Also to let you know that a friend of ours taught Jon how to sign "bullshit", which has delighted J no end. The friend has a cochlear implant, which were just getting discussed when I was getting my degree, so I have to keep restraining myself from asking to poke and stare at his head.
Instead of replying to you I totally just posted this as a separate comment...I'm awesome.
I know how you feel, I couldn't stop staring the first time I saw one. My teacher brought hers into class and stuck it on the dry erase board to show us the magnets. It was weird. I have yet to see anyone that has them actually wear them. I know its a HUGE hot button in Deaf culture. I had to right my research paper on them for my ASL 201 class last semester. If you ever want to see a good Documentary about it there is a film called "The Sound and the Fury"
I think I may have seen it for my Speech & Hearing Sciences classes. It was weird going into those classes as a Linguistics student. It didn't help that there were a LOT of sorority girls in those classes who had their hearts in the right place but were probably not up to thinking about more overreaching global issues, if you know what I mean. So they were approaching the deafness as a disablity that needed to be fixed, but because I had the theoretical language background, I understood how ASL would define a culture and what might happen if that were challenged. Jon and I argue about it sometimes. I think I would like to re-watch the first film and see if the second one is on Netflix, because I haven't seen it.
Some people still do view deafness as something that be "overcome" or "fixed" an they see the implant as a way to "cure" being deaf. Most deaf people are very if not fiercely proud of being deaf and don't see it as a problem at all. Some consider it an honor to be deaf because they know that the Deaf culture has such a rich history and tight knit feeling. ASL has been an amazing class and I have learned so much from all my teachers about Deaf culture and a lot about the history of the Deaf community. There is a book called " A place of our own" I don't know who wrote but it give the back story about the founding of the first deaf school in the US and up to the founding of Galludet. Its a good book if you want to learn about deaf culture. They have an unofficial "Deaf Day" at Disneyland in March. I ran into them one year by small world when we were there on vacation, it was so cool to see the like 50 different groups of people hanging out and signing.
I know how you feel, I couldn't stop staring the first time I saw one. My teacher brought hers into class and stuck it on the dry erase board to show us the magnets. It was weird. I have yet to see anyone that has them actually wear them. I know its a HUGE hot button in Deaf culture. I had to right my research paper on them for my ASL 201 class last semester. If you ever want to see a good Documentary about it there is a film called "The Sound and the Fury"
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Also to let you know that a friend of ours taught Jon how to sign "bullshit", which has delighted J no end. The friend has a cochlear implant, which were just getting discussed when I was getting my degree, so I have to keep restraining myself from asking to poke and stare at his head.
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I know how you feel, I couldn't stop staring the first time I saw one. My teacher brought hers into class and stuck it on the dry erase board to show us the magnets. It was weird. I have yet to see anyone that has them actually wear them. I know its a HUGE hot button in Deaf culture. I had to right my research paper on them for my ASL 201 class last semester. If you ever want to see a good Documentary about it there is a film called "The Sound and the Fury"
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