Teacher on Two Wheels

When I was in Quito, Ecuador a while back, I visited a school for deaf and blind children.  This is a video clip from one of the classes I visited.  In it, children are learning how to sign different Spanish words.  The teacher put pictures of different objects on the floor and then asked the students what sign could be used to communicate each picture.

One of the things I found interesting:  Because the deaf students have trouble speaking and listening in the conventional ways, when they want to whisper to their friends during class, they don’t use their mouths–they sign with their hands.   At one point in the class, when many students were signing to their friends while the teacher was trying to teach, the teacher, frustrated, quickly folded her hands across her chest.  The students immediately did the same, and with this simple movement, all of the ‘chatter’ in the class ended.