What a load of crap this stupid belief was. I'll give you a couple of examples
I was the sign language interpreter for our congregation and there was about 15-20 deaf who regularly showed up. One of the things I was asked to do was teach others sigh language so they could help out with the interpreting. Fine I was more than happy to do it. I taught this for about 5 years and sometimes there were men who joined the classes. No one said a word about a female teaching men sign language.
Then one day an elder pulls me aside and says it is not my place to teach brothers anything and from now on he would teach the men who wanted to learn -- this after I taught HIM!. And he had to be one of the worst interpreters I ever saw.
Whatever.
We had two deaf elders. I learned sign language from the wife of one of them. They were a great couple and I loved them dearly. They had a daughter the same age as my youngest daughter and the girls often spent time together. In third grade the deaf school started something called reverse integration. Instead of the deaf kids going into hearing schools they had hearing kids go into the deaf school. (The deaf school was on one side of the school and children with physical disabilities were on the other. Anyway I decided after talking with the school to send our youngest to the school for the year. I thought they might put her in the deaf section but they placed her on the other side. But at recess she got to play with her deaf friend.
So I was at the school often and would pick up signs from the teachers and then when I was interpreting I would use the sign. Sign language is better understood if signs are used for words instead of spelling the words that have no sigh (or you don't know). Now whenever I introduced a new sign to the group I would show the sign spell the word and show the sign again and then carry on with the interpreting. I never had any problem with doing this and the deaf would start using the word -- all's fine.
Until one day the "other" deaf elder demanded to know where I got this new sigh I was teaching them. I told them from the deaf school. He immediately turned to his 10 yr old son who was also deaf and asked him if he knew this sign. The boy said yes and then the father said it was OK I could continue to use the sign.
Whatever
One last example. Since I had taught the other interpreters to sign I always sat in a place where I could watch them and help if needed. Well one day I wasn't paying the closest of attention and one of the deaf tapped me and wanted to know what the interpreter was saying. This happened to be a woman so I was allowed to correct her if needed. I started watching and she was supposed to be interpreting the word "circumstance". But instead she was using the word for circumcision. That can sure mess up the meaning. I could not get her attention long enough to show her the correct word so I told the deaf brother and he let the others know the correct word.
Now my issue here is this: If this had been a brother making this mistake I would have gotten into trouble for correcting him in front of the rest of the deaf. I was very thankful bro. signs-bad wasn't doing the interpreting.
But how stupid is that? Let's see correct him for making a mistake that makes him look entirely stupid and gives the talk no meaning" Or try my best to correct the situation?
I'm sure many of you have other kinds of examples. What are they?
