Hands shaking, ASL teacher Brittany Hamilton looks into the sea of teachers and begins her presentation. She breathes a sigh of relief and feels the nervousness leave her body when she sees the people in front of her raise their hands, turn to their friends and start signing along with her.
Up until this year, American Sign Language was a language course only available at Ben Barber Innovation Academy. Now, the class is offered at Legacy and taught by Ms. Hamilton, a deaf teacher who strives to connect with her students to lessen the division between deaf and hearing students.
“I love seeing students laugh and make positive connections,” Hamilton said. “It brings me joy to see students enjoying learning and communicating with their peers and friends.”
Along with teaching students, Hamilton displayed an ASL presentation at one of the Legacy teacher meetings.
“Access is always the biggest struggle as a deaf individual,” Hamilton said. “I try my best to educate those around me as much as possible at the beginning of the year, so they know different ways to communicate with me, as well as how to provide access to necessary information.”
Because of switching sign language courses to all five high schools, the district needed more ASL-certified teachers to cover the class.
“Our district’s ASL team roped me in, honestly,” Hamilton said. “I’m honored to be such a part of a great team. The amount of support and communication here is incredible.”
This is Hamilton’s ninth year as a teacher and her fifth year teaching ASL specifically.
“What pushed me to teach ASL was working as a substitute teacher nine years ago,” Hamilton said. “I was seeing the same thing no matter which level school I worked at: the deaf ed kids would be essentially isolated from the rest of the students. Even in mainstream areas, they were often divided, separated.”
After a few more years, Hamilton became ASL certified and began her career teaching sign and deaf etiquette.
“I’ve come to be more understanding of different cultures and people,” Hamilton said. “Every year is a new opportunity for me to learn something new from students, staff and the community.”
Sophomore Madisyn Lawson is enrolled in Hamilton’s Accelerated ASL class at Legacy this year.
“Ms. Hamilton makes the work so fun and immersive, it makes me excited to go to her class,” Lawson said. “It also makes it easier for me to catch on easily to the signs.”
In ASL, Lawson learns how to sign basic words like names of animals, colors, numbers and some important survival signs.
“I hope to use ASL as a way of communication for others, so I can understand those that people typically wouldn’t be able to,” Lawson said. “I think ASL is something all people should know on a basic level so taking this class would benefit everyone.”
American Sign Language became the second language course offered at Legacy, and because the class is single-blocked, many more students have been able to fit it into their schedules.
“As we live in a culture that encourages the integration of peoples and we cherish our diversity, I want to see more integration of the Deaf community into our ‘normal’ society,” Hamilton said.
