Progress is Sweet

I was just going through, "labeling" all my old posts, and read through all the posts that are the reason I started this thing -- student teaching at a school for the deaf in Spring 2005.

Something struck me -- how stressed I was about the language. It's been almost 2 1/2 years since I entered graduate school, feeling like my ASL skills were completely rusty. I remember that first day at orientation, hardly understanding anything and pretty much ready to panic and give up. Two quarters later, I had some confidence back, and was ready for student teaching, but I was still so nervous about understanding (the students) and being understood.

Fast-forward to now ... Sure, I still have moments of, "What on earth are my hands thinking?!" (most often when I don't get enough sleep) and while conversing with students, I have those moments of, "Say what?" But looking back, I have those moments with hearing students, too. Moments when the "math" part of my brain doesn't connect effectively to the "linguistic" part of my brain. Moments when the students make comments so out-of-nowhere that I just can't process it the first time around. Moments when students are mumbling, talking too fast, not speaking up, or otherwise being "teenagers" in their communication.

The nice thing now is that I no longer freak out about whether I can communicate with deaf students. I know I can, and I do. And every week I'm getting better at understanding when they're having animated, non-academic conversations with each other. Yes, 4th period, I do catch a lot of what you say ... I'm just not always paying attention or looking your way (especially if I'm helping one of you with your math). ;-) Between student teaching, my time at NTID, teaching part-time last year, and especially teaching full-time for the past four months, my fluency has increased more than I actively realized. It's a good feeling.

The final hurdle to overcome: the increased anxiety I feel when I'm signing with Deaf adults. It's not something I choose to feel. Every Deaf adult I've interacted with has been super-nice and supportive. There's just some kind of subconscious pressure I put on myself to "live up to" some invisible standard.

... and signing in front of the entire faculty? Forget about it. Maybe next year. :-)