Click here and read...make sure you come back to get my take on this!
Raise your hands if you think the Grand Island school district has LOST their cotton picking minds! Wait...make sure your hands aren't making any shapes that anyone might find offensive...ok, now raise your hands if you think they are nuts!
As a former teacher of deaf/hearing impaired students, I can weigh in on this with a bit more street cred than the usual YBC rant. Name signs are often arbitrary...usually the hand shape for the first letter of a person's name. Sometimes, they have meaning. My name sign was given to me during my fall practicum experience at Tennessee School for the Deaf. I was in with a First Grade classroom and those children were probably some of THE smartest kids I'd ever met. I spelled my name to a certain little boy...wrote it out on paper for him and smiled....he responded with the hand shape for "M" and the right corner of his mouth and smiled back. That's my name....it happens to mean something. A friend of mine from childhood...his name is Shane...his cousin is deaf and Shane's name sign is an "S" hand shape in the bend of the left arm...it has no other meaning other than that's what Russell decided to use for Shane.
The name sign that Hunter's family is using for him is very close to the actual sign for the word "hunter." And maybe that's why they use it. It's not vulgar or obscene. I guess to those unfamiliar with ASL or SEE would see Hunter signing his name and think he's saying something about a gun. Take a look at a roll sheet in the classroom....there are children coming into class with names that have apostrophes were none are needed....names that defy every phonetic rule known to mankind...other names SO unusual that they reek of the parents' need to be different from everyone else.
But the bigger question looms...is this the most pressing thing that the Grand Island School Board has on it's docket? Students are getting high in the bathrooms. Students are cutting at lunch. I'll even bet there are students that don't go home at night...crashing at a friend's house or sleeping on the streets because it's safer than going home. By all means, though...if there's nothing more important, go after the three year old! Good luck with that....the lawyers for the National Association of the Deaf are getting ready to jump in the mix...I'd not take them on for love or money. They have the reputation of being fierce when it comes to this kind of thing...and rightfully so.
Since we're learning about sign language...here's one that the Grand Island powers that be need to know...got a feeling they're going to be seeing it a lot: Make the "peace" sign with your dominant hand. Now place it on your forehead, palm out; tap it twice against your forehead...great! You just learned the sign for "stupid!"
Raise your hands if you think the Grand Island school district has LOST their cotton picking minds! Wait...make sure your hands aren't making any shapes that anyone might find offensive...ok, now raise your hands if you think they are nuts!
As a former teacher of deaf/hearing impaired students, I can weigh in on this with a bit more street cred than the usual YBC rant. Name signs are often arbitrary...usually the hand shape for the first letter of a person's name. Sometimes, they have meaning. My name sign was given to me during my fall practicum experience at Tennessee School for the Deaf. I was in with a First Grade classroom and those children were probably some of THE smartest kids I'd ever met. I spelled my name to a certain little boy...wrote it out on paper for him and smiled....he responded with the hand shape for "M" and the right corner of his mouth and smiled back. That's my name....it happens to mean something. A friend of mine from childhood...his name is Shane...his cousin is deaf and Shane's name sign is an "S" hand shape in the bend of the left arm...it has no other meaning other than that's what Russell decided to use for Shane.
The name sign that Hunter's family is using for him is very close to the actual sign for the word "hunter." And maybe that's why they use it. It's not vulgar or obscene. I guess to those unfamiliar with ASL or SEE would see Hunter signing his name and think he's saying something about a gun. Take a look at a roll sheet in the classroom....there are children coming into class with names that have apostrophes were none are needed....names that defy every phonetic rule known to mankind...other names SO unusual that they reek of the parents' need to be different from everyone else.
But the bigger question looms...is this the most pressing thing that the Grand Island School Board has on it's docket? Students are getting high in the bathrooms. Students are cutting at lunch. I'll even bet there are students that don't go home at night...crashing at a friend's house or sleeping on the streets because it's safer than going home. By all means, though...if there's nothing more important, go after the three year old! Good luck with that....the lawyers for the National Association of the Deaf are getting ready to jump in the mix...I'd not take them on for love or money. They have the reputation of being fierce when it comes to this kind of thing...and rightfully so.
Since we're learning about sign language...here's one that the Grand Island powers that be need to know...got a feeling they're going to be seeing it a lot: Make the "peace" sign with your dominant hand. Now place it on your forehead, palm out; tap it twice against your forehead...great! You just learned the sign for "stupid!"
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