Oregon RID State Conference Recap & Applications

I had the pleasure of participating in the Oregon RID State Conference yesterday. The theme was "Taking Care of Us." It was great! The topics shared during the sessions were most definitely topics that tend to be lacking from most professional development opportunities and yet critical to our success as professionals.

I attended sessions on acupuncture, ergonomics, and breathing.

The session, "Poke in Time" with Robin Marcinkiewicz went through the principles of acupuncture medicine and the ways in which the body is all interconnected and that injuries in one part of the body can affect and be treated in other, connected, parts of the body. Good foundational knowledge on a topic I wasn't familiar with.

 The second session I went to was, "An Ergonomic Approach to Painless in Interpreting" by chiropractor Dr. Colleen McDonough.  This session focused on appropriate body mechanics, stretches, and proper ways to take care of our bodies between interpreting assignments. Great tips on how to ensure our bodies will keep working long into our careers.

During the lunch session there was a professional panel entitled, "Where are we going? What do we want to be?" This was a great session in which the Oregon RID Vice President, Tyler Reisnaur, shared data from a survey that was conducted of interpreters in Oregon. They have a lot of great data on the needs, concerns, and wishes of the Oregon interpreting community. They will be sharing this data on their website at the link above in the next week or so.

The third session I attended was, "Your Authentic Voice," and it was fabulous. The instructor, Linda Brice, shared ideas about breathing and using one's voice effectively and health-fully. She also shared ideas about how to incorporate appropriate breathing into our English to ASL work - how to breathe with our signing. It was also great!

Overall, this conference was not your typical professional development opportunity but it was exactly what I needed in my professional development right now. I'm appreciative for these lessons.

Now, as an interpreter educator I am thinking of ways to incorporate these lessons in our curriculum more fully. We do have Dr. McDonough guest speak in one of our classes to give ergonomic tips to our aspiring interpreters. I think that is a good start but I am quite intrigued by the idea of incorporating a voice training class into our programs. (Please understand I don't mean a "voicing" or ASL to English class, I mean a class focused on learning how to use our voice in an effective way). Really, I think that our students could benefit from a full term in voice training and breathing with an instructor like Ms. Brice who incorporates the concepts of breathing for "speaking" (regardless of spoken or signed languages).

Did your interpreter education include classes on ergonomics/body mechanics and voice training? If not, how did you learn these skills (or did you?)? If so, how long were the lessons? Did you recognize them as beneficial during your program or did you recognize their value later or not at all?