The first time Wendy Auden saw someone use sign language, she was sitting in a pew at the First Presbyterian Church of Avonmore in Westmoreland County. At 11 years old, she was enamored with the graceful movements of the younger girl’s hands and felt a pull to learn their meanings.
And she wanted to make a new friend.
It was the 1970s. There was no YouTube or Wikipedia for immediate virtual lessons. With a book purchased by her mother, she taught herself American Sign Language, befriended the girl and later became her personal interpreter at church services.
“I knew I wanted to be a teacher,” she said. “So, I decided to become a teacher to the deaf.”
Ms. Auden, 52, has been a special-needs teacher at the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf for 30 years. Though she’s received many heartfelt thank-yous over that time, her first award came in December when American Queen Steamboat Co. named her one of five winners for its inaugural Unsung Heroes Contest.
The company’s founder and CEO, John Waggoner, dreamed up the honor one morning during a run, when he thought of his daughter, a nurse in California.
“We wanted to find a way that American Queen Steamboat Co. could give back and celebrate these incredible individuals who have fought tirelessly and risked so much during these extraordinary times,” he said.
Hundreds of applications were submitted to the company, whose riverboats cruise on major waterways throughout the United States. One nomination that stood out was from the mother of Johnny, a Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf student. (His mother doesn’t want their last name to be published.)
He is assigned to Ms. Auden’s Applied Studies classroom for children whose challenges extend beyond communication disorders. For him, that means living with a genetic disorder so rare that only a handful of others in the country are known to have it. It comes with frequent seizures, profound communication hurdles and the crushing reality of a shortened lifespan.
“It’s like if you woke up one day and everyone in your household spoke and understood Russian, but you speak English,” his mother said of his communication differences.
Johnny didn’t make a sound at age 4 when he became a student at the School for the Deaf. Now, at 8 years old, he’s a “shining star,” as Ms. Auden describes him. Along with his fellow students, Johnny — whose name is signed with a suspender-plucking motion — is taught academic subjects and life skills with an emphasis on communication including sign language.
It was Ms. Auden’s remote schooling curriculum that led Johnny’s mother to nominate the 30-year teaching veteran.
Ms. Auden didn’t know what Google Classroom was before COVID-19 restrictions closed Pennsylvania schools in March, but she’s a quick study. She and her co-teacher began filming 12 to 15 videos per day with academic and communication lessons — an accommodation made after students struggled with live remote instruction. Though not required, she added daily music lessons, knowing how much the students would miss that part of their in-person routine.
Perhaps her most impressive adaptation occurred in September when students began returning to the classroom.
Attention can be a particular challenge for some of her students. To combat wandering minds, she regularly uses a large communal sensory bin, filled will tiny treasures to keep students engaged. The multicolored beans, beads, dyed noodles and other touchables are such effective tools that she has amassed 40 different versions of the bin, one for each year’s school week. But none of them complied with COVID-19 recommendations.
Using her own money, as she often does, she created individual sensory bins. The students were then able to interact with her one-on-one as they fished out vocabulary cards, practiced pouring and counted their finds.
The new sensory bin strategy isn’t the only silver lining to an imperfect teaching situation.
“It took a pandemic and everything falling apart for Wendy and I to connect and really understand what we both want from Johnny and being on the same team,” said his mom. “I will say Wendy made me a better parent.”
In November, Johnny’s mom voiced her praise for Ms. Auden aloud during a Zoom call with Mr. Waggoner. At its conclusion, he announced that Ms. Auden had been awarded one of five Unsung Hero Awards by the company with a cruise as her prize. There wasn’t a dry eye in the (virtual) room.
“I’ve never won anything in my life,” said Ms. Auden, who has selected a summertime cruise from New Orleans to Memphis. “That was better than winning the lottery or something. It means so much more to me to know that I’ve touched Johnny’s family’s life in such a way that they felt the need to do that for me. I still think it’s surreal.”
But for Johnny’s mom, it’s all very real.
“Johnny won’t be with us forever,” she said. “[Wendy] gave us time with our son where we can understand him now. We can meet his needs. He has even figured out how to be a little bit snarky. That’s all Wendy. She gave him a voice.”
Abby Mackey: abbyrose.mackey@gmail.com, Twitter @AnthroAbbyRN and IG @abbymackeywrites.
First Published January 10, 2021, 12:30am