Deaf Student Lends a Hand to Classmates

Like other teenagers, Hayley Lemmer dreaded moving to a new town.

But since her arrival here from Wisconsin in August, the Nordhoff High School junior has faced bigger obstacles than fitting in and making friends.

Partially deaf since infancy, Hayley has also had to endure the brush-off from students who don’t have the patience to listen to her slightly labored speech or wait for her lip-reading.

But in October, everything started to change.

The sprightly 16-year-old, who dresses in Tommy Hilfiger clothes and loves Ricky Martin, turned her disability on its head by using a tool of the deaf--American Sign Language--to connect with students on her own terms.

Each week since then, Hayley has been teaching more than a dozen Nordhoff students the specialized language in what is believed to be the only such school club in Ventura County.

“I’ve gotten to know people and I’ve made friends,” Hayley said. “So when I see them on campus, I have people to talk to.”

Hayley, one of only a handful of hard-of-hearing or deaf students in the county enrolled in a mainstream public education program, sparked students’ interest in forming the club.

She attends each of her six classes with an interpreter, Jessica Johnson, whose hand signals, Hayley said, seem to mystify classmates.

“They’ll look at Jessica instead of the teacher, trying to figure out what she’s telling me,” said Hayley, who also relies on a hearing aid and lip-reading to communicate with other students. “And then the teacher will have to say, ‘You’re supposed to be looking at me, not her,’ and then everybody laughs.”

Some members of the club, which so far has drawn mostly female students, joined because they wanted to better communicate with a hearing-impaired relative. Others sought the skill after witnessing the struggles the deaf encounter in daily life.

Sophomore Heather Letvinchuck said she saw a deaf woman in a local grocery store trying to communicate with a clerk who didn’t understand her.

“It was like any of us not being able to speak Spanish or any other language,” Heather said. “Deaf people are part of our community too. I think something should be done so more people know sign language.”

Janice McCormick, a Nordhoff counselor who organized the club, said students, particularly those planning on becoming interpreters, had expressed an interest in learning sign language before Hayley showed up at school in September.

“Seeing her just sort of pushed them,” said McCormick.

Hayley, who lost most of her hearing because of spinal meningitis when she was 5 months old, taught ASL for two years at a public high school in Wisconsin.

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During the Nordhoff club’s lunch-hour meetings, she relies on charts and diagrams to teach ASL words and concepts. She also hands out assignments, such as requiring members to tell an anecdote using the vocabulary they know.

As in any foreign language class, the first word the students learn is their own name, Hayley said. ASL relies on creative expression to capture a name, such as how a person looks, his personality, or what his name sounds like.

For example, Hayley’s ASL name is expressed with a sweeping motion up her cheekbone, because, she said, she smiles so much. For her English teacher, Brandon Fisher, she mimics casting a fishing line. And for Heather, her favorite club member, Hayley makes an “H” near her temple because, she said, Heather’s eyes are so pretty.

“The language is so beautiful to witness,” said McCormick. “It’s like performance art.”

Despite the new friendships she’s made, Hayley said she prefers to spend most of her free time on the 1,200-student campus alone because of the challenges of communicating with hearing students. Effective lip-reading requires a speaker to face the reader, and teenagers often look every which way while talking, Hayley said.

She had a lot of friends when she attended a school for the deaf in Wisconsin, but her parents pulled her out of the school because it wasn’t academically challenging enough, said her mother, Debi Boerema.

The family moved to Ojai because her stepfather, Martin, an agronomist, took a job with Carpinteria-based Brand Flowers Inc., one of the largest cut-flower growers in the country.

Hayley, an honor student, plans to attend law school.

The club is scheduled to provide sign language interpretation for one of the performances of the school’s spring production of “Damn Yankees.” The students will publicize the interpretation to community groups that assist the deaf and hard-of-hearing.

Hayley can feel the beat of music, but she’s not able to hear the tune. And, Boerema said, Hayley’s voice is completely flat.

But when she likes a song, she memorizes the lyrics and develops a complicated sign language interpretation.

Hayley said she would like to teach the club’s members an ASL version of popular music, including that of her favorite singer and video artist, Ricky Martin.

“They don’t want to hear me sing, I know that,” said Hayley. “But I can show them a different way to appreciate music.”

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Correspondent Nancy Forrest contributed to this story.