Gallaudet’s new curriculum requires that all incoming freshmen take a general studies class called GSR 103: American Sign Language and Deaf Studies. In this class, they teach about deaf history and culture, but there is also a heavy emphasis on learning formal ASL. They have explained repeatedly that even though we use ASL every day, we don’t know formal ASL, and that’s why the class is required.

A friend of mine, who is in a separate section from me, just said that she got low marks on her first two performance videos because she used English word order. I’ve seen her sign, of course, and she uses perfectly good PSE like many people here do. But no, the class is about formal ASL, and even though she was raised with English, she has to use ASL for the class.

That got me thinking…what about oral deaf people who prefer to stay that way? They may have come to Gallaudet because teachers wouldn’t keep talking while they write on the board, or because they were curious but not VERY curious, or even just because it was a good financial choice. (Deaf students don’t typically pay full tuition; the government awards scholarships and VR pays for some of it.) Should these students be forced to learn formal ASL? Is it enough to learn enough to get by? Doesn’t the ASL class assume you already have some knowledge? (The New Signers Program is something like three weeks in the summer…maybe not enough.) Hearing students here are entitled to voice interpreters if they can’t understand a teacher, so surely oral students are entitled to an oral interpreter to keep up in class.

Why do non-signers HAVE to learn formal ASL when they come here? What if they’re happy with their oral deaf identity? These aren’t real questions, I’m just musing, but it did come to mind.

Edit: I am just trying to play devil’s advocate. This is not necessarily my opinion, it’s just some pondering I did. I do a lot of thinking about deaf culture and the place of hearing people within it, but I don’t know everything.