At the Ottawa Catholic School Board, our tradition has been for students to start their day by standing proudly and singing the national anthem in English or French. But, due to COVID-19 restrictions, we had to find innovative solutions to celebrate our country.
Our dedicated staff from Divine Infant School in Orleans collaborated with our Special Education team to provide our community with a video to learn O Canada in American Sign Language (ASL). Our version was created with the help of another video of a Deaf Canadian signing O Canada as our model.
We want to take this opportunity to acknowledge our diverse community with many linguistic and cultural backgrounds, including our Deaf and hard of hearing students and staff. We value their contributions to our school communities.
We hope our community joins us in learning about this rich and vibrant language by signing O Canada in ASL.
The video features Mary Beth McGowan (ASL), Alla, Alexander & Elizabeth Perevalov (violins), and Michelle Seguin (piano) from Divine Infant School.