Hi, Rikki and SW List members:

I think that frustration is something we have to deal with in Deaf Education. I'm a teacher, sign language interpreter and researcher in Sign Writing and here, in Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil) even some deaf people are against SW and I think Dan is right cause they think they have spent so much time and effort to learn Portuguese that they are scared to death to learn another form of a language.

When I worked at the Signet Project and deaf schools visited the museum some said: why do we have to write in SW here if everything is presented in a visual way ? THAT is very frustrating, but we never gave up cause we believe a language, sooner or later, will need a kind of graphic representation. Now we gladly see SW in sign language interpreter's courses or in a additional graduation to teachers for the deaf (taught by a deaf teacher) and so on...

With time people will understand that it has occured with sign language too. How many parents of deaf children have forbiden their kids to sign thinking that it would cause any damage to spoken language acquisition ? And what do we have now ?

Time and patience is what we need...

Best regards !

Cris

www.macripiper.hpg.com.br

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