dastrigon:

candidlyautistic:

ironspiderson:

Hot take but sign language should be taught in schools as a language option and all cinemas should provide subtitles on all their movie screenings

Hot take but sign language in all schools shouldn’t be a hot take, and at least some of the basics should be mandatory.

There’s an elementary school located near Schaumburg, Illinois called Blackwell. I went there from K-2nd grade ((I moved in with my dad or else I would’ve stayed there until the 8th grade)).

The thing about Blackwell though, was that it was MANDATORY for all students to be taught ASL. I don’t remember learning it in Kindergarten so I think it starts at 1st grade.

Blackwell, named after Elizabeth Blackwell, was unique in the sense that deaf/hard of hearing students were integrated with everyone else. There weren’t special classrooms. We did the pledge in ASL, sometimes a teacher would ask us to repeat a question in ASL, if we wanted to talk to deaf classmate, we were HIGHLY encouraged to practice conversations with them in ASL.

It was a great experience, and while I don’t remember much from my days there, I can still do the pledge!

It’s an experience I missed out on in the rest of my school days, and I’m upset that I’ve lost touch with what I had learned.

If you have the opportunity, take classes! Please!