Deaf Awareness Project (February-2009)
Essay 1 - Deaf Awareness Project
Today my class participated in a Deaf Awareness Project. Collinstown Park Community School came to visit our school because they were studying about deaf issues, etc. All the transition year girls and I, were involved in presenting a drama using a deaf puppet. The drama was about a class of hearing girls and one deaf girl; the teacher didn't know that the puppet is deaf. It showed the barriers in deaf communication. My role was operating puppet's mouth - I was her voice and one of the girls, Nora, was her hands. It was hard work at first but we got used to it after a while. We did the whole drama without making any mistakes, which was great. After the drama was over, the group of 17 girls and boys wanted to ask us questions - eg where do you socialize, our family communication, etc. We answered them, and then we had a break. During the break, we opened the school shop and some of the students from Collinstown Park Community School went to shop, then all of us went to the play-hall. We were waiting and talking. I was watching one of the girls, practicing signing "My name is ........" and she made some mistakes so I corrected her. She was very nice. Some of the teachers came back to the play-hall after our break. We were divided into different groups. Me, Joanne, Brigid and Denise were teaching three students, called Dean, Shauna and Elizabeth. They knew some signs so we asked them to show us. We were teaching new signs and Shauna couldn't stop laughing because she couldn't sign "T". At the end of teaching, we gave each other's emails so we can stay in touch. Essay 2 All transition year, girls and I took part in an awareness project to make the hearing community aware about deaf people. The students and teachers from Collinstown Park Community School came to our school today. They are very friendly. They visited our school because they wanted to know about deaf schools and sign language. Our class acted a drama about a deaf student. She is the only deaf girl in a class. After that, we taught the students sign language and answered their questions about being deaf. The project was successful because it is great for hearing people to learn about deaf people and sign language. It would be great for all the schools in Ireland to have sign language as a subject. It was a great opportunity for them to learn about it. Being deaf doesn't bother me at all. We taught sign language and they seem enjoy it. Lisa, Shauna and I taught four boys named Nathan, Michael, Seth and Sean. They were quiet as we don't know what to do at first but afterwards we got on well. We started the conversation. The drama was brilliant; it was a great way to show how deaf people would feel in a hearing school to make them realize the difficulties. Students from Clondalkin asked us all lots of questions. If I was in this project again, I would try to speak up and teach more sign language. I realized I could be able to teach my hearing friends to learn sign language, as it would be easier for me to communicate with them. Essay 3 A group of seventeen students from Collinstown Park Community School, both boys and girls, came down to our school. They were really interested in learning how deaf people communicate. We were involved in a short drama for them with our deaf puppet. I played the role of the teacher, 'Fifi Mc Guinness'. This drama was mainly based on how deaf people have barriers in communicating. When the drama ended, the students from Collinstown asked us questions. They seemed interested and wanted to learn more about how we communicated with our families or how we socialised. After the break, we then separated into groups and taught them how to sign in ISL, they also asked us what the difference was between signed English or signs in ISL. We got to know them a bit better and we compared both our school and theirs. The students also asked whether we do our exams differently, but we told them that we do our exams exactly the same, but students learning French don't have to do their oral exam, whereas in mainstream schools, students don't have a choice. The project was successful because both groups, hearing and deaf learned a lot more than we expected. If I were involved in a project like this again, I would do a much longer and more powerful drama about what barriers deaf people face and that ISL should be recognised as an official language. Essay 4 Today my class and the other Transition Year classes participated in a deaf awareness project. Collinstown Park Community School came to visit our school because they were doing a project about disability issues for YSI (Young Social Innovators), so they wanted to know about deafness and the issues about deafness. There was a group of 17 boys and girls. Our class did a short and simple drama with a "deaf" puppet. She was the only deaf student in a class. Nora was the puppet's hands through using Irish Sign Language and Anne-Marie was operating the puppet's mouth using her own voice. It was about a substitute teacher (which Ciara took part) who came by for the day to teach the class and she did not have an awareness of the student puppet being deaf. A "hearing" student (Lydia took this part) tried to tell the sub teacher that the puppet could not hear but the sub teacher ignored her. My role in the play was simple. I was a cool and troublesome student. I could see the hearing students from Collintown Park laughing and enjoying the play due to Ciara being hilarious and the puppet too. After the play was done, the hearing students asked us questions like "where do deaf people socialise?" "How do you communicate with your parents?" etc and some of us answered their questions. They seemed interested in hearing our answers. I felt glad they wanted to know more about deaf people. We took a short break. The hearing students got some sweets from the school shop. Later, we divided up into groups to teach Irish Sign Language. I was with Anne-Marie, Denise and Brigid. We taught 3 of the students: Dean, Shauna and Elizabeth. They all were very nice and had a great sense of humour. They asked us lots of questions and asked us to sign the words they wanted to know. Each time we taught Dean, Shauna and Elizabeth, we never stop laughing with them. I think the project was successful because it went great and the hearing students were so interested learning about the deaf. I enjoyed the day with them; I enjoyed teaching ISL most because it was fun. The experience I got was communicating with hearing people because I don't have much confidence in communicating with hearing people so it was quite challenging.
