I would like to tell you my experience learning sign language and living with deaf people starting back in 1966.

My name is John Egbert, some of you may know me as a founder of DBC(Deaf Bilingual Coalition). This post has nothing to do with DBC and I am not representing DBC. This is about how I started learning sign language and lived in the culture of deaf people as well as hearing people.

Before I start telling my experience, I would like to tell you why I wanted to do this.

I am reading more and more about late deafened people and their frustration of learning ASL. I understand exactly how they feel. The one advantage that I had while learning sign language was that I started on Gallaudet campus and I lived on the campus where some students are willing to teach you sign language. But, nonetheless, sign language was not easy for me, specially the fingerspelling.

I was born to hearing parents and grew up with a deaf brother, 20 months older than me. My brother is more deaf than me with maybe about 110 to 120 db while I had better hearing with about 90db. We lived in Jackson, Mississippi and there is a deaf school, Mississippi School for the Deaf, but my parents did not want my deaf brother and me to attend a deaf school because they were told that sign language was not an ideal communication method to use for us.

We started our “oral” culture at Chinchuba Institute in Marrero, Louisiana. Chinchuba oral school was my “home”. It was just like a residential school such as the state school for the deaf. My parents would come down from Jackson, Mississippi maybe once a month for a couple days or bring me home for Christmas, etc.

I was the star oral student at Chinchuba and was being used as a model to show and tell for parents and other people. I remember about going downtown New Orleans to demonstrate my ability to speak so well. Yes, at that time, I felt that I was a super star and was the school’s pet.

My parents moved down to New Orleans(Algiers), they thought that I was ready to enter the hearing world and took me out of Chinchuba to attend a regular public school in the third grade with no special settings. Even though I was a young boy entering the hearing school, I did not have too much problem but I had to overcome my super star status. Entering the hearing school for the first time, my identity of who I was changed from the top to the bottom of the totem pole instantly. My interest in school changed a lot.

I became an adventure person. Communicating with hearing people verbally was not an important part of my life because of several reasons, an oral deaf brother that was my daily companion and my dog. I have had dogs all my life and still have a dog today. My dogs have been my ears. I have learned to read my dogs’ body language telling me what is going on around me. The other reason is desire to be adventurous in the world around me. Many hearing peers enjoyed my life style. My parents never encourage me about my adventure’s life style. We built go carts, built rafts on the Mississippi River in New Orleans, catching water moccasins snakes and many other wildlife in the swamps at the age of 9. We were so adventurous that some parents did not want their hearing children associate with us.

Enough about my adventure childhood life that still continued, even today, my biggest adventure experience was to enter the deaf world when I was almost 19. Before I entered Gallaudet, I learned the “finger spelling” alphabet which helped me to communicate with “non-oral” deaf people. That was in the summer of 1966 at Gallaudet to learn sign language before I start in the fall as a student.

The most difficult part of learning sign language was reading finger spelling. Even a simple four or five letter word was hard to read because I was trying to memorize each letter and then visualize the spelled word in mind to read the word. That was the wrong concept of how it should be. Eventually I started to read word by word in finger spelling rather than letter by letter which many people still do today.

Every night when I go to bed, I would practice in the dark doing the A to Z finger spelling alphabet with both left and right hand at the same time. I would do it over and over and over. In a month later, I was able to do the whole alphabet in less than 5 seconds. (this concept about learning finger spelling in alphabetizing order is not recommended because it doesn’t teach people to spell out words, for example, hearing young child doesn’t learn the pronunciation of each letters but a whole word).

The amazing part about the finger spelling is the speed that the deaf people normally do. The concept of building up your “normal” speed using signs and finger spelling is just like when you start learning how to type on a typewriter or keyboard of a computer. You had to remember where the letters on the keyboard on the first day of learning how to type. And then eventually you will be able to type 5 words per minute and the more you practice, the more words per minute you type. This is the same with learning sign language but the problem is that there is no keyboard to practice and requires another person. This is something that needs to be done about how hearing and late deafened people can learn ASL.

While in Gallaudet, still learning the reality in the deaf world, I realize that I was more comfortable being around deaf people than I did with hearing people because it was easier to communicate with deaf people. Even though I can speak very well and hearing people never thought that I was deaf which I am very profoundly deaf. I just had the talent to read lips, repeating after what the hearing person said in a very subtle way that so people will not be turned off while communicating with me. But all that effort being around hearing people and hearing reality takes a lot of toll while jiving around.

By no means that I avoid hearing people, I am a very bi-cultural person. I would said that 50 to 80% of my daily life is around hearing people, I have many hearing people more than I do with deaf people. But I am a genuine Deaf human being, I have a deaf wife, two deaf children with two deaf grandkids. I am so bilingual that it doesn’t make any different which language I use but I am more comfortable with ASL because there is no effort for me to interact with another deaf person. I love hearing people but I can’t interact with a group of hearing at the same time like I can one on one or two hearing people.

I hope you enjoyed my article here and anytime we meet anywhere in public, whether you are hearing or deaf, a parent, a teacher, etc I would love to talk to you and we’ll have a good time.

Peace,

John Egbert

Posted on January 14th, 2008 by egbertpress
Filed under: Uncategorized