ASL

I recently read something about people having an idea that hearing people should not teach ASL especially if they're not CODAs or have not been signing their whole lives.

Definitions:

CODA- Child of Deaf Adults

ASL-American Sign Language

1. I think it's offensive that d/Deaf people aren't willing to accept the fact that not everybody perceives the d/Deaf community the same way so our interpretations of ASL and culture will always fail in one way or another in other peoples eyes. When we discuss things like this, there is almost no tact whatsoever in making any comments about hearing people being able to educate us on things that they may or may not see in our culture.

2. When we are learning any sort of language, while it's ideal to learn from somebody that grew up speaking/signing/writing the language, it's not always a choice. I have heard of teachers be forced to teach ASL even though they don't feel they're proficient enough because the department can't afford to throw out another 4 thousand dollars to an independent contractor especially if the teacher is already tenured and has a lot of other classes she teaches for a combination of less money than it'd cost for another professor to come in and teach it. Does that mean her students should assume she can't teach them anything, no. That's just a waste of time and energy but rather we should embrace the people that are willing to put in the effort to teach us what they DO know.

3. ASL was just recently given the respect as a language a few years ago and so when we want people that have signed ASL their whole lives, how do we decide what is classified as ASL and what is not? When did we come up with a definition of the language? Less than 30 years now and so that means anybody over the age of 30 is not qualified because until it was classified as a language, we were not communicating in a language. What does that tell you?

4. There are many deaf adults that sign ASL but they do not understand how ASL is formed or how ASL is a language and why it is a language. Would they be qualified to teach the language if they don't know what makes the language? Just because we can sign it doesn't mean we can teach it.

While we all have opinions, we need to learn how to have tact for people that try to do their best and try to embrace our culture and background as it is. It's hard enough to find people willing to do that without bashing people that try to educate others on something as beautiful as ASL.