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152 Mary Ruth Summers The Deaf Person’s Guide to Teaching ASL There is no such thing as a sure destiny. That longing look you see in the mirror looks back at you in your classroom of diverse souls participating in their own movement . Avoid looking for gray hair in the mirror and reaching for the tweezers because you’d have no hair left. On the other hand, those puffy teenagers are staining their hair with blue, pink, and red hues but not marking an inch in their faces. One day, a bee will come in through an open door looking for pollen. Their faces change then. That’s it, you tell them. That’s how you look when you sign “danger.” They smile like a best friend on a carousel then contort their faces again at the unwelcome visitor. Bees coexist to provide us honey and we provide them flowers, you say. It is a mutual existence. They look puzzled. You will need to get a mirror inside your classroom. They can see their faces when they react naturally. They are not in science, they say. Science, you wonder. You humor them. You drop the subject. Your aide tells you he is frightened of bees. He stands in the corner and you eye him suspiciously. Your aide can sign. He tells you the story about how he was locked into a room that had a broken window next to a tree with a beehive at his grandmother’s house in Mexico. His brother tried to get the door to open but it was jammed. He says he is lucky to be alive because he was stuck in that room for two hours. Is he is allergic to bees? No, he says. It was just a bad memory that comes up when he sees a bee. One tall glass of water comes up to you with a class change form. He wants to take Spanish. His thick hair is combed neatly in a flawless cut without the visible lines of a bad barber. He is always signing to you, “I hungry. I want hamburger.” His eye gaze is following the girl who is leaving for Spanish too. She had trouble with squinting her eyes or nodding her head. She is wearing a racy dress. Her dark brown mane falls down to her soft chest and her lips are painted fire red. Though his eyes do, her eyes do not meet yours in this exchange. Can she talk? the girl asks the interpreter. The interpreter signs everything. You ignore her question. Can she lip-read? the boy asks the interpreter. Roll your eyes like you always do. Reiterate to them that it is irrelevant. Look at the clock. The boy is looking at the girl’s lips and back at you. You sign their change forms and they leave. Main_Pgs_1-330.indd 152 3/28/2012 10:24:53 AM Mary Ruth Summers 153 The bee has landed somewhere. The kids are not forgetting it. They are restless in their seats. There it is, one exclaims. It hovers back in the air. Tell them that the bee will not bother them. They’ll look at you in wonder. They think you are smart if you made it this far. You look smart not because of what comes out of your mouth. A chubby girl in front constantly looks inside her bag at her cell phone. She is not paying attention to you. She looks up wide-eyed because you pause in your instruction. She exudes a big grin and nervously looks at you. You remind her to put her bag under the seat. She hesitates. Her square-shaped bag has purple, red, yellow horizontal lines. Wait a few seconds. She is wasting your time. She finally sets it down on the floor. She mumbles something that the interpreter cannot decipher. Don’t pursue it. Simply continue. She will not learn the signs today. She is pouting. Class gets dismissed. It is lunch. Your interpreter is a good one today. You are not always that lucky. She was born into a deaf family. Her ASL is the one that matches yours and not the ones that are taught by hearing “know-hows” who are actually hearing “don’t-know-shit” and they are sent to work for you. They are there to take the taxpayers’ money for what little they know. They do not have any deaf friends so their communication is...

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