FRANKLIN, Ind. - Hands rustle like leaves in the wind. Eyebrows bob up and down, buoys in a stormy sea, lending nuance.
Everybody's talking, but no one says a word.
Ann Reifel's class in American Sign Language may be the quietest class offered this year at Franklin High School. By all accounts, it's also unique in Indiana.
Reifel, the former director of Deaf Community Services in Indianapolis, teaches what is believed to be the first ASL class in the state that will grant foreign language credits to successful students.
Indiana's deaf people hope it's the beginning of the end of a long struggle to make ASL a second tongue as commonplace in the Hoosier state as Spanish, German or French.
"It was a very, very, very long struggle," Reifel says through an interpreter. She was born deaf and cannot speak. "I've been looking forward to finding someone who was willing to offer American Sign Language. "
The high school rose to the challenge under a 1995 state law that officially recognizes ASL and permits teaching it as a "for- credit" course. Principal Walt Vanderbush said overwhelming student interest made offering the class that much easier.
"I hope we can expand it next year," he said. "I'm hoping we can have (Reifel) here for more than just one period. "
Until then, the 20 high school students now in Reifel's class - 18 girls and two boys - will work on the basics of a visual language with roots in the signs used for hundreds of years by American Indian tribes such as the Cree and the Sioux.
The students sit in a circle in the classroom, watching Reifel intently. She brought an interpreter on the first day of class but has been alone with the students since.
There are no bowed heads here, no scribbling note-takers. Eyes remain fixed on the animated Reifel, because it's impossible to "listen" to the lecture and take notes at the same time.
"Hearing people are so accustomed to listening to learn something new," said Reifel. "For ASL class, they can use only their eyes to learn. "
Students say the adjustment, while not always easy, has definitely been worth it.
"Sometimes it's frustrating," says junior Heather Lumsdon. "But I think it's neat. I wish more schools could give the class. It's like a whole 'nother world you learn about. "
It's a world advocates for the deaf say has been separate and unequal for too long.
"No one has looked at (the deaf) as being a group of people who really are a linguistic minority, as well as a cultural minority," said Vincennes University Professor Judith Carson, who heads the college's ASL program. "It took us a long time to get ASL accepted as a language in its own right. For a long time people just thought it was a form of broken English. "
Even after linguists determined ASL was a language of its own, with a unique grammar and vocabulary, American society was slow to accept it.
The Americans with Disabilities Act - a 6-year-old federal law guaranteeing the disabled equal access - is helping change that.
And the new state law that allows Franklin to offer ASL for credit is one outgrowth of that change.
For Carson and other activists, teaching the language of the deaf seems like simple common sense. After all, about 12,000 deaf people live in metropolitan Indianapolis.
"Students have a much greater chance of encountering deaf people than they do Spaniards or people who speak French," Carson said.
Furthermore, the disabilities act has explosively increased the need for sign language interpreters, said George Stailey, superintendent of the Indiana School for the Deaf. "It's a very lucrative, profitable career. "
Others, like state Rep. Greg Porter, who sponsored the law, say it's also about justice.
"It was a civil rights issue to (deaf people), and I was more than willing to go out and carry their banner," said Porter, an Indianapolis Democrat. "I'm totally delighted that it's being taught in Franklin. That is very, very progressive at the high school level. That is being on the cutting edge. "
Challenges certainly remain. Under the very specific requirements outlined in the state law, Reifel says she knows of only one other instructor qualified to teach the course at the high school level.
But for Reifel, it's good just to get started. Teaching the class is more important than simply increasing the supply of interpreters, or helping students find themselves a rewarding career.
"Because it's my native language, it's important to me," she said. "And I want (hearing) people to understand that it's important for them, too. "