For the last 35 years, Sherri Revord has dedicated her life to helping children with hearing disabilities discover the world through communication. The last 20 of those years have been at Sea Isle Elementary.  Revord says working with deaf children is her calling and it all started with a college football game.

The plan was to graduate from Lenoir-Rhyne College with a degree in math education. Then one fall afternoon a friend invited Revord to a football game at the North Carolina School for the Deaf, just a few miles down the road from campus.

Revord was curious how the students could play without being able to hear, so she agreed to go.

Sitting in the stands, she was both amazed and intimidated. Revord was impressed with how well the football team played, but what affected her most was how people in the stands were communicating. She had no clue how to interact with the students using sign language. It was then and there Revord says she was called to learn and immediately changed her major.

After graduation, Revord taught pre-school and kindergarten-aged children in the Midwest for 15 years before coming to Sea Isle. Today, Revord teaches the Functional Skills class for 2nd-5th graders. You can feel the excitement in her classroom as a handful of students sit around her. They twist and turn in their chairs, hoping for their name to be called so they can sign the words.  You can feel their pride when they get the answer right. That pride is just as important for the students to learn as knowing the right words to sign. 

"Deafness is the hardest handicap to understand. If a deaf person were to come and sit beside you and start signing, you'd be like ‘whoah!’, said Revord. My goal is to make it not quite so hard. And to give them the self esteem to know I'm worthwhile."

Many of the students begin school with very little ability to communicate with words. Few of their parents know sign language, so the children do not know their name or even the word for mom. Revord's classes open up a whole new world for the students.

"These kids have come into the world and often their parents do not sign. We hear things all the time but they've missed that, so I have to fill in the gap. It’s sort of like they have these little banks in their head and I have to put all the words in there."

To fill those banks with words, Revord takes a different approach from what you might experience in what she calls "hearing" classrooms. There are no desks in rows, but chairs around tables. The students sit around them and learn as group. She uses all the senses to teach the students words and letters. Each lesson is hands on.

"We move and we do and we [get] messy and we sing. We do anything and everything to get the life skill and the language across," said Revord.

One of Revord’s most important assets in the classroom is her teaching assistant Marshelle Glasper, who is hearing impaired. Glasper is able to communicate and connect to the students in a very special way.  She knows the student’s struggles and frustrations first hand. Glasper serves as not only a teacher but as a role model showing students that their inability to hear should not stop them from having the confidence to grow into successful adults.

"As long as they know they have the ability to do whatever they feel they can do and are able to do it then I am not going to stop them, says Revord. "I am going to be that cheerleader that says keep going, keep going, keep going."

Much of Revord’s success with her students would not be possible without the support from the Sea Isle staff and community. The principal and assistant principal have learned sign language. She also created lessons for bus drivers so they can interact with her students. Each week Revord teaches classes for parents so that they can better communicate with their children. Even other students are picking up on sign language. Revord says the hearing students do not treat her kids any differently.

Back inside the classroom, a student drops a book in front of Revord. He interrupts her conversation, unable to wait any longer to show off what he has learned. He reads the words, carefully signing them one by one. As he reads, you can see his self confidence rise. Revord gives him a big high five when he finishes. She is beaming with pride as her student discovers the world one sign a time.