The Importance of Teaching Sign Language

For many years the deaf community and their culture has been ignored, silenced, and rarely represented, leaving many feeling estranged from society. It wasn’t until the 1950’s that ASL was recognized as an official language and in states such as Missouri it wasn’t until 2011 that ASL was made into an official language credit for secondary and post secondary schools (irl.umsl.edu). Providing hearing students with knowledge of the deaf community and helping them to learn sign language would not only increase inclusivity of deaf individuals but also would help reduce ableism, or discrimination, against the deaf community. 

American Sign Language (ASL) is most commonly used in the US and Canada as a primary form of communication for deaf and hard of hearing individuals and their relatives. 

Although we have made progress in including these individuals into the media, more that we could do would be teaching sign language to young children and students to break down barriers between hearing and deaf communities. Attending school board meetings, signing petitions to integrate ASL classes at schools that don’t have them, donating to charities supporting the deaf community, following deaf creators online, and educating yourself on deaf culture are also other ways to increase the inclusion of sign language as a language and decrease ableism. 

In “How a Visual Language Evolves as our World Does” by Amanda Morris posted in the New York Times she argues that Sign Language is an adaptive form of communication. It changes as time progresses. Stating that teaching ASL would be practically impossible because the language is constantly growing and evolving. 

However, many would argue that teaching students the basics of the language even if it differs slightly over time or by region would be more beneficial to the community than not teaching it at all. It allows students, especially young students, to have a chance to be exposed to the language, broadens awareness of the deaf community and deaf culture, and even if the language changes and adapts over time knowing some signs is better than knowing none at all. 

According to Claire Sutterer in her article “Signing To Success: Developing Effective ASL Curricula in Secondary Public Education” ASL is still a new language and is yet to be studied more at a secondary education level but, “Studies confirm lifelong cognitive benefits in young children, and it can be inferred that if ASL is taught to secondary students, they could also achieve these cognitive advancements.” Implementing sign language classes into schools of all levels would help broaden cultural diversity and benefit learners by advancing their cognitive abilities, expand their ability to communicate, and improve social skills.