to AllDeaf forum. Even though I was born deaf, I had to go to mainstream school (both elementary and high school) which is oral-only method program. I hated that method very much and I had talked to my principal to have sign language like ASL to be in the program so that it would have been easy for me to communicate with deaf/hard of hearing students and getting ASL interpreters in all my classes which was mainly in most hearing classes. The principal said no and that sign language is bad and thought that deaf/hard of hearing should learn to read lips and spoken language without the use of ASL. I was upset about it. It was hard for me to understand what was going on in the classroom but somehow I managed to graduated from high school. So after high school I started to learn ASL from a Lutheran Deaf Pastor (had a Deaf church). I was about 21 years old to learn ASL and it had opened a new door or chapter into my life and I felt a relieve off my shoulder and I was very happy to sign with the Deaf communities. Now I am old and still use ASL. I taught my hearing son to sign when he was a toddler. So he is a CODA (Children Of Deaf Adults). ASL is a language and not a lazy one at that. This is how we communicate so that we can understand just like French or Spanish.
You will learn a lot about our experiences and to get to learn about deafness, Deaf Culture and other topics that we can discuss or debate. So have fun reading and posting all the threads here. See you around here. 
