Students of ASL may receive mixed messages regarding whether or not it is okay
for Hearing people to teach ASL.
A way to approach the question of "who can or should" teach ASL -- is to
consider:
Does this activity help or hurt the Deaf Community?
Then make the question increasingly granular (as in "specific") for each case:
Does a Hearing parent teaching their child a mix of 90% accurate and 10% not so
accurate signs benefit the Deaf Community? In general, yes -- if the child grows
up with positive vibes toward the Deaf and chooses to become an interpreter or
just be a general ally to the Deaf.
Does a qualified Hearing person who has a lot of experience with the Deaf
community and a near native understanding of ASL teaching ASL in a remote
community where there are no Deaf seeking jobs help or harm the Deaf Community?
In general it helps the Deaf Community.
Does an unqualified Hearing person (who doesn't know many basic signs and has an
incorrect understanding of many signs) calling their self a teacher and justifying
it because technically they learned a little bit and are teaching that little
bit to someone else help or hurt the Deaf community? Well, it tends to
bastardize the language and annoys the natives.
By the way, "bastardization" isn't a swear word.
Definition: "bastardize"
1. To change (something) in such a way as to lower its quality or value,
typically by adding new elements.
I know some wonderful, qualified Hearing teachers of ASL doing great work.
I also know a poorly qualified individual that took a job for which I was a
candidate when my
family was young and I needed the work and the medical insurance. The individual
later sought me out to ask me questions about how to sign things.
The only logical answer to the question, "Is it okay for a Hearing person to
teach ASL?" is -- "It depends."
Yet, when is the last time the majority of any sector of society behaved in a logical
manner?
People, in general, are creatures of emotion and passion. We unconsciously or
dysconsciously choose to stereotype and discriminate based on those stereotypes.
Definition: Dysconsciousness refers to an uncritical habit of mind (including
perceptions, attitudes, assumptions, and beliefs) that justifies inequity and
exploitation by accepting the existing order of things as a given. (Sagepub dot
com)
The zeitgeist of the American Deaf Community is currently, in general, not in
favor of Hearing people teaching ASL.
Definition: "zeitgeist"
1. The defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the
ideas and beliefs of the time. (Oxford)
So, is it okay for unqualified Hearing people to teach ASL?
No.
Is it okay for fully-qualified Hearing people to teach ASL?
Tentatively yes -- if no qualified Deaf person is around who wants the job.
Is it okay for semi-qualified Hearing people to teach ASL?
No. Become fully qualified first.
Reasons why many Deaf people in the Deaf Community are against Hearing people teaching ASL:
1. Underemployment of Deaf people:
Deaf people are underemployed in the sense of not having enough paid work, not
doing work that makes full use of our skills and abilities, or being employed
less than full-time or in positions that are insufficient jobs for our economic
needs.
2. Barriers to Employment:
Deaf face challenges in the hiring and retention process that are not faced by Hearing people. This also applies to obtaining ASL teaching positions. When Hearing people compete for the relatively few ASL teaching positions available they (the Hearing people) typically have an unfair advantage.
3. Repair work:
Many Deaf Teachers commonly experience the need to repair or fix the signing of
students that have previously been taught by Hearing people due to many of the
signs not being what is currently signed by socially active Deaf adult native or
near native signers in the Deaf Community.
4. Hearing lens:
Ask yourself: Is there a difference between secondhand experience and
firsthand experience? Is there a difference between involvement and
commitment? Is there a difference between the taste of food grown in one soil
versus the taste of food grown in a totally different soil? Is there a
difference in the feel of clothing made from two different types of cloth? Is
there a difference between learning martial arts from a mixed martial arts
tournament winning, black belt, who works as a bouncer, and grew up in a rough
neighborhood different from learning martial arts from a brown belt who has
never been in an actual fight? How about the difference between the signs of
someone who has signed something 100 times and will go home to voice to their
partner and/or children vs. the signs of someone who has signed those
signs 10,000 times and will go home and continue using sign as their life-long
every day, night, and weekend preferred mode of communication?
Hearing teachers (and even some Deaf teachers) tend to teach an idealized form
of ASL in an attempt to deal with imposter syndrome. When presented with a
choice between two perfectly acceptable ways of signing a concept, Hearing
teachers will often opt for whichever version looks the least like English in
the mistaken belief that it makes their signing somehow "more" ASL.
(Signing STORE, I GO doesn't make your signing more ASL -- it often just makes
you look like a non-native signer who is trying too hard to look like you
belong. Before you argue that make sure you read
https://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/store-i-go-the-myth.htm and
https://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/subject-verb-object-asl-sentence-structure.htm)
The problem with teaching idealized ASL is that it isn't real-life ASL and often
isn't the most functional, convenient, and often used signing done by real users
of ASL who use it for everyday life. This leads to the warping of the
signing of students of Hearing teachers to be ever so slightly (or sometimes
hugely) different from the signing typically done in the Deaf community.
That leads to misunderstandings and misinterpretations during sometimes critical
life moments.
5. Not knowing what they don't know:
Deaf people tend to know more Deaf people than Hearing people do. (This is
similar to how a speaker of Chinese tends to know more other speakers of Chinese
than speakers of English do.) When a person who knows a lot of Deaf people
want to learn a new sign that person tends to just ask a Deaf person. When
a person doesn't know a lot of Deaf people wants to learn a new sign that person
tends to look it up in a dictionary. Looking up signs in dictionaries
introduces many points of possible error such as being outdated, showing only
the citation (formal) version of a sign, showing a regional sign used by the
author but not used in other regions, or showing an out of context sign that
means something totally different than other signs which may have the same
English label. For example there are numerous ASL signs that could be labeled as
CHEAT but learning in a lack of context and/or simply not knowing what they
don't know has resulted in 2nd language users signing such wonderful things as:
"IX-(he) CHEAT-(academically) (on) POSS-(his) WIFE"
and/or
"IX-(he) ADULTERY THAT TEST."
Notes:
Hearing people can:
Make direct phone calls
Make appointments without needing to arrange for an interpreter
Not have their voice mistaken for
drunkenness when pulled over by police.
Not have the poor balance related to inner ear issues mistaken for drunkenness
when pulled over by police.
Go to drive-in movies
Talk to their neighbors easily
Get traffic information and hear warnings from the radio while driving
Go to a job interview without
worrying if your interpreter will decide they like the position, apply, and get
the job!
Attend parent / teacher conferences without needing an interpreter
Communicate
easily with their grandchildren in their grandchildren's native language
...and thousands of other small and large privileges.
Notes:
* Is it okay for someone who pulls out a sliver to call themselves a surgeon?
Also see: Just because you can sign doesn't mean you can teach:
Notes: