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Total Failure of the ASL-Only “Switched at Birth” Episode on ABC Family

Last night was supposed to be the premier of the penultimate “American Sign Language Only” episode of ABC Family Channel’s teenage soap opera, “Switched at Birth.”  Janna and I urged our ASL students to watch the episode because we believed the hype and the PR that this would be an episode to remember.  It was not.  The show was a tremendous disappointment and I’ll tell you why.

The one bright spot in the show was this “Deaf Power” banner that struck a long-ago memory in Janna when one of her teachers at the Iowa School for the Deaf said that action was forbidden on campus because it was was rude and disrespectful.  For Janna to see one hand covering an ear and the other hand raised in a fist filled her with both terrible regret at believing a repressive Hearing teacher, and terrific pride that, in the end, the Deaf will own their own place in the world.

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New from Boles Books Writing and Publishing: Hardcore ASL Textbook for Levels 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7

As the New Year springs us forward into perpetuity, Janna and I are delighted to share the news with you that we have finally taken the advice of our Hardcore ASL students and instructors who have wanted to have all seven levels — all the teaching — in a single reference book.  Introducing, from Boles Books Writing and Publishing — Hardcore ASL Textbook for Levels 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 — available right now from Kindle Direct Publishing:

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Preventing the Re-Ghettoization of the Uneducated and Untrained Deaf in America

Educating the Deaf in America is an expensive proposition — especially in a modern mainstream setting with Hearing students and interpreters are required.  Educating the college-capable Deaf is an even more daunting project because of the massive amount of money it takes to educate just a single Deaf student.

The Americans with Disabilities Act is now 22 years old, but that Act still doesn’t begin to really protect the rights of the disabled.  All the Act does is try to level the playing field of fair play by mandating equal access and opportunity but, in many cases, if you want full and verified ADA protection, you have to hire a lawyer and sue.  That’s an expensive proposition for any disabled person to conjure.

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What's in a Deaf Sign Name? Hunter and his Gun!

The last week of August caught a firestorm in the Grand Island, Nebraska Public Schools system as administrators scrambled to recover from banning a three-year-old Deaf child named Hunter Spanjer from using his sign name because his fingers “looked too much like a gun” — and any sort of suggestion of a gun, even as a sign name, is verboten.

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When Fluency No Longer Matters

There’s an infuriating move afoot in several major universities to “dumb down” graduation requirements by removing foreign language fluency from the core program of study.  Some schools incredibly want to make a mere semester of a foreign language an elective and not a hard requirement for earning a diploma.  When I was in college, we had to take four semesters of a foreign language in order to graduate.  Soon, that minimal forced fluency that formed many generations of students will no longer be important to a college education.

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Steve Jobs Replies from the Grave: From iBoles to iPad to iAuthor

When the iPad was originally introduced, I was already an Apple fanboi with iBoles and iJanna and a couple of Apple books in the pipeline — and I was especially interested in the iPad as a book publication vehicle.  At that time, Steve Jobs was still alive and randomly replying to email inquiries, and on March 23, 2010 at 8:29pm, I decided to take my shot with Jobs and I emailed him my iPad Book Publishing Query:

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Using Google+ Hangouts to Communicate in ASL Group Video Chat

I was finally able to get into Google+ this morning.  I think my invitations to the service from my friends and associates were getting caught in my Gmail trash from what I can tell in my postmortem investigation.  Today, I just tried to login to the service, and I was finally met with this Join screen:

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Did Sign Language Save the Ukraine? Ten Sentence Story #133

There is a story on the internets telling how Sign Language helped to save the Ukraine.

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Teaching American Sign Language with a Stick

In the History of Bad Idea the — the worst one, in my humble estimation, is the practice of teaching students of American Sign Language with a stick.  Yes, a stick made of wood.  In some ASL programs, instructors use a stick during class to manipulate — and intimidate! — their students.

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The History of Our American Sign Language Classes at CUNY

Janna and I were delighted to create, and then teach, our “Hardcore ASL” style of learning as a new series of American Sign Language courses offered by the City University of New York professional school, and while we no longer teach there, the experience was both historic and defining.

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