A communication network approach to thinking about, "Who should be teaching
American Sign Language?"
American Sign Language (ASL) and the community of people who use it can be
thought of as a "communication network" that is similar to most other "networks"
in that the value of the network goes up when more people join. Businesses set
up websites because so many people use the internet. Facebook gets its value
from the fact that so many others are "on" Facebook. English is a useful
language to know due to the fact that so many people already know and use it.
"The value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the
number of connected users of the system," (Metcalfe's Law, Wikipedia, 2018).
Metcalfe's Law could be applied to the
teaching of ASL. It is when a language reaches a tipping point (of total users)
that the language becomes valuable enough that almost "everyone" wants to learn
it.
If we are to ever reach that tipping point with ASL we will need a massive
number of teachers teaching a massive number of students. ASL will become MORE
valuable and MORE widespread by having MORE teachers (whether Hearing or Deaf).
Every Deaf person on the planet should encourage (competent) Hearing teachers of
ASL to stay in the profession and get busy teaching more students which would in
turn drive the demand for ASL classes higher and higher.
School districts throughout the United States require students to take "English"
classes. Why? Because English is the "dominant" language. The more dominant a
language is -- the more people want to learn it. If we want ASL to become a
dominant language and have "ASL classes" taught in every school district -- we
need more people teaching it -- not fewer. At the point where a nation becomes
one big "Martha's Vineyard" -- is the point when Deaf people can go out and get
the jobs we really want doing what we are interested in (because enough
employers and coworkers already know ASL that language is no longer a barrier)
-- instead of being pigeonholed into competing for a few "ASL teaching jobs."
You might want to consider a deep dive into the discussion regarding who should
be allowed (perhaps even "encouraged") to teach sign language from the perspective of "network
effects," "secondary gain," "tipping points," and "territorialism."
In public forums it comes across as "respectful" and "considerate" to discourage
Hearing people from teaching ASL -- however you may wish to ask yourself if such
territorialism is a form of short-sighted secondary gain (in the form of being
paid to teach ASL) at the expense of the "network effect" that would happen in
the lives of ALL Deaf if ASL were to be widely taught and become a dominant
language.
Flip the script and ask:
Do you wish all Hearing parents of Deaf children could sign to their children?
[Answer tends to be: Yes!]
Do you wish you could go into any business, doctor's office, dental clinic, or
other place and the people there would sign to you fluently? [Answer tends to
be: Yes!]
Do you wish sign language was taught in every public school? [Answer tends to
be: Yes!]
Do you wish all Hearing people could sign fluently? [Answer tends to be: Yes!]
Would the above scenarios seem like a dream come true? [Answer tends to be:
Yes!]
To make such a dream happen we would need to have a massive number of people
teaching ASL.
Consider for a moment how many people are teaching English. According to the
International EFL Academy, "An estimated 250,000 native English speakers work as
English teachers abroad in more than 40,000 schools and language institutes
around the world."(1). That doesn't include the number of English teachers in
the United States. According to "thoughtco(dot)com," "an estimated 1.5 billion people
are studying [English] worldwide." (2)
When a language becomes popular enough it reaches a tipping point wherein more
and more people want to learn that language in order to enjoy the increasing
benefits of a wider and wider range of people with whom to do business,
socialize, and otherwise interact.
If the majority of people around you were to know and use sign language -- you
can pretty much bet that you would be interested in taking a class yourself. It
is a matter of network effects. The more people that know sign language -- the
more people that want to know sign language -- the more valuable the language
becomes and the more opportunities there will be to teach the language in an
increasing virtuous circle spiraling upward.
That is very "big picture" thinking.
Most individuals however are not thinking of the big picture. Instead we are thinking of
how to make the rent payment and put food on the table -- which is a secondary
gain of removing competition for the (relatively) low number of existing ASL
instruction jobs.
Caution: The above line of thinking will not make you popular at Deaf events or
ASL socials. [Think big at your own risk.]
Regardless of your popularity the hard questions remain:
Question: From whom do almost all very young Hearing children learn their native
language? [Answer: Their parents.]
Question: From whom do almost all Deaf children learn their native language?
[Answer: Well, uh, actually almost all Deaf children spend their early years
pretty much language deprived except for the relatively very small number of
Deaf children who have Deaf parents.]
Question: Hundreds of thousands of language deprived children. That's a problem
yes? [Answer: Duh.]
Question: Language deprivation of Deaf children could be reduced if their
Hearing parents could teach and model sign language to them from birth onward.
Would you agree with that statement? [Answer: Um...yes, sure.]
Question: I want to make sure this is absolutely established so I'm going to ask
again: If all Hearing parents of Deaf children were to teach and model ASL to
their Deaf child would that help reduce language deprivation among Deaf
children? [Answer: Yes.]
Question: Every Deaf child, gee, that would be a lot of Hearing parents (who
happen to be Hearing people) doing a lot of teaching and modeling of sign
language. You'd be okay with Hearing people teaching and modeling sign language
to help reduce language deprivation in Deaf children? Or would you rather
hundreds of thousands of Deaf kids just remain language deprived? [Answer:
Um...wait a minute. Dang. Um.]
My point here is that the solution to achieving the "dream" of reducing language
deprivation of Deaf children and of gaining full (or at least "very broad)
access to public accommodations (jobs, services, etc.) while respecting,
preserving, and fostering cultural authenticity isn't territorialism but rather
is training, mentoring, standards, certification, and continuing education for a
massive number of sign language teachers.
Notes:
Tags and/or key search phrases: "The value of a network," "ASL Tipping Point,"
"one fax machine," "Hearing people teaching ASL," "Secondary Gain," "Metcalfe's
Law."
At one point this article was named: How is teaching sign language like a "fax machine?"
Time moves on and these days many people have no idea what a fax machine is or
how they were used.
References:
(1) https://www.internationalteflacademy.com/faq/bid/102201/how-large-is-the-job-market-for-english-teachers-abroad
(2) https://www.thoughtco.com/how-many-people-learn-english-globally-1210367