TEMPLE, Texas — Not many seventh graders are willing to start a club on campus and even fewer are willing to step up and lead that club. But that is exactly what Bonham Middle School student Mkayla Jones has done by creating an American Sign Language (ASL) Club at her Temple Independent School District campus.
Jones, a student in Bonham’s deaf education program, started the ASL club this school year to help her classmates who were interested in learning more about sign language and deaf culture. She works with deaf education teacher Kathryn Donahue to plan the meetings and create the slides used, but it was Jones who came up with the idea and leads the meetings each week.
“I started the ASL Club to teach all the students who were interested to come and learn sign,” Jones said. “Some of my friends had been signing with me and I thought we could do more. I want people who come to the meetings to learn sign language and teach them about deaf culture.”
“We try to be an inclusive environment and want everyone to feel like their voice is heard,” said Bonham Middle School Principal Michael Hobbs. “That can be difficult when you don’t have the tools to communicate. With Mkayla starting this club, people are understanding and feeling like it is okay to communicate and do it in a way that may be uncomfortable for you.”
The club had 14 students attend the first meeting but has since grown to as many as 30 students. That has administrators looking for a larger space to accommodate the growing numbers. Topics covered in meetings so far include basic signs and vocabulary, learning more about deaf culture, and indexing, a type of shorthand for deaf students. But just like the number of people attending, the items discussed during club meetings have grown too.
“We started with the most basic signs, but immediately, Mkayla wanted to teach her friends the emotions so they could communicate those, and for the holidays, she wanted to teach them Halloween signs,” Donahue said. “For the first meeting, she made up a game based on things she has been doing in class as she has grown up. She would sign a letter and have the others in the club hit the right letter with a flyswatter and then sign it back to her. She is a natural teacher and has been so creative and made this her own thing.”
“It has been really fun, and cool, and happy, and it has been so rewarding to see so many of my friends signing and communicating with me. I love it,” Jones said. “We have been doing basic and fun things like learning the alphabet and playing games. We want to create teams in the meetings so they can compete at things like learning the alphabet.”
The numbers in the ASL Club are not the only thing growing, both Hobbs and Donahue say they have seen a change in Jones, who is also a cheerleader at Bonham and says she may want to become a teacher one day. The two are looking forward to seeing what is next for both the ASL Club and for Jones.
“Mkayla is just a light on campus, and she has people who want to sign because they want to be able to communicate with her,” said Donahue. “I have seen her completely blossom and become very bold in communicating with others through an interpreter or through sign language. Seeing how she was already doing that, we wanted to create a space where people could come learn. I hope that the club continues to grow, and I am very excited and incredibly proud of her.”
“Our motto is to lead every day and we are trying to build leaders not only in the classroom, but in life, and Mykala has stepped up and done that, not just for herself, but for the entire deaf education program,” Hobbs added. “She has shown us that you can always persevere, and I think that embodies what we are trying to do here at Bonham. This won’t be the last thing she creates or is in charge of, but it is a start for her. She is a natural born leader, and we are so proud of her for taking this step.”
Bonham’s ASL Club meets every Thursday morning at 7:45 and Jones has one more message for her classmates who have not been to a meeting yet.
“I just can’t believe that there are that many people coming to the meetings, and seeing so many people has been surprising,” she said. “But I would say, come to ASL Club to anyone who wants to come learn sign or more about deaf culture.”