As the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing high school for Orange County, the campus hosts 30 DHH students. To help bridge the gap between hearing and non-hearing and students, the American Sign Language classes celebrated Deaf Awareness week.
“[Deaf Awareness Week] is recognizing and bringing awareness to an under-served population on campus,” DHH teacher Monica Bourret said.
Interpreters assist hard-of-hearing students in their classes and in after school activities, like band.
To commemorate Deaf Awareness Week, Bourret and sign language teacher Aubrey Gard offered silent A (Bourret) and B (Gard) lunch. On the first day, everyone who came in introduced himself. Later in the week, non-hearing students taught simple signs so hearing students able to interact with them.
To involve students in the celebration, Gard asked her hearing students to finish the sentence “I wish deaf people knew,” and she asked her deaf students to finish the sentence “I wish hearing people knew,”. Responses included “we want you to chat with us and learn ASL,” “deaf people can have swag, too,” and “deaf people are great storytellers.”
On Brave TV, sophomore Guerdine Petit greeted every morning’s audience with a sign of the day: Monday, What’s up?; Tuesday, How are you?; Thursday, Nice to meet you; Friday, Name, Friend and Chat.
Kevin Moore, one of the 30 hard-of-hearing students in the program juggles an active schedule consisting of three AP classes, Journalism 1, French 2 and after school activities like band and theater. As a band captain, he oversees all operations of the band, acts a liaison for communication between the directors and students and attends all practices. Moore also participates in publicity for the school play. Deaf Awareness week allows him celebrate a part of who he is.
“[Deaf Awareness week] is nice because we’ve been oppressed and now we can overcome the disabilities and represent our backgrounds,” Moore said.
In class, on the Friday ending Deaf Awareness week hard-of-hearing students led their ASL class. They conducted a game of charades to allow the students to practice expressions. ASL students also introduced the class by signing a couple of things about themselves.