It’s not necessarily more work to teach kids basic communication in both ASL and braille than some of the other things kids get taught in schools.
I can think of many benefits to society if the majority knows how to do both, so I’m genuinely curious why it never gained traction anywhere? Like, there are no countries on earth where the majority can communicate in sign language or read braille.
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Only blind people *need* to learn braille; a sighted person usually wouldn’t have the tools to create it or a situation where they would need that instead of speaking, so even if every sighted person knew it, it wouldn’t make the world any easier for the blind.
ASL *is* taught in some public schools. For that, it’s more of a cost-benefit analysis. Learning it allows communication with about 1 million deaf Americans and very few non-Americans (since ASL is not an international language), vs. learning Spanish allowing communication with over 10 million Americans who don’t speak English and hundreds of millions of others worldwide, or learning French or Chinese allowing communication with very few Americans but again hundreds of millions of others worldwide.
I guess depends where you are. But I’m in US and never once in my many years of life have I needed either.
Spanish on the other hand is way more helpful, at least in the south. So usually, Spanish is taught as the secondary mode of language, as you’d probably use it more for an average persons life.
Why would reading Braille be useful? It would require huge investment in specialised books and/or Braille displays, and I’m not sure what benefit it would offer to those who aren’t blind or partially-sighted, unless perhaps they lose their vision later in life?
Sign language may be more useful, but again there’s a skill and resources issue with it – because it isn’t commonly-taught, and it’s rare to have it as a native tongue, how would you get sign language users into schools? You could look for hearing people who have Deaf family members, but unfortunately there’s little emphasis put on disability education, and very few Deaf teachers (who may struggle to communicate with a hearing class who can’t sign yet) or those with adequate sign language going into teaching.
Some basic signs and sign language systems (such as Makaton) are more commonly taught in schools and pre-schools, particularly for children who are too young to verbalise their needs or have some other developmental or sensory issue. It’s becoming increasingly common, thankfully, but still there’s little importance assigned to it.
I’d also like to add that sign languages vary significantly between countries – ASL and BSL are mutually unintelligible, for instance, and they differ greatly from English (via syntax, grammar etc.) too. There’s no universal sign language, and Braille also varies between countries, languages and alphabets/scripts too. Even within English Braille, there are three levels of complexity for the script, and it isn’t a simple re-encoding of the English alphabet.
I think primarily teaching these topics would help with empathy and understanding towards disabled people, but there are simpler/cheaper ways of trying to achieve this outside of overhauling the education system.
Braille especially I think is quite rare and not useful for people who can see – I’ve read that even most blind people cannot read braille. I don’t think braille would be helpful for the majority of people.
Sign language is more common, but still rare. Why have everyone learn a language that is pretty uncommon rather than say Chinese or Spanish?
>Like, there are no countries on earth where the majority can communicate in sign language or read braille.
Because the majority don’t need to communicate in sign language or braille. These languages were created to service very specific users, and in turn those who work with those users.
The thing to really remember is that schools don’t make you proficient. They give you an elementary level of understanding. Teaching any foreign language in school doesn’t provide a tangible benefit for society. An hour a week isn’t going to make everyone fluent. At best you leave school with elementary levels. If you learned sign language in school, you may be able to sign basic interaction.
Braille is a different matter entirely. If you’re not blind, you have no reason to learn braille, since you can – you know – see the text. Braille is a language used for reading.
If the overarching question is based on how to support (at least) the deaf community, the solution is to provide better access to services for them in the community, not by teaching the entire population how to ask for their name.
>It’s not necessarily more work to teach kids basic communication in both ASL and braille than some of the other things kids get taught in schools.
Teaching it is more work (and more time of the school day) than not teaching it. To teach it, something else would need to be removed. Most people think those other things have a better cost:benefit ratio than braille or sign language.
ASL is taught in schools, in fact I’m supposed to be doing my asl homework right now. Many people have deaf family members, or lose their hearing as they age. There are plenty of deaf people if you know where to look, and for the most part they are all very friendly. I can’t speak for everyone but I definitely have gotten some use out of the language. It’s would recommend taking asl if you have a hard of hearing family member, or want to try something different. Rudimentary knowledge of asl may be an asset for getting hired, although the use most people will get out of it will be limited.
Edit: it’s cool being able to talk in class and have only other asl students know what your saying.
We learned a bit of ASL when i was in school. After a decade or so of never using it, i can’t even sign the alphabet anymore.
And that’s why it’s not taught outside of an elective class. Most people will never need or use it.
There are many more practical classes that should be taught before a language most people simply won’t have ax use for.
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