Eighth grader Amelia Kill said she was bored one day and decided to learn basic American Sign Language from a YouTube video. Then Kill decided to teach a few signs to her friends.
“Knowing sign language is really helpful when you’re playing charades,” joked Kill, a 13-year-old Marshwood Middle School student whose pastime led to her winning both regional and state National History Day competitions.
Now Kill is taking her project on the history of deaf education to the National History Day competition this week at the American Culture Wing of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
Kill was initially inspired by an online American Sign Language, or ASL, class and her love of history. She combined both interests to create a National History Day exhibit titled “A Silent Revolution: How Access to Deaf Education Revolutionized Deaf Rights.”
Encouraged by student interest in ASL, gifted and talented teacher Tracy LaPointe added an online ASL class to the program’s curriculum. Kill and four other students completed the course.
Kill’s research took her to Martha’s Vineyard, where she met two of the three remaining members of what was once a larger Deaf community.
“It was so interesting to talk to them,” she said.
She later traveled to Hartford, Conn., to visit the first American Sign Language school in the United States. The American School for the Deaf was co-founded in 1817 by minister Thomas Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc, a Frenchman whom Gallaudet met while studying sign language in Paris.
“Before that, deaf people had no access to education,” Kill said, noting that they were often shunned by their communities.
While visiting the Connecticut school, she met and signed with a deaf professor from Clemson University who was there with several students.
“The professor told me if I ever decided to go to Clemson, to give him a call,” Kill said.
Research completed, Kill settled down to write the thesis for the project.
“That was hard,” she said. “At first I had 2,000 words and I had to condense it down to 500 to meet the requirements of the competition.”
According to LaPointe, “Amelia has honed her research and presentation skills, learned to write a thesis and experienced an online class.”
Her teacher pointed out that Kill was the only middle school student to enter the state competition at the University of Maine, Orono, while all the others were high school students.
“Meeting and connecting with so many people of all ages has been the best part of this competition,” Kill said. She was especially enthusiastic about her visits to Martha’s Vineyard and the American Sign Language school.
“And,” she added with a smile, “my trips were all expenses paid – by my parents.”
Kill will pursue her passion for history this summer by volunteering with the Old Berwick Historical Society. She wants to get a head start on her high school community service requirement.
