New ASL Class Comes to DJDS

The start of the 2023-24 school year brought many new changes. One of the major changes was the new Wednesday schedule. This schedule allows students to express themselves and their interests through different club options offered throughout the day. 

This semester, a new Wednesday club option has been added to the schedule. One that is so empowering to those who are deaf or hard of hearing. ASL, also known as American Sign Language. 

The new ASL class is taught by DJDS 9th grader, Joey Tesler, with his father, David Tesler, acting as an advisor. 

Tesler was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. He is fluent in ASL and wants to inspire others to be able to talk to people like his parents. 

The idea was brought to Tesler by Ms. Stacy Zimmerman, who taught a full-body workout class last semester and encouraged him to do it, along with many others. However what made Tesler make this decision was when Dr. Jeremy Golubcow Teglasi, current DJDS Upper Division Principle, gave the suggestion. 

 “Once you have the principle on your side you really can do anything,” Tesler said

Currently, the class has started to develop skills in ASL, besides the alphabet. “The kids have learned like basic words some basic phrases and those are just building blocks to what I'm going to teach them later which is just more complex words,” Tesler said. 

Tesler hopes that by the end of this semester or in years following many of his students will become fluent. While he acknowledges the difficulty this presents, he shows just as much confidence in his students as he has himself. “My goal was to get everybody to be as fluent if not more fluent than me in ASL,” Tesler said.

The reason why this class is so important to Tesler is because he is a CODA, also known as a child of death adults. 

Tesler’s mother is deaf and his father is hard of hearing. He hopes that teaching others ASL it will empower them to be able to interact with deaf people and understand those who rely on ASL. “I want them to try and get out of this class to be able to interact with other deaf people,” Tesler said.

While Tesler has never taught a class before or led a club, he recognizes how students best learn. “I don't necessarily want them to do pen and paper because then I think that's kind of boring,” Tesler said. “In ASL it’s not necessary like other languages where you need to learn how to write specific characters, or like, know these different words, you need to know them by hand gestures,” Tesler said. 

There are many reasons that Tesler loves ASL, one reason is being able to sign to people who can't hear or speak. Being raised by deaf parents also influenced Tesler to learn and appreciate ASL. 

Not only is this club just teaching students ASL, it is engulfing them in a new and special culture while doing it in a fun way.