Through posters, quotes and pictures in the hallways, Prosper High School recognized Deaf Awareness Month to help students better understand the deaf community. American Sign Language provides more than a foreign-language course option. ASL teacher Alex Hudson said it also offers a bridge to connect two cultures.

“We can learn sign language, but a deaf person can’t learn to hear,”  Hudson said. “The more people that know sign language, even if it’s just a little bit, the friendlier and more accessible the world gets for deaf people.”

Hudson said she decided to be an ASL teacher in high school when she took a course and fell in love with the language.

“It was crazy to me that there was this whole world and culture that I didn’t know about,” Hudson said. “The deaf community is happening all around us.”

Students say Hudson’s compassion for them and teaching takes Prosper one step closer to her goal. Hudson said she wants students to become more inclusive and more understanding of those within the deaf community.

“Ms. Hudson is so amazing and so sweet and she’s very excited to teach us this new language,” freshman Ava Bish said. “It’s important to have an ASL program because it’s a language and so many people that are misunderstood communicate in that language.”

According to Hudson, the deaf community offers encouragement and acceptance. She said members come together and connect through this unique language. 

“A deaf person can do anything a hearing person can do except hear, so the only thing that ever stands in their way is us,” Hudson said. “If we understand that a deaf person is perfectly capable of doing all the things that we do ,and we learn sign language, we don’t have that communication barrier everywhere, and deaf people are allowed to just be themselves.”

Isabel Multer, sports editor for Eagle Nation Online, also works for Eagle Nation News, Prosper High School’s broadcast program.