Mentor Meeting

I met with my mentor, and it was amazing. After school, last Wednesday, I met with a sign language interpreter here in Midland and she shared with me so much phenomenal information. She gave me work book pages with different common signs to learn, as well a link to a cool website that quizzes you on different common signs (http://www.aslpro.com/).

Along with different ways to learn, she taught me a little about the history of American Sign Language. The two important people who brought sign language to the U.S. were Thomas Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc. Thomas Gallaudet's neighbor was deaf, and he wanted very badly to communicate with her, so he went on a search for sign language. He traveled to Spain, where sign language was prominent, but they wouldn't share the art with him, so he left for France. While in France, he met Laurent Clerc, who shared the art with Thomas. Laurent and Thomas traveled back to the U.S. and began teaching ASL.

My mentor also taught me a lot about the deaf community in Midland, which she is very in touch with. She shared with me some different social events that the deaf community have, with the hope that once I know more than the ABC's and common phrases, I will be able to attend with her.

This meeting got me so pumped. I have some homework to do before my next meeting with my mentor (scheduled tentatively for after spring break), but I  could not be more excited to do it. For once in my life I am actually excited to do homework! This is what learning should be like: fun, exciting, engaging, and entertaining. I'm very thankful for this project. It is allowing me to help explore my love and desire for learning and is making me feel like a little first grader who wakes up excited and ready to learn new things!

As a parting little gift, I'd like to share two things:

• First, a quote from Helen Keller my mentor shared with me: When Helen was asked if she'd rather be deaf or blind, she stated that she'd rather be blind because, "Blindness separates people from things; deafness separates people from people."

While on my pursuit of knew knowledge, I hope to carry this quote with me always. It will serve as some motivation for me and I believe that it will help me be able to relate to the deaf community just a little bit better.

• Second, a video shared with me on Facebook by my sweet cousin, Jenny. The video is of a deaf man and his amazing town. Several of his neighbors took the time to learn common signs to try and make his day, which I most certainly think they did:

This video just shows how nice people truly are. I hope to make someone's day with sign language, like others did in this video!

Until next time (and I'm back from India!),

Piper