My first experience riding on a big yellow school bus happened the summer I turned 12 years old. The summer school I was attending was several towns away, so the bus ride took a while. Hope and I always chose the seats that faced each other, where our new friend, Sheila, sat.
Sheila was deaf. Hope and I spent the bus rides to and from summer school learning sign language with Sheila, working our way up from single word conversations in ASL to full sentences. We also figured out different ways to respond to the taunts – “freak,” “dummy” – the other kids threw at Sheila. The lessons I gained from those bus rides were as important to my education as the ones I learned in the summer school classes.
Like other skills I had as a child, I wish I had kept this one up. I have a friend now who is deaf. Although I see her infrequently, each time I do, I feel as if I am not using my privilege as a hearing person to lift her up, to bring her out of the margins where deaf people live when they are in the company of people who do not speak their language.
During this time of social distancing, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, I have been looking into courses in sign language. Many of them are free. Gallaudet University, for example, offers an extensive free sign language course. You Tube has several sign language videos. You can get sign language apps for your phone. Every resource we need to learn 
ASL is available.
I am learning that it is hard! Just like any other language, you have to start at the beginning, where it’s overwhelming and you think you’ll never be able to do this. It’s all in the practice, especially the consistency of practice. The variety of resources that are available make it easy to do a little bit every day, and to learn through whichever resources suit your learning style best.
I’ve come to think that learning sign language ought to be as common as learning any other language, ought to be offered in public schools alongside the French and Spanish classes. Philosophically speaking, we need to use our privileges to uplift others who do not have those privileges. That is the cornerstone of living as equals. But there is a practical aspect as well.
Many older people live with the marginalization of hearing loss. They gradually disappear inside themselves as their connection with the hearing world fades. Meanwhile, medical professionals have learned that hearing loss accounts for a sizable percentage of cases of dementia, because without hearing, the logic of the world falls apart (AARP, 7/2013). Doctors are encouraging people to get hearing aids as soon as they suspect a hearing loss.
As the deaf community knows all too well, many places and events in daily life do not accommodate the deaf. If we all had at least some familiarity with sign language, people who are deaf – at any age – could remain connected with the vitality of family and community. That, in turn, would help to reduce the chances of casting those who can’t hear out into the margins of society.
In one neighborhood in Newton, Massachusetts, dozens of neighbors learned sign language when they found out that a baby girl in their neighborhood was born deaf (NPR, 12/25/2019). It is one of those communities where most people have lived in their houses for years, raised their families together, and become integral to one another’s lives. Their immediate response to learning that this new family in their area had given birth to a deaf daughter was to get involved in the deaf culture and learn sign language.
That’s a wonderful example of inclusion and living as equals. Such stories make us feel great because we know that is us. That is who we will all be when we learn to live for the good of all.
