Monday, October 11, 2010

Give Me a Sign

My daughter's barely a month into college, and already it's apparently time to pick classes for next semester. (Which of course means that it's almost time to pay for next semester, a fact I am trying to ignore. La, la, la, la, I can't hear you.) This semester she had mostly remedial classes and will next semester as well, but with more space to fill with a couple of college level picks. The humanity classes looked mostly scary, so I suggested she try a beginning sign language class. This will either be a great idea, because it will be a good skill to have in her chosen profession as a teacher's aide, or a terrible idea, because it will be harder to learn than we expect. Language in general has always been really, really hard for her, and I've often wondered whether ASL, in dealing with gestures instead of spoken words, might provide a different sensory experience that could make language easier. I guess we'll find out, but if it's disastrously harder, it'll be on my head. (But could it be disastrously harder for a reading-comprehension-challenged girl than some of those history courses listed? No. I don't think that's possible.)

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