People with good hearing take a lot of things for granted. When you’re deaf or seriously hearing impaired, you view things in the world much differently. As an example, it’s common for deaf individuals who see a group of hearing people talk to assume they’re gossiping about them.

Deaf people also don’t understand slang or idioms. If you were to say something in sign language to a deaf person like “You’re a stinker,” meaning they’re ornery, they’d think you just told them they smelled bad. Then there’s the issue of passing gas. For one classroom, the teacher shared some surprising and unbelievable news.

Most of us take our senses for granted

We do a lot of things in life and never give them a second thought. That’s until it comes to passing gas. Not only do we worry that a mishap could lead to a smelly situation but also that anyone nearby would know what you did because of the sound. For a class of deaf students, they weren’t aware of the second part of the equation.

Educating deaf people.

One first-grade teacher by the name of Anna Trupiano dedicates her life to educating dead and hard-of-hearing students. But in her classroom, she has both deaf and hearing kids. Her focus is to help students adapt to life and various social settings that they’ll find themselves in. Recently, she had to talk about, well, farts.

An incident prompted a unique conversation.

After passing gas, one deaf kid couldn’t figure out why a hearing student was staring at him. That student responded with, “Because they heard you fart.” Confused, that lead to a very interesting conversation between the two. This was the first time the deaf child learned that farts are only stinky but also noisy.

You’ve got to be kidding, right?

Nope, the teacher stepped in to explain that farts did, in fact, make noise. From there, things became somewhat embarrassing and yet comical. Now there was an entire classroom of hearing and non-hearing students discussing the noise that farts made. Even though there was some humor involved, it turned out to be a great learning experience for everyone.

The innocence of children.

One of the hearing kids was trying to tell the deaf students that on occasion, the butt jiggles when you fart. That’s when you know others heard it. If the butt doesn’t move, it was probably a quiet fart. The deaf child had a perfect reply, “Tell them to stop listening to my farts. That is not nice.”

You can’t just turn the sound off and on.

While that kid had a good point. Ms. Trupiano had to further explain that there wasn’t any way to turn the sound of farts on and off. While this was certainly an amusing conversation, it was also important. Learning that passing gas makes noise while still young will save these and other deaf kids a lot of humiliation in life.

“Fine, I’ll just stop”

One student had what he thought was a great plan…he’d just stop farting altogether. That prompted yet another lesson that passing gas is natural and healthy. The kids couldn’t believe that farting made noise. As Ms. Trupiano said, “And I went to college for six years for this.”

What started off as one kid staring at another for farting turned into a major discussion. The questions kept rolling in. They even discovered that their parents and Ms. Trupiano passed gas on occasion. Keep in mind, all of this was done in American Sign Language, making the encounter even more interesting. The moral of the story, everyone farts and sometimes, they’re loud…so be careful when you pass gas around other people.

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Source: Shareably, Facebook