly help overcome ignorance of the language and culture of deaf people, while at the same time enriching the education of college and high school students. It can also help keep deaf culture alive at a time when so many deaf students are mainstreamed into public schools. If hearing students learn more about our culture and are sensitive to the needs of deaf people, then deaf students will have higher self-esteem and not feel pressured to conform to the hearing culture. Students who are learning American Sign Language are our future doctors, nurses, interpreters, teachers, and parents and siblings of deaf children. If we plant the seeds of good attitude, respect, and advocacy for American Sign Language and deaf culture in their hearts while they are young, our future should look brighter. If they become professionals in deafness, they can become our allies instead of our oppressors. 714 THE DEAF WAY ~ Deaf/Hearing Interaction I have been asked many times why I let hearing students learn our private language and rob us of our superior knowledge of it. My answer is that it is the same as having them learn any other language. I feel it is very important to instill good attitudes in these young people so they will be easier to work with in the future. Young people learn so much more quickly. I foresee a growth in the use of American Sign Language in the years to come because of a more widespread understanding of deafness than existed in the past. Several states (California, Michigan, and Minnesota) have already passed laws recognizing American Sign Language as the language of deaf people and have allowed high school students to take American Sign Language for credit to meet foreign language requirements . Maine and Texas passed resolutions identifying American Sign Language as a foreign language. Iowa recently approved a bill to grant foreign language credit for university courses in ASL. Legislation to accept ASL as the language of deaf people also was passed in Manitoba, Canada. In June 1986, as a result of efforts by the Legislative Coalition for the HearingImpaired , the Minnesota State Board of Education adopted a motion to recognize ASL as fulfilling "modern-classical language requirements." This issue had been triggered two years earlier by a deaf student at the University of Minnesota who asked the university to accept his proficiency in sign language as fulfillment of the foreign language requirement. This deaf student argued that he was already fluent in two languagesASL and English-and should not be required to learn a third. At first his petition was denied. The Scholastic Standing Committee ruled that sign language did not meet three requirements for a language: research potential, a national culture, and syntax. Of course, the deaf student appealed this decision. The university later reversed its position and has begun formulating a curriculum proposal. The University of Minnesota will begin offering ASL as a foreign language in...