At the beginning of the school year, students and staff gave a warm welcome to Mrs. Thompson, Brighton High School’s new American Sign Language (ASL) 1 and 2 teacher. This is her first year as an ASL teacher and her first year at BHS.
Thompson said she wanted to become an ASL teacher because “this job lets [her] bring together [her] love of sign language and [her] love of teaching.”
Thompson got into ASL because her childhood dog was deaf. She says she “learned signs like sit, stay, and roll over so that [she] could teach her dog Crackerjack hand signs.”
“They offered a little bit of it in elementary, so you could skip recess once a week, and so I started learning in elementary,” she said.
Thompson got her interpreting degree from Columbus State Community College after taking ASL as her primary language throughout high school.
Thompson said her favorite part of being an ASL teacher here at BHS is “the subject matter and the kids.”
“The kids have chosen that they want to learn this, and it makes it a lot of fun to teach,” Thompson said.
