The other day I mentioned how I place importance on classes. It’s my teacher mentality and all that. Classes paved my way to career success, so I think of them quite highly.
I am currently taking a yoga class that meets three times a week and two separate American Sign Language classes. Both are activities I’ve wanted to do for some time. So even now, in my retirement, I spend 6 hours a week as a student. Actually, there’s not much difference between teacher and student. It only determines which side of the desk one sits on. With these particular classes, however, no one sits at a desk.
Yoga promotes balance and flexibility, stretching muscles. The older and more arthritic I get, the more I need that. Yes, it’s “work” in one sense, but boy, oh boy, it feels good. It goes beyond exercise. It’s a discipline that I obviously need. I can’t seem to keep my mouth closed when it comes to the goodies so the least I can do is exercise. With the exercise bike, if I get on it first thing in the morning, I haven’t yet thought of any dumb reason to skip it.
Learning sign language is, indeed, learning a new language. It’s not easy. Although, many of the signs are synonyms for one another, there’s A LOT of them. A LOT. Many are common sense. Many are not. Actually, Amercian Sign Language evolved from French Sign Language which might explain some things. For example, Europeans count to three using the thumb and the first two fingers, not the three middle fingers. The signs for x and r seem backwards to me; we’ll blame the French.
My mother and her father and one of her brothers were deaf — hard-of-hearing is what they called it — a euphemism for not totally deaf. Mother missed a lot of information because she ignored many visual clues. That was just part of her own personality. I realized that later in life when I worked for a deaf principal, had several students who were deaf. They functioned well because they paid attention to the visual. My student, Tom, in Hill City watched my face intently. I found I became more facially expressive when I talked to him. I also always got his attention before I talked. I am still astonished by people who talk to the back of a deaf person’s head. (People used to do that to my mother and it made me angry. That’s not playing fair.) My student at Davidson would remind me, “Mrs. Slusher, sit on this side and talk to my good ear.” Lehman was a charmer; most days I wanted to give him a hug. It also didn’t hurt that he reminded me a bit of my David. It was something about his smile. . . .
My point is: yes, we can learn without a class. Reading books are a good example. (Bruce learned to coach soccer after reading a book from the library.) So is a good mentor who simply show and guides. (I needed to watch someone when I learned to knit and crochet.) However, a class is a structured discipline and — Kathy’s favorite adage — we value what we pay for, both in time and money.
