Monday, February 20, 2017

Sign Away!

Today, Monday February 20th, us girls, Melissa, Andrea, Camila and I meet up with our favorite coordinator, Tane. We have been given the amazing opportunity to visit a Deaf school in Bergara, Spain called AransGi. The school is in a cute town that used to house the nobles. Tane picked us up and drove us to this school, which she has never visited before. However, one of the teachers was a student of hers. We walked through a beautiful park to find this cute school. When we walked in, we were met by a man who ran the school. He spoke super fast Spanish and was very welcoming. He lead us to his office where he explained what kind of school we were at. He explained that AransGi was a dual-language and dual-culture school. This means that the students speak orally in Spanish and speak with Sign Language and in the culture there are people who are deaf and people who are not. These students spend three days at AransGi and the other two they spend at mainstream schools all around the Basque Country. In addition, he expressed that these students have many questions and love visitors. He was very animated in his speech and we found him signing along.


Then, he lead us to our first room with students. We met the teacher who also spoke in very fast Spanish. She told us that we need to tell them our names, write them on the board, say where we are from, and create a signal for our names. Two students walked in and were immediately nervous. One was a student from Ukraine and the other was a boy from Nigeria. The girl has been with this school for awhile; thus, she did most of the talking and explaining to her peer. They began by asking each of us our names orally in Spanish while signing. Andrea went first and spoke Spanish while attempting to copy the same sign language back. Her name sign was her sticking her hand flat under her chin, like the emoji. I was next and my sign was "J" in ASL. Melissa created an "M" in ASL and hit her heart. Camila almost framed her cheeks down to her chin for her signal. Both of the kids drew pictures along with our names in their notebooks. The students asked us why we came to Arrasate and why we are visiting schools. We explained that we are going to be teachers and we wanted to learn about how their schools run. They were so excite
d to have us and were a delight to meet.


We then headed down the hall to another room with two boy students who were working on the Respiratory system in their textbooks. One boy right off the bat introduced himself in Spanish and sign language. He explained how old he was and where his other school is located. The other boy then introduced himself and asked each of us to introduce ourselves. My name gave all groups the most trouble, just like students in the United States. They asked us where we were teaching and they would sign while we talked. One student then only looked at me to ask questions in Spanish and in sign. I would have to look to Andrea to translate so we all could answer. He asked me what I like the most about Mondragon and I explained the mountains. The other's began to answer and I added that I like the people. The boy student then asked me if I liked the people because I thought the boys were handsome. Man, these kids had great personalities. We all then talked about what they were learning and we explained that we wanted to become teachers. The teacher was signing everything she was saying in Spanish as well to help her students and it even helped me understand.

Next, we headed into another room with 4 students who had two pages worth of questions to ask us. We sat opposite of them. They introduced themselves after we did and they were very interested in what our sign was for our names. These students had a huge range in hearing. Two of them watched the two teachers to sign everything that was being said. These students asked us about why we are in Arrasate and what we love about the Basque Country. Then they asked if we knew about the all Deaf College in Washington called Gallaudet University. I did not recognize the school until they all were passionately talking about it. This conversation then lead to them asking if any of us had deaf students before and or grew with with anyone who was deaf. Many of us haven't had too much experience, but I did explain that I have used sign language with little kids and my cousins before.

As they asked questions, I came up with a few. I began asking if they did sign language with their parents to which all of them replied with a hard no. The teacher began to explain that parent's around here are very shy about starting to learn this language and refuse to learn it. We all were shocked and explained that in America, the first thing the parents would do is learn the language to help their children learn and to communicate. Along with this information, the main teacher explained that recently, using sign language has been banned in Europe because they want to preserve their beautiful languages. It makes me very upset that these students could become more isolated and they should be able to communicate with others through the language they know. However, at this school, they talk about what a great bond they all share and should be proud of their language and abilities. They are a great community and they are all great friends with great connections to others like them. After this, I asked more questions about their lives such as hobbies and what sports they liked to play. They all were very excited to answer and did many things. One of the boys commented, "I couldn't invite you to my farm. You all are too elegant." Then they finally asked about politics, like all the students here. They had a sign for Donald Trump, which shows one fluffing the side of their head. They asked about the administration and we all said we haven't been keeping up.

At the end of the trip, we all went outside to take group shots! The students were signing and talking to us more. I feel as though we made great connection with these students and I wish we had more time to be with them. The teachers now explained that since we visited, they are able to connect more lessons to their schooling because they have met students from the United States. I am beyond glad we were able to learn about their school and meet these sweet sweet kids.

Until next post,
Jillian


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