By Sergio Tapia/reporter
TR Campus hosted Travel into a Deaf, Deaf World, an event designed to educate high school and college students about using sign language and navigating life as a deaf person, Oct. 5.
Students and staff communicated throughout the day without a single spoken word. A TCC student or professor led each session, and students could practice vocabulary, sentence structure, finer spelling and interpreting.
During one of the sessions, students met with Alice Turner who is blind and deaf.
“ASL students who come, they are in the process of learning the language and never have had the real-life experience of meeting a deaf person,” said TR instructional assistant Cecelia Garrett, the event’s coordinator. “So we bring in deaf and blind volunteers.”
Students briefly experienced Turner’s life, as they walked the hallways blindfolded with earplugs.
When learning ASL, one will learn more than a language. Students also learn about a community and culture, Garrett said.
“Encourage students to mingle with somebody,” she said. “Go ahead and be around people even though they are different, even though they can’t hear you, even though they can’t speak.”
