Asl Cultural Experience

Nicole Einheuser

4/2/12

Singing Hands

This year was my first year attending the singing hands performance at Saint Louis High School. The performance amazed me. It kept my attention the entire time and quite honestly I was not ready for it to end! I was so impressed by the student’s range of ages and their confidence on the stage.

Last year in ASL 101, I had missed the opportunity to go and see this performance because of work. I was sad to hear about how great it was and what I had missed out on. This year when I heard about the performance this year, I made sure I didn’t have to work! I wasn’t going to miss it again. Although we made it in time, me and a friend from my class did not leave Mount Pleasant till a little after three o’clock once again because of work. As soon as we walked into the gym, I made sure to scope out a good seat towards the front and center. We took our seats and said hi to our classmates sitting in the seats surrounding us.

We talked about how excited we were for the performances. Both of us are elementary education majors and have a true passion for kids and their educational well being. After taking a couple American Sign Language classes here in college, I have also developed a love for signing and deaf children. It started in ASL 101 when my professor brought in her deaf adopted daughter and she wanted to sign a song for us. I fell in love! I knew I would greatly enjoy the singing hands performance because of my love for kids and signing and was excited to recognize my old professor’s daughter in a couple of the songs.

While watching the kids sign and dance to a bunch of different popular songs I was familiar with, I paid attention to the signs I recognized as well as the ones I didn’t quite recognize. It was fun watching the students match familiar signs to the words of songs I listen to on a daily basis. A lot of the performances have stuck with me even a week later and when I hear the songs from the show...