Where all the signs are encouraging
Naomi Jordan has brought enthusiasm, inclusion to the task of teaching sign language to a new club of Knights who are very eager to learn it
Naomi Jordan teaches the Sign Language Club every Wednesday during lunch in Ms. Smith’s Room 148. With the assistance of her translator, Emily Williams, Jordan brings enthusiasm and encouragement as she teaches the basics of sign language to her students, the club’s members. Speaking from my personal experience, the club is really fun with lots of neat learning experiences, all because Naomi is a talented teacher. New members are always welcome. To give you a taste of what the club is like, I have created this photo essay, which is also the Tuesday Top 10 on the Shield website this week.
SPELLING IS FUN: Sophomore Naomi Jordan teaches her Sign Language Club how to finger spell last Wednesday. Naomi started the club in order to teach more people how to speak sign language. “People are curious when they see me signing to my translator,” Naomi said. “They’re always interested in my language.”
SIGNING WITH FRIENDS: Junior Owen McGuire practices fingerspelling in Naomi Jordan’s Sign Language Club on Sept. 30. Owen joined the club with some of his friends because they had a mutual interest in learning sign language and thought this would be a good way to pursue it. “Naomi shows us the signs in a way that helps us all understand it,” Owen said. “She’s patient and overall a good teacher.”
G=GOALS: Freshman Micayla Nestlebush signs the letter G in Naomi Jordan’s Sign Language Club in Room 148. Micayla joined the Sign Language Club because she felt like it would be useful for the job she wants to pursue. “I want to be an Occupational Therapist,” she says.
HOW DO YOU SPELL … ? As part of her lesson for Sign Language Club on Sept. 30 in Ms. Smith’s room, Naomi Jordan played a game with her class where they finger-spelled the names of different animals. “Pandas are my favorite animal,” Naomi signed.
SPELL CHECK: Emily Williams, Naomi’s translator, helps students with perfecting their signing. Here, she corrects a student’s finger-spelling of butterfly. “B-U-T-T-E-R-F-L-Y” She spells out.
PASSIONATE ABOUT LEARNING: Junior Anna Fox (right) joined Naomi’s club because she loved the beauty of the language and wanted to embrace the chance to learn it. “My favorite part so far is definitely just how smoothly Naomi runs things, and how much effort she puts into making sure we’re all speaking,” Anna said. Across the board, Naomi’s teaching has received nothing but praise from club members.
THE SIMPLICITY OF SIGNING: Junior Ella Rosenblatt finger-spells in Naomi Jordan’s ASL club on Sept. 30. Many members said that they find it hard to memorize words when learning a spoken language, so they appreciate how physical sign language is because it’s easier for them to learn. “I really enjoyed learning all the animal signs,” Ella said. “It’s a very literal language so when you sign an animal you sort of mimic that animal.”
PASSIONATE ABOUT TEACHING: Naomi gestures to the screen behind her as she teaches her lesson on fingerspelling. Naomi is openly enthusiastic about teaching others sign language and loves when people are interested in how she speaks. “One of my favorite words to sign is friendly,” Naomi informs the class.
PRACTICING THE ALPHABET: Participants in Naomi Jordan’s Sign Language Club sign the letter “I” during their fingerspelling practice Sept. 30. Students have learned fingerspelling, how to sign animals and how to sign emotions so far. “My favorite animal to sign is ‘dolphin,’” junior Owen McGuire said, demonstrating how to sign the word.
SIGN WITH A SMILE: Naomi is always happy to talk about sign language, and she loves having the ability to teach others. Every time she talks about teaching, she gets the biggest smile on her face. Her encouragement to her students? “Don’t give up on learning,” Naomi says. “Sign language is really so beautiful!” And we couldn’t agree more.
![A PRIDE-FUL WEEK OF CELEBRATION:
As part of AISDs week-long celebration of PRIDE, students of the McCallum Spectrum Club worked to create a week full of activities, prizes and helping hands to support the schools LGBTQ+ community. The club is widely available for anyone to join, and specializes in creating a safe space for students to share and give advice. While Pride month itself isn’t until June, AISD designates one week in March to celebrate and commemorate the importance of this part of the student body.
As part of the week of festivities, the club held a booth in the front hall handing out pride stickers, pins and merch to passers by. For junior Zane Joly, the booth idea was brought up as a way for students to engage with one another, and connect with the community.
“I call out to people in the halls, ‘hey, do you want stickers?’” Joly said. “We just give out free pride stickers and sometimes other free pride merch to the students of Macallum because everybody likes pride stickers.”
While the week itself is packed with a variety of different activities, the overall goal is to bring students closer together and create a safer environment for self expression at McCallum.
“The idea for the student panel largely came from the black [history] student panel that is done during Black History Month,” Joly said. “And the idea for giving out free stuff was developed at Spectrum last year.”
Joly is not only a member of the Spectrum club, but also holds a leadership position giving them a more hands-on role with the projects and Pride Week activities.
“McCallum has a very high queer population,” Joly said. “I think Its nice that we get a chance to celebrate Pride because Pride Month is during the summer, and I think its just a nice thing for the community and getting to just celebrate it.”
While the merch table at lunch was only a small part of the numerous parts of McCallum’s Pride week, for Joly this small impact made all the difference.
“The purpose of Pride is to make people not feel alone and to make them feel safe,” Joly said. “The goal is [to make people] happy about a part of themselves that theyre often conditioned to not feel good about.”
Caption by Chloe Lewcock. Photo by Shila Gill.](https://macshieldonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/53597258192_6e7168d8ae_o-1-600x338.jpg)
![BACKGROUND IN THE BUSINESS: Dressed by junior designer Kaitlyn Gerrie, senior Chamila Muñoz took to the “Dreamland” runway this past weekend. While it was her first time participating in the McCallum fashion show, Muñoz isn’t new to the modeling world.
I modeled here and there when I was a lot younger, maybe five or six [years old] for some jewelry brands and small businesses, but not much in recent years,” Muñoz said.
Muñoz had hoped to participate in last year’s show but couldn’t due to scheduling conflicts. For her senior year, though, she couldn’t let the opportunity pass her by.
“It’s [modeling] something I haven’t done in a while so I was excited to step out of my comfort zone in a way,” Muñoz said. “I always love trying new things and being able to show off designs of my schoolmates is such an honor.”
The preparation process for the show was hectic, leaving the final reveal of Gerrie’s design until days before the show, but the moment Muñoz tried on the outfit, all the stress for both designer and model melted away.
“I didn’t get to try on my outfit until the day before, but the look on Kaitlyn’s face when she saw what she had worked so hard to make actually on a model was just so special,” Muñoz said. “I know it meant so much to her. But then she handed me a blindfold and told me I’d be walking with it on, so that was pretty wild.”
Caption by Francie Wilhelm.](https://macshieldonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/53535098892_130167352f_o-600x400.jpg)
Asa • Oct 14, 2021 at 11:39 am
Awesome that we’re teaching sign language and other accommodations for disabled people.