"Applause" for taking a risk

Let me start by saying I am THRILLED that we have a positive blog topic, because I need a little pick-me-up! One of my proudest moments thus far in teaching actually took place last week and I am so eager to share it with everyone, because of how happy it made my student. Our high school has the highest hearing impaired population in the district. I have a deaf student in my class, and for the sake of privacy we will call her Z. She is the first hearing impaired student to take a broadcasting class, so the two of us are working together in regards to accommodations and modifications. At our school we have a morning announcements show, and Z has expressed to me her frustration in not being able to hear or understand what is going on in the school because we do not have closed captioning. Her frustration led to an amazing idea. The last week of September was National Hearing Impaired Awareness Week and I thought that in an attempt to include our hearing impaired school population, we would do an all deaf morning announcement show. I asked Z how she wanted it formatted and she said “we suffer every day, let’s make everyone else suffer for one day”. The show was completely silent as Z sat on the news desk and signed all of the announcements (she did allow me to put subtitles at the bottom of the screen). Shooting and editing a completely silent show certainly had its challenges, but Z was so excited to be a part of it made it worth it. On the day the show aired, I grabbed Z and her classmates out of their room and brought them to my classroom to watch. It was the most silent a room full of teenagers has ever been. All eyes were glued to the screen and the hearing students were blown away by Z’s performance. She absolutely lit up while watching herself on the big screen! I had previously taught my students the sign for “applause” and when the show was over the class all “clapped” for Z. I was so excited that our experiment worked, and it absolutely warmed my heart to see how proud Z was of her contribution to her deaf classmates. I have had several students and teachers tell me it was the best morning announcement show yet, and they would love to see more of her.