Polo Road hosts On the Other Hand
By John Dixon
Cub@TheColumbiaStar.com

The media center at Polo Road Elementary School was abuzz with activity Jan. 13 when the students became teachers.

Polo Road Elementary, which opened its doors for the first time this past August, is already reaching out into the community. Principal Jane Fancher was thrilled to host the Columbia Region of "On the Other Hand" a video- telecourse in sign language and deaf culture offered for recertification credit by the State Department of Education and SCETV.

Fancher also hosted the course before while principal at Windsor Elementary and was happy to be a part of this unique experience once again at Polo.

The course was originally the brain child of Mike Lewis, former consultant for the deaf and hard of hearing at the State Department of Education in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Lewis assembled a dedicated and talented group of people to produce the first course of its kind and received national recognition for the achievement. When the course was first taught it sought to help educators better understand the nuances of deaf culture and learn some basic history of sign language as well as develop rudimentary receptive and expressive skills in American sign language and various manually coded English systems.

The course has evolved over time based on the input and experiences of each group of participants. The students attend one four- hour class session a month, January through May viewing and reflecting upon 20 taped lessons hosted by Charlie McKinney and Charleston area Deaf Educator Linda Frazier.

The course is currently being taught by facilitators in Greenville, Georgetown, Charleston, Florence, Rock Hill, and Columbia. The Jan. 13th class was an introduction to the course and to the concept of visual- spatial communication.

In one activity, participants interacted with one-another using only non- verbal communication to discover interesting facts about their peers. In another, the participants divided into groups to sign a list of words represented by iconic and mime signs. Many were surprised to learn how many iconic signs they already knew and how well they could communicate without speaking.

Backgrounds and experience levels of the participants were as diverse as their reasons for taking the course, but they all joined the hands- on activities and participated enthusiastically. Then they gathered their DVDs and course guides and set off to continue their sign language instruction and exploration of deaf culture until they meet again to share their questions and experiences in February.