Certified teacher of the deaf, David Fahnle, introduces himself by signing. Fahnle comes to the high school once a week to provide instruction for students. “[It is important to raise awareness about the deaf community] because we live in a world where we can let our differences divide us or we can celebrate our differences to unite us. Photo by Matteo Winandy
By Rohan Portteus
The district does not currently offer American Sign Language as a language credit.
Some people have access to hearing aids and FM devices, but that is not a reality for all people with impared hearing. Which is why ASL can be used to communicate with the deaf community, as well as in other situations where speech is not appropriate. Despite ASL’s prevalence the district has yet to allow any ASL courses while still teaching languages such as Latin, which is a dead language.
Certified teacher of the deaf and part of the Special Programs staff in the district, David Fahnle, has been teaching hearing-impared students for 46 years now.
"I have taught in a variety of school districts in Texas and at the high school level, this question comes up quite a lot," Fahnle said. "Why do we have French, Spanish and Latin, but we don't have an ASL class?"
Without a hearing aid, a deaf person has limited ways to communicate with the world around them. Increasing the amount of available communicators, both teachers and students, creates a more inclusive environment for deaf students.
“If you're unable to communicate with other people, it's terrible, it's stressful,” Fahnle said. “It causes grief and confusion and anxiety.”
Fahnle would love to see the district adopt an ASL program, however there are challenges that make it a difficult course to integrate.
"The school could advertise actively that we have a financial incentive to be an ASL teacher,” Fahnle said. “[But] even with those incentives, finding a qualified teacher could take years.”
The answer mainly comes down to a lack of eligible options to fill ASL teacher positions. The coursework and content required to become an ASL teacher is very strenuous.
"It expands your cultural awareness, your tolerance of other people and your awareness of the whole world."
"As of late, the schools are turning out fewer and fewer certified teachers of the deaf because it appears not to be an interest level among prospective students," Fahnle said.
Regardless of what language students choose to learn, Fahnle agrees that everyone should learn a second language, whether that is ASL or not.
“It expands your cultural awareness, your tolerance of other people and your awareness of the whole world," Fahnle said.
Due to the lack of high school ASL courses, Fahnle recommends that students interested in ASL go to a community college.
"Find a community college where ASL is taught,” Fahnel said. “Take a class like a summer class or a night class and get credit.”
Within the Latin department, staff are also aware of the lack of ASL programs within the school. Latin teacher Diana Caron knows personally the ins and outs of the foreign language department.
"It's difficult to find Latin teachers, but it's really difficult to find ASL teachers," Caron said.
ASL does not currently have much to base the course off. There would be many hurdles to overcome to make ASL a language credit at the school.
"Because there's no AP track, that would mean there would not be Honors tracks and it would be difficult for students to have more than two years," Caron said.
Even some deaf and HOH people never learn ASL. This is the case for deaf junior Carter Baumgartner.
"In general, I just need to be more attentive than the average person in order to understand what is happening around me," Baumgartner said. "I try not to worry about too much because I have a lot of stuff to be thankful for already."
Baumgartner doesn't see being deaf as a huge setback in his day to day life, largely due to his hearing aids.
"I've used hearing aids since I was 2 weeks old,” he said. “I don’t have much knowledge on how they work, but they have helped me so much over the years.”
Baumgartner is able to use hearing aids, but that is not a reality for all deaf people. Without a hearing aid, deaf people have to rely on people's lip movements, writing text and ASL.
Communicating between different languages can be very difficult, however, Fahnle thinks that its importance cannot be ignored.
"Language controls everything else we do,” Fahnle said. “It controls our social life. It controls our education. It controls our career. It even controls your attitude about yourself.”