ASL students attend immersive “silent dinners”

Libby Pullen | The Chronicle

In the world of high school American Sign Language (ASL) education, immersive experiences play a crucial role in deepening students’ understanding of deaf culture. One of these such experiences are silent dinners – events organized by members of the Deaf community, hosted in public areas such as food courts. These gatherings offer an opportunity for students to directly engage with members of the Deaf community and others who communicate using ASL, which is a rare chance compared to immersion experiences for other languages such as Spanish or French. 

Chloe Smith, a junior ASL student, attended a couple of silent dinners last year. Initially, Smith said she was worried about going to one of these events at her level of proficiency. Despite her nervousness, however, she found the event an enlightening experience.

“When I first walked in, I was terrified because I was very scared I wouldn’t know the right signs,” Smith said. “It was actually really cool. We got to see Deaf people signing and talking. It was really cool just to look around and see the ways that people communicated.”

Christie Loucks, an ASL teacher at Mason High School (MHS) with over twenty years of experience, said the value of these events is immeasurable, and shared her opinion on why she first sent students to these dinners.

 “Students learn very formal ways to sign in the classroom, and it is a challenge to learn to do that with people they don’t know, and people who are native signers,” Loucks said.

 These direct interactions help students appreciate the individuality and fluidity of ASL, which is distinct from more commonly taught languages due to its visual-spatial nature. This immersion bridges a deeper connection to the ASL-speaking community and enhances language proficiency in ways that the traditional classroom settings do not. The silent dinners are not just about learning signs, but also about understanding the distinctive culture and close-knit nature of the Deaf community.

 “It’s really cool… they come back learning new signs and can incorporate it in the conversations that we have in class and an overall better appreciation for the Deaf community,” Loucks said. 

Molly Fisher, a sophomore at Mason High School, said that going to the Kenwood silent dinner with her friends was a fun experience. She said these immersive events have a great impact on ASL learners. 

 “We got to see Deaf people signing and talking,” Fisher said. “Even if you weren’t trying to be nosy, you could look at other people’s conversations.” 

This exposure offered Fisher a new perspective, showing her that Deaf individuals are vibrant and active participants in their communities.

 “It just opened my eyes and gave me a new perspective,” Fisher said.

 Fisher also said the dinner environment was very supportive, and even beginners were welcomed and encouraged to interact with others.

 “You can definitely go in not knowing much, and the people will try to meet you where you’re at,” Fisher said. 

Fisher said she was very enthusiastic about the opportunity and believed that going to another event would benefit her education.

“I would definitely go to another [dinner],” Fisher said. I think it was really fun. But I think that I would be more confident in myself this time and talk to more people.”

For ASL learners, these immersive experiences offer a gateway to cultural empathy and language fluency. Olive Weaver, a senior student at MHS, said the inclusive events were significant to her learning. Weaver attended many of these events during her ASL education and reflects on the events.

“My experience was pretty wonderful,” Weaver said. “They’re a wonderful place to brush up on your ASL skills.”

Weaver believes these events offer an in-depth understanding of Deaf culture, while still being an open space for individuals to learn and interact with others. Weaver describes the dinners’ environment and the uniqueness of ASL culture and the events themselves through her own experience.

“There’s so many unique aspects about [ASL], as opposed to a written or spoken language,” Weaver said. “ASL is communicated through a lot of different ways, like through facial expressions.”

Weaver values the individuality of the language and how inclusive people are at the dinners. The engaging attendees of these events make sure to try and incorporate everyone. The overall atmosphere of these events is very open and welcoming, while also offering new experiences to meet and interact with a wide range of people.

 “[There] was this deaf sci-fi author who was just talking about his life in this group, and it was like this ring of ASL students who were surrounding him,” Weaver said. “He just did a wonderful job of asking for everybody’s names, and just making sure everyone felt included.”

Weaver’s appreciation of the inclusivity of the ASL culture mirrors other student’s experiences, highlighting the importance of feeling comfortable while learning a new language.

Students agree that silent dinners offer a rare and enriching chance to connect with the Deaf community, deepen their understanding of ASL, and build confidence in their signing abilities.

“Learning a lot about deaf culture is always wonderful, but I’ve also met some really cool people who participate in ASL programs or clubs in the Cincinnati area,” Weaver said. “So it has been really enjoyable to build relationships with other people who are also interested in deaf culture and ASL.”

Students, teachers adjust to new cell phone policy

Grace Ai | The Chronicle

A new school year is full of adjustments – this one more than most.

This year, many teachers at Mason High School (MHS) have made changes towards their cell phone policies in the classroom, often making them more strict. With a new Ohio law regarding phone usage in schools coming up next July, the high school has implemented a school-wide policy for phones that lets the teachers decide what their own students are to do with their phones.

German teacher Melissa Jurewicz is one who has made these changes. In past years, she said she didn’t have an official policy in the class, mostly asking students to put away their phones if they were distracted. Now, she uses boxes at each table group to store phones, called the “handy haus”.

“I wasn’t sure what method I wanted, because some teachers use the phone pockets on the walls,” Jurewicz said. “But this way I feel like I’ve got just one small group of phones that I’m worried about at a time in a box, versus the entire class’ phones up there on the [wall]. I feel like it’s the best thing I ever did.”

Similar to Jurewicz, statistics teacher Steve Mays has made some changes to his policy. Before, he would let students keep their phones, only asking them to put it away if they were off task.

“My phone policy is about halfway in between never using it and getting to use it all the time,” Mays said. “I’ve got boxes. [We] put the phones in the boxes, and we put the boxes on the back counter, so there’s not even that temptation to reach for it, even though it’s inside of a box.”

Despite putting phones in the box most days, Mays said that there are exceptions to this rule.

“There are going to be times throughout the school year where I’m like, ‘it’s okay to have your phone when you’re working independently,’” Mays said. “[But] when we’re doing something as a class where everybody needs to be engaged, it’s a no-phone policy.”

Mays said there have been many reasons why many teachers have chosen to take stricter measures, a common reason being students’ level of focus.

“Some people have phones as low as first and second grade, which I think is kind of crazy,” Mays said. “They’ve had those devices on them [for so long], and it becomes second nature to them.” 

Mays said that students having phones ingrained in their lives from such a young age can cause them to be so connected to their phones that it can be distracting in class.

“It has become a part of them – as soon as they feel that buzz in their pocket, as soon as they see the notification, the light goes off immediately,” Mays said. “It’s just instinctive: they grab it, and they start to look.”

According to Jurewicz, phones have also created other problems in class. Using new phone policies can be a way to combat the effects of students having phones at school.

“What really got to me was just that I’ve had a handful of kids that don’t even realize just how addicted to their phones they are,” Jurewicz said. “There’s not that many, but there’s enough, and the correlation between their grades, their performances, and whether or not they even had friends in the class seemed to match the fact that they were on their phones a lot.”

Because of this, Mays said constantly telling students to put their phones away wasn’t enough. Jurewicz agrees with Mays and said that phones have a negative impact on learning.

“Imagine if you were trying to sleep, and every couple minutes your alarm kept going off and waking you up,” Jurewicz said. “That’s what’s happening in class. You’re not getting the most that you can get out of being there, sort of like a constant break in concentration.”

Junior Lucy Bremer said many of her classes have completely restricted phones this year. Due to this new policy, she said students are seeing impacts on their overall phone usage. 

“I wouldn’t say I’m terribly addicted to my phone, but my screen time is definitely a little above average,” Bremer said. “So far today, it’s one hour and 26 minutes. The phone policy changed my screen time quite a bit.”

Bremer said that though it can be difficult to cut out phone usage after depending on them for so long, it can be helpful to distance from phones for learning purposes.

“Just in general, [students] have definitely formed a dependence on them, just from being born into a generation of technology,” she said. “But I think a healthy balance between phones and school is beneficial to both teachers and students.”