“On Tuesday, a lot of people from our ASL 3 and 4 class went to Olive Garden out by Rivertown Mall. We went to dinner, and we acted as though we were deaf. The whole time during dinner, we could only communicate using sign language. It gave us a perspective on how [deaf people] communicate with waiters who may not know sign language, or how you communicate if need to get someone’s attention [and] how hard that can be. Then, we went to Rivertown Mall to a deaf social with a bunch of both deaf and non-deaf people. We socialized for a bit, and it was really cool to learn the stories of different people because some people were born deaf, and some people became deaf, so they knew how to speak pretty well. It was just really cool and an eye-opener to see that the deaf community- even though it was somewhat of a small social- they’re so tightly-knit.

I took away that even though we think we might know a lot of sign language here, or we may think that ‘Because I’ve taken three years of it, I’m pretty good at it,’ it’s their language– it’s the deaf people’s language. They are very fast at it, and you can’t really comprehend how fast they are at [signing]. It kind of shows you how sometimes, when we talk too fast, [people who are deaf] won’t understand. If they sign too fast to people who are starting to learn [sign language], then [other] people won’t understand. It’s very interesting to think about.”

(Senior)