We have attended a couple of festivals as well as the JA Festival. So this very first festival, this grouped the Hon, they could [Applause] got and for the time ever in continental invited to state. So state is where the top groups in Arizona go to perform and they Got excellent there [Applause] Oh [Song] Oh [Song] Oh [Song ] [Song] Oh [Song] Oh [ Song] Oh [Song ] Oh [Song] [Applause] [ Song] Spinning First test For You Me We have one more you Before SL is Here Tonight we go ahad with Second LINE and Before I do that I rec The [Applause] Solo and on the sax this Last feature sol [Song] [ Song] Oh [Song] Oh [ Song] [Song] [Song ] K [Song] Oh [ Song] [Applause] [Song] [Song] [Song] [Applause] [ Song] Oh [Song] [Applause] [Song] So Like All the other groups We Have quite a Few eth graders here If you're an E grader Go ahead And Wait Because I know a lot of you are Standing So These are the Students This Is their last to school Give Thank You So Much for Being here Tonight [Applause] I for to announce the [Applause] sol than You Have a good e
Yeah, China. China. Good good geography teachers. Awesome. So, it's uh just north of where China is at. This was in 2007 before smartphones. Who has smartphones now? Everybody. Right? Everybody has smartphones. But before, we didn't have smartphones. So, I had to email and look for deaf people and I was told, "No, there's no deaf people in Mongolia." But I was stubborn and I refused to give up and finally I found a deaf family. So, this was an older woman who was 71 who had never met another deaf person for 71 years. So, I went in my 4x4, traveled 6 hours on a one-lane highway out into the middle of nowhere to find this person. And I was told, "Over the mountains, over there, in a hut." And I found the home. The home The sign for home in Mongolia looks like this. It looks like this.
Uh just the roof of the house. That's right. The sign has a symbol attached to it and has a purpose. So, whether you're using American Sign Language, LSM, or Gestuno, or any sort of international sign, every sign can be symbolic, but they have different sign languages across every country. Even in state to state. Uh some people say hour differently. Um but let's not criticize each other. We've got to stop that. Anyways, back to my point. So, I found a hut. The shape of the hut looked like this. And there's no free no such thing as a free person in the world. There's no free anything in the world. Do you think that this was free? Uh maybe it was $100, maybe it was $500. For the land, how much do you think that they paid for the land? Well, they didn't have to pay for it.
They had to find it. So, they had to find the land and work the land. Do you think they had running water? No, sir. There's a picture here with a well in it. It's actually not a well, it's a tank. So, it's not a well that's drilled into the ground, but rather this woman would travel with this tank about a mile and a half and scoop the water from the water source into the tank. And then that would become their source of water. If you want water, what do you do? You turn on a faucet, right? Very easily. But they have to travel to get their water. They told me welcome. They do have bunnies there. But the sign that I'm showing you, what do you think it means? Welcome into our house. Because this looks like a door, and you have to go under the door.
And have a cup of horse milk first as a cultural custom of respect. I remember my brother saying, "Oh, no." But this woman got so mad at the rejection. And she signed this. Can anyone guess what that means? What do you think? Your guest, or ghost rather. Ghost. So my brother wasn't allowed to partake. You have to respect their culture first in other countries before we can do any sort of business. This with the magnifying glass is from a glasses that had broken 20 years ago. For us, if our glasses break, we go to the doctor, get a new one pretty quickly. But keep in mind, this family had never seen another deaf person until I arrived. I pulled up a laptop and showed them deaf people dancing, deaf people farming. So this was in 2007. And I've met over 5,000 people throughout my world travels and I'm still in contact with all of them.
I don't leave their country and then blow them off. But some of them have no phones, have no easy way of communication. But this little boy at that time uh the family had limited resources and were trying to decide what to do. And now this is him. Hello, Joel. When I was 9 years old, I met you. You were the first deaf person in our home. I was surprised to meet another deaf person. Joel told me to go to school and get an education. I went to school far from home, but I kept his advice. When he left Mongolia, I started getting an education. And I got vocational training at the school. I got better career opportunities because of Joel's advice. Changed my life. I thank you from my heart. Thank you, Joel. So long. Now he's a manager at KFC. What do you go to school for?
An education, but why? Why do you need education? We need to know the real world, right? Learn our life. Plus, become independent. To be financially independent, but also independent for yourselves. If he The family was thinking about, you know, we're strapped for money and we need to send our son 8 hours away at school. He kept that advice in mind. We kept in touch and his career and his life has exploded. If I never made that financial investment to try to send him to school, I don't know that that would have happened. If you have two choices, one path could be good and one path could be bad. We have to think about what you're going to do after graduation. Will PSD take care of you after graduation? No, my friends. You are like little birds that will have to learn how to fly out of the nest and you will make your own decisions.
You're in a tough competitive world now. Just like when you go to the mall, if you see a little deaf kid signing, go up to them and say, "Do you go to a deaf school? Are your parents learning sign language?" Tell them to come to PDSD, right? So that they can grow and thrive and about themselves. In the city only 400 people live there and yet I found a deaf person. There is deaf people everywhere. Sure enough, in Botswana, Africa, down at the bottom of Africa, he was selling arts on the side of the street. There's deaf artists all around the globe and in my house I have deaf art from all around the world like a museum. My sister has said I shouldn't put it throughout the whole house because my house is not a museum, just my office. But I bought two pieces of art worth $300.
He was so happy. Can anyone guess why? Deaf buying from deaf artists. Money, right? He got some money from it. Supporting deaf businesses. He could live. Supporting his culture. He usually earns $150 a month. $150 in a day is a good day, right? We could easily spend $150 in a day. So, for him to earn $300 in a day when he usually earns $150 in a month is a good day for him. He was very excited. We've got airplane mechanics who are deaf. People who work on the turbines under the wings. Within those fans are what's called blades, just like a razor blade. So, within those turbines are 24 or more blades. The big ones are up to 32. But the deaf folks have to make sure that they're safe for the airplanes to fly. The gentleman who has one arm worked as a mechanic on the back of the airplane.
And the back of the airplane has a rotor that goes back and forth, kind of like a tail, right? And as you change the tail direction, you change the direction that the airplane goes in. And there's a deaf mechanic who works on that part of the airplane. There's Boeing, huge, huge company here in the Southwest states, and also in Canada, who has a degree in airplane engineering who's deaf. And we thought, why shouldn't we record him? Why shouldn't we film him to show that deaf people could do anything they want to? And his boss was a little hesitant at first, but then ended up hiring more and more deaf people. If you find yourself in a situation with an employer who's hesitant to take a chance on you, you can prove that deaf people can do anything, and that help helps other people come in after you, too.
This is in Bali. Sometimes, when we go to other countries, we need to buy clothes, and it's important for me to buy from deaf-owned businesses for those clothes. And I bought this outfit from a deaf-owned clothing business. It's important when you travel to respect other cultures in order to be getting respect back. Teaching is not an easy job. It's important to make sure that you respect your teachers in order to get respect back. It's a two-way street. I would love to have one student, Ducati. Where's Ducati? Oh, he's a little scared now. Ducati. Oh, Ducati. Oh, I messed up your sign name. I'm sorry. What's your sign name? Uh, why is it Ducati? Ducati, it's named after a motorcycle. So, we just took that and and matched it. Oh, okay. Do you ride motorcycles? Me? No. Are you going to? Someday. If not, then we're going to have to change your sign name.
Right. This is in Africa. I want you to take a look at this video and try to interpret it just for fun. What did he say you think? Um, he said he had about nine uh, one of these or strawberries. Um, and he went to go pick I mean, I think he's saying cow and he milks a cow. I'm lost, honestly. Ah. 10, well, two hands up, what do you think? He said this with the thumb or pinky down. Okay, 10. Two hands means 10. This sign on the nose, what do you think means? Farm? Ah, farm. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So, 10 farms. They have nine farms and then they go and pick the specific one to come bring back. They picked a specific one from one farm and they milked something a cow on the farm and then they made milk or CHEESE OR SOMETHING.
OOH, HE'S GETTING CLOSE. OKAY. SO, this means we have 10 farms who all work together. I don't milk them, but once we get the milk, I stir. What do you think stir? Cheese? Is he making cheese? Ooh, he's making cheese. That's what that sign means is cheese. Oh, It's French sign language. So, it's it's kind of close to ASL, a little bit easy for us to get, but you can't think so rigid in your ASL, right? I'll I'll give you a little sticker. This is from a deaf artist, deaf business, a sticker and a magnet for you being brave enough to come on stage and try. Thank you. Don't think of to yourself that you can't understand or can't do anything. You can. Take a chance and try. It's okay to make mistakes. No one is perfect. We learn by making mistakes. I still make mistakes every day.
That is his round of cheese, 75 lb. He's been making cheese for over 30 years. This is in another country. Is it in Asia? In Africa. Or Africa? Starts with a T. Oh, this sign in other countries is a is a bad word. Okay? So, we do this for Tanzania. This is a deaf school taught by a deaf teacher, um and there were some deaf blind students or deaf with low vision students, and so we went up to get right into their face and say, "Hi." Was that the right way to do things, to sign that close from her face? So, what I did instead, out of respect, I didn't interrupt, but rather offered a different idea. And I said, "Hey, let me interact with her." And I started and I initiated contact. Why do you think that was? To inform that I'm here, right?
A physical tactile response of "Hi, I'm right here." And so, I started signing, "Hi, I'm Joel." And we spent 5 minutes chatting back and forth, and the teacher was so surprised. It was easy to communicate because we had that tactile response. I didn't insult them and say, "You're doing it wrong. Let me show you how to do it better." Rather, I just modeled what I thought was the best way to do it. So, don't be mean to or disrespectful to other people. This is a quick video with meerkats. They're very soft. Do you think I'm in a zoo? No, I'm out in the wild. Got up at 4:00 in the morning and went on a safari and patiently laid down and waited. They started climbing up on me. And their eyeballs remind me of deaf people because why do they look around from side to side to side?
They're looking in their environment always. Not just for lions, but what are they looking for? They're looking for birds or eagles or Yeah. Right? They're looking up there for birds of prey. And then they communicate with everybody to go hide. And that reminds me of our deaf community because we always had our have our eyes open looking for everything in our horizon and we work together. If someone were to harm the deaf community, what would we do? We would band together and resist and protest and say, "No, these are our rights." And we would fight back. Same things applied to these meerkats. All right. I have so much more I could go into, but I have 2 minutes left on my clock, so I will stop there. If you want to see videos or any other information, there's my contact. Thank you so much to Sorenson for sponsoring me and for inviting me.
Please make sure that you graduate from PSD and when now that I'm here, I will be in contact with you. Um I'm so thankful for Fremont School for the Deaf because if I didn't have my deaf education, I would not be here. So remember your friends that you make now because they will be lifelong friends and family for you, too. All right. Much love. Thank you. Thank you. All right. What What do you think that we need to have a special a chant for Joel? Are you guys ready? THANK YOU. GOOD JOB. I'M SO EXCITED. YES, do we have questions? Oh, Joel. Would you like Some students would like to get your autograph if that's okay. Yes. All right, he'll be here for autographs later. All right. Thank you again. Thank you so much, Joel. So, today we have a celebration. We are celebrating achievements, successes, and soon graduation.
Who's ready? Yes! Okay. Hey, can we bring the lights up a little? Okay, I would like to introduce Michelle Kelly. Yes, can we get a light on in this area? We don't have one? Okay. Okay. Okay. We have our assistant principals here. I don't think they're here at right this moment. They are helping with um another situation. However, you know both our assistant principals, Flint and Sabre. And I want to introduce Okay, Michelle, go ahead. And before we start, it is now 1:10. So, it's important that teachers and staff keep their comments short and sweet so that we can move this along because we have a long list of awards, and I'm excited for you all to receive those. So, now before I introduce the next person, um the seniors, where are the seniors? Raise your hand. Really, give yourself a round of applause, seniors.
You are graduating. So, we have started something special for seniors, and that's going to be next. So, if Scott, if you would come on up. Woah, that is a bright light. Okay. Anyways, my name is Scott Madsen. I am the CTE director for the Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and Blind. I oversee both campuses um here as well in Tucson. Like Michelle just mentioned, wow, all of our achievements and our next climb, they all look different. And we want to recognize some of those that go into careers or go into college, whichever you choose, we want to recognize that. Go ahead. Yeah, GO AHEAD AND WATCH. AGAIN, WOW. 26 seniors that are graduating and into their next steps. We want to honor part of your journey and if you're curious to see what's next. Let's hold on 1 second while I maneuver the PowerPoints.
Um Angel and Leslie, you guys can click into the drive. Yeah. Hi. Oh my god. Are you guys good? Just give us 1 more second. Technical technical issues. Okay, Scott. Scott. Do you want to go ahead and introduce I'm so sorry. Scott sat down so soon. So, we need you to come back up. All right. Me again. Um I wanted to call Silva and Ducati up to the stage. Thank you. You guys kind of match with your photos. I wanted to bring them up because both of these two students have taken Metro Tech classes in floral design and fashion design, but they've gotten their industrial certificate. She Silva passed her ICEV in floral design and he passed his certification that takes two years to do, took the test and passed his fashion design technical skills assessment, but also has the seal of biliteracy, which will be on his diploma.