Tallwood High School has an academy for cross country and world language usage: “Global Studies and World Languages Academy.” It provides all sorts of languages: Spanish, French, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, German, even Latin! This school is to provide any language at one’s fingertips, so why don’t we have American Sign Language?

American Sign Language, or ASL for short, is the use of hand symbols and facial expressions to communicate almost, if not completely, silent. The main use for this language is to help “talk” with those who are deaf, someone who has lost their hearing to an extent.

There are about only 1,000 high schools in the US that give ASL as a class/club, with Washington having over 150. With these numbers, we should at least have one high school with ASL, right? Well, no. ASL is very limited to colleges and universities. Meaning that one cannot learn ASL until after graduation and the tossing of the caps in the air like the ending of Sorcerer’s Stone.

So why would we want ASL in Tallwood? Well for one, it could give us more attention as a school district that provides such a unique and helpful language. But that’s a school reason. There are many non-profitable reasons that one would actually consider.

First, and the most obvious, it will allow those who learn ASL to communicate with those who have impaired hearing. The inclusion of communication will also gladly be a support to the disabled community, showing that you truly care about the challenges and are striving to make a difference to our community.

Secondly, learning ASL will be a huge benefit for job opportunities. Learning a second language period will allow you to get extra pay, so ASL will be a benefit itself for extra pay. Not only that, you could get countless opportunities for different jobs like being an interpreter/translator or just to provide small things such as taking an order at a restaurant.

Finally, the development of ASL can improve overall physical health. When one learns the particular hand language, their cognition will increase, allowing better thinking and memory. ASL learning will also increase visual perception such as peripheral vision, which is a crucial need, especially for drivers.

American Sign Language is a person’s way of life, and not every early school teaches it; a specific sign language was almost extinct in Hawaii once. It allows them to feel like normal people, but with a hint of making people envious because they learned such an important language, and Tallwood is all about languages. It’s important to be inclusive no matter where a person is from or is going through, which is why the next step into this road for this school should be the involvement of ASL, whether as a fully fledged elective or even a club. Whichever path we choose, it’ll be worth the long run, especially for our community.