"ASL tours" for the Deaf are tours of popular tourist attractions that are that are conducted in American Sign Language (either by signing docents or are interpreted) and are intended for Deaf participants.
ASL tours of Deaf
exhibitions are generally "not" appropriate to use for "Deaf Event attendance
assignments" for students.
Some of the reasons why such tours should not be used as class assignments:
* If Hearing students or other Hearing people attend an an ASL tour they might
displace prospective Deaf attendees by taking up tour slots that that could have
been assigned to Deaf people.
* The participation of ASL students in an "ASL-tour for the Deaf" reduces
the quality of the "Deaf space" and potentially reduces the enjoyment of the
Deaf participants. For example: Deaf spaces provide valuable
opportunities for Deaf people to meet other Deaf people. If Deaf spaces
are filled with Hearing people there are then fewer Deaf people available to
meet. If you go to the store looking for apples and a stock clerk filled
up the apple section with oranges -- the apple section would be less valuable to
someone looking for apples.
* If students ask the docent questions using rudimentary signing skills it slows
down the tour and displaces potential questions from Deaf participants about
topics or matters pertinent to Deaf people.
* If students behave badly or in a disruptive manner -- onlookers may mistakenly
believe the students are Deaf and ascribe the behavior to Deaf people. The
administrators of the event will be less likely to want to sponsor ASL tours in
the future.
Of course there can be win/win scenarios. For example "special tour"
sections could be set up to which students are "intentionally" welcome to
attend. It would be important to label such tours in a way that makes it
clear there will be a variety of attendees. An approach to this would be
for an instructor or group of instructors to arrange special tours specifically
for their class and then attend with the class and invite any Deaf who may be
inclined to attend as long as it is clear that it is a class trip and will be
full of Hearing students (prior to the Deaf person making the decision to
attend). Why is this a win? It helps support Deaf artists!
Having well attended events means that an artist is more likely to be invited
back or invited to other venues.
Notes:
Notes: