Ageless Passions by Karen Putz

Tag: sign language

  • One Direction Features an American Sign Language Version of “I Would”

    If I wasn’t already deaf my daughter’s scream would have done the trick.  Lauren and I were checking out the fan music videos on the One Direction website for the #1DDayMusicVideo and  the music video that Lauren and her friend, Lauren Holtz, created was one of the featured videos.  It was early in the morning and their American Sign Language version of  “I Would” was one of five.  I’m sure when I joined Lauren in the screaming we might have woken up a few neighbors too.

    You can see the featured video here:  One Direction #1DDayMusicVideos Playlist  It remains to be seen if it will be featured during the 7-hour webcast of 1DDay on November 23rd.

    The girls filmed the video in just 30 minutes as the video had to be submitted the next day and the sun was going down.  All in all, despite some bloopers and messed up signs, the girls put together a fun video:

    The two girls had the time of their life at the One Direction concert over the summer. Harry Styles signed to them a few times during the concert:

    Harry Styles Does Sign Language.

    Harry Styles Signs to Deaf Fans at the One Direction Concert

    Lauren’s guest post on ChicagoNow: Signing with Harry Styles at the One Direction Concert

     

    Subscribe to a bit of PASSION from Karen Putz.

  • Meeting Janet Attwood, Author of The Passion Test

    “You have to read The Passion Test,” said my friend, Stephen Hopson last year. Stephen is a transformational speaker who is also deaf and he’s a dear friend of mine. I was a little hesitant about ordering yet another book, because I had promised the hubby not to add any more books to the piles around the house.  But there I was, sitting in front of the computer, trusting the recommendation of my friend and ordering Janet and Chris Attwood’s book.

    A year later, what can I say… The Passion Test, along with Aspire by Kevin Hall,  and the Yes to Success workshop with Debra Poneman changed my life.  I created a vision board and vision list.   “When you are clear, what you want will show up in your life, and only to the extent that you are clear,” I learned from The Passion Test. There were specific things that I wanted to accomplish and I wrote them all down.  I knew the order of my passions. The list was a long one, but I didn’t hold back.   Between the books and the workshop, life was going in a whole new direction. “Passions are about process. Goals are about outcomes,” Janet and Chris wrote. People who have witnessed the change in my life the last year and half have remarked that I seem to always be having fun.  But that’s exactly what life is about– having fun, enjoying it to the fullest and being happy in the process.  And when life lines up with your passions and your purpose, then it is indeed filled with lots of joy.

    Whenever you are faced with a choice, a decision, or an opportunity, choose in favor of your passions.

    “Meet Janet Attwood,” was on my vision list, and last night, I spent a magical two hours in the company of Janet Attwood as she shared her journey that lead to the book and her amazing life. Earlier in the week, I had an interpreter lined up along with a back up interpreter.  Both ended up not being able to attend. At the last minute, I made countless calls to try and locate another interpreter.  I resigned myself to a night of lipreading, but as it turned out, Janet was so easy to understand that I was able to sit back and enjoy the evening.

    Tomorrow, I’ll be heading to Chicago to soak in another day with Janet.  This workshop is hosted by Positive Focus Productions.  Janet will focus on:

    • How to discover your top five passions
    • The one secret that guarantees a passionate life
    • The three keys to creating anything you choose to have in your life
    • Learn how to live with less anxiety and fear
    • Experience a deeper connection with the most important people in your life including yourself
    • Experience a new sense of vigor and well-being

    The Passion Test is featured in the November issue of Oprah’s O Magazine. Quite simply, it will change your life.

    Following Your Bliss

     

  • Dr. Suzette Garay, National Speaker, Instructor

    Dr. Suzette Garay is the owner of Baby Signs 4 U and is a national speaker.  She was the first Hispanic Deaf woman to obtain a Ph.D.

    Sign Language Classes at Apple Ridge Academy

    The Benefits of Using Sign Language with Preverbal Babies 

    Tell me about your job.  How did you get into this line of work?

    My primary work is teaching.  I teach the following Psychology, ASL, and Parent/Infants (hearing pre-verbal babies) to utilize sign language before they speak.  My desires to teach be it in a school, college, and/or private practice has been a long-standing dream of mine since I was in high school.  My decision to become a teacher comes from experiencing my own personal frustrations, lack of access to information, and/or discrimination to participate in opportunities due to poor special education services or no interpreters llowed in my classes back then in 1970’s.

    What is the best part of your job?

    Seeing how children are inspired, motivated, and determined to excel after knowing it is possible (role model) when their teacher standing before them has done it.

    What are some of the challenges of your job?

    -Convincing parents that all things are possible even if their child cannot hear or has something lacking or limiting them learning in the same way most children learn. 

    -Convincing people that I am worthy of my expertise when it comes to making profound decisions on a child’s life or deciding whether or not a child can learn with the best informed-choices that are available.  Sometimes, people have preconceived notions of what children with disabilities can or cannot do.

    -Avoiding the labels of being “exceptional”, “gifted”, “genius”, “having all the answers,” etc…  sometimes people try to put me on high pedestal for being the ideal Deaf, woman with Ph.D., First Latina, and/or overcoming adversity when I just want to be that “normal” person who worked hard to achieve what I had to overcome.

    -Meeting the needs or demands of the expectations people assume you can provide all the answers or hope for their child in need. So many people are desperate for your services or inspiration, but you can’t meet everyone’s need. Your only one person with so many hours available to help others.  Sometimes, you have to take care of yourself first before you can take care of others.

    What was it like growing up deaf/hard of hearing?

    My journey as a deaf child was very unusual than most would people would endure in their childhood.  First, even though I was born profoundly deaf, my deafness was not identified till I was almost 13 years old.  This is mostly due to the fact that I was shuffled through the welfare/foster care system which moved me in and out of more than 16 foster homes.  This means that on the average I lived with the families approximately 90 days or so.  When there was an opportunity to consider a possible hearing loss I was already moving onto another home.  Those first 13 years of my life were an incredible journey of exploring, learning, and understanding the world around me.

    After the 13 years, I finally had the right to be deaf and it changed the perceptions of how others would view me.  Some were good and some were bad perceptions of what I could or couldn’t do as a deaf child.  I loved music, in the sense of feeling the vibrations and often would be in the hands of authorities for “disturbing the neighbors” for blasting music so I could enjoy it. Schools became more restricted with learning, participating, and being treated differently with lower expectations of what I could learn or do because I was deaf or came from a lower social-economic background or simply because I was “too bright” has a handicap child. 

    Most of last 5 years of schooling was devoted to speech therapy, auditory rehab due years of needing to catch up.  This resulted in lost opportunities to participate in sports or extra-curricular activities that
    hearing students had.

    What advice would you give a deaf/hard of  hearing person who is looking for a career like yours?

    -Never take NO for an answer!
    -Always believe in yourself and only you can determine what you want to be
    or do in your life (no one should decide for you).
    -Have lots of patience with people who don’t understand your intentions to
    excel in whatever you want to do.
    -Don’t be afraid to ask for help and be grateful when others do help you.
    -Never forget where you came from or your shortcomings so you can always be glad to help others when they are in need, especially if you are going to teach the little ones who will be looking up to you.
    -Pick the right college that will give you the most support not just the name of the school because it’s popular.
    -Don’t be afraid to stand up for what you believe is the right thing to do even if it is not the most popular thing others want you to do.

  • It’s No B.S. Mom, I Love You Too!

    I grew up in a family with five generations of hearing loss. My Great-Grandfather, Grandmother, my mom and all of her siblings were deaf or hard of hearing and none of them knew sign language. All of my siblings have hearing loss as well as my children and one niece.

    My mother’s hearing began to decline in her twenties. All of my brothers and sisters were born hearing and one by one, we each lost our hearing. My oldest sister was three years old when she fell, hit her head and instantly became profoundly deaf. My parents sent her off to live with my aunt and she attended Central Institute for the Deaf, an oral school. My brother Dennis was 36-years-old when a wooden beam fell on him at work and he woke up in the hospital two days later with a severe hearing loss. My sister Jeanie began to lose hearing in her 20’s and a few years ago, she slipped on a rug and became profoundly deaf.  My brother Kenny has a mild hearing loss that began a few years ago from a fall while barefooting.

    I came along 10 years after the last sibling was born. When I was five, I was diagnosed with a moderate to severe hearing loss. I muddled along in school, receiving a hearing aid in 4th grade and speech therapy. Because I “functioned” so well and was able to keep up my grades, I was pretty much lost in the system. Teachers lavished praise on the “girl with the hearing loss.”  My loneliness was often overlooked.

    My life stayed this way all through my school years. I made friends with a select few who could look beyond my hearing loss. In high school, I met another girl, Shawn, who also wore hearing aids and we became fast friends. We each shared the horror of dealing with group situations and the anxiety that came with it. We learned to adapt so well that some of our friends had no clue that we wore hearing aids. (I never wore my hearing aid outside of school or during the summer.)  Of course, we missed out on the punch lines of many jokes while laughing along with the others.

    When I began attending classes at the local community college, I started to fear that I had no future ahead of me. I had interviewed for several jobs, but no one had the courage to hire me or deal with my inability to use the phone. I took one job as a dishwasher at a local restaurant and earned money mostly by babysitting. The future began to look pretty bleak. The few guys that I dated weren’t good marriage prospects. I began to wonder just where I was headed.

    On a whim, I decided to transfer to a college that had a program for deaf and hard of hearing persons. My mother reluctantly supported my decision. She was afraid to see her last baby go off to the great unknown. How in the world would I cope at a university when I could barely get by at the community college?

    Just before going off to college, I was water skiing on my bare feet and I turned to cross the wake. I fell hard, and for the next few days, I kept feeling like I had water in my ear. I had become profoundly deaf.

    Going off to college turned out to be a blessing. At first, it was quite a culture shock. I was living on a co-ed floor with people who signed so fast that it was intimidating. Little by little, I was transformed. Slowly, I was introduced to a Deaf life to the point it felt like “coming home.” I was in a world where hearing didn’t matter. It was a world where, if I missed the punch line of a joke, someone would kindly sign it over again until I could join in the laughter. Of course, occasionally I encountered: “Sorry, train gone!”

    My mother and siblings began to see a new person blossom in front of them. I introduced them to a TTY, and a new, accessible world began to open for them. My mom admitted that she wished she had known more about sign language while we were growing up so that we could have had access to interpreters.

    When my oldest son became deaf, my mom began to ask how to sign certain things. It made me smile to see my 70-year old mom signing to my kids. One of her favorite signs was the sign for “I love you,” which is made with the thumb, forefinger and pinky finger extended and the two middle fingers bent downward.

    Every time we got into the van to leave to go home, Mom would flash her “I love you” sign. There was only one problem though…

    Mom would occasionally forget and leave the thumb bent inward, which turned the sign into “B.S.”

    It is quite a picture to see Mom flashing her “B.S.” sign when we are pulling out of the driveway. It always puts a smile on my face.

    It’s no B.S., Mom. I love you too!