Students watch Barron, 43, with rapt attention, and then imitate his motions as he teaches them new words. English is a difficult language to learn, and teaching it in sign is no different.

During a recent lesson, he told children there are different ways to say the word "save" in sign language. To save money, or save a pencil, or save a life, are all communicated differently.

As in any language, it's possible to make a mistake and use the wrong word. When that happens in Barron's class, giggles erupt and he tells the student the word they meant to use.

Barron is unusual in the deaf community, he said. He speaks fairly clearly, in part thanks to being born with hearing. He suffered a significant hearing loss at the age of 5, and continued to lose hearing until about the age of 14. He now has about a 95 to 98 percent hearing loss.

He said many people in the deaf community cannot speak, and his ability is because he had hearing for a while and benefited from seven years of speech pathology.

In class, he's able to speak to students as he teaches them sign language, but he can't hear them.

As a father, Barron become involved at Myersville as a classroom volunteer when his son was in first grade. At first, he helped with things like cutting out paper shapes and other tasks. The teacher and students watched Barron communicate with Spencer using sign language, and before he knew it, he was teaching the hand alphabet to the curious and willing learners.

"I started adding more and more, and the next year they asked me to please come back," Barron said through an interpreter. "The third year it really started to grow, and this year, I teach all grades except for two classes."

Barron teaches signed English, which is slightly different from American Sign Language.

"Some people call it PSE -- pigeon signed English," he said.

The significance of the Comcast award is beginning to sink in, but Barron said he's only there for the children.

He wants to be involved in his children's lives -- he and his wife, Jenny Miller-Barron, also have a daughter, Sabella -- and doesn't want people to feel intimidated in their attempts to communicate with him.

He's amazed by how well the students are doing and how quickly they've picked up the new language.

"I have one student who finger spells so fast smoke comes from her hands," he said, smiling at the image. "And she does it with clarity and grace."

Learning sign language has also helped some shy students come out of their shells, Barron said.

Myersville principal Susan Kreiger said Barron has "done some great work here."

Her students are being exposed to a different means of communication, and are learning a second language at the elementary level, a bonus in itself, she said.

"And what he does for disability awareness is huge," Kreiger said.

The lessons students are learning from Barron support other areas of the curriculum, Kreiger said.

"Teachers quickly began to see how it could be incorporated into the classroom in valuable ways," Kreiger said. "It helps with number and letter recognition and retention, and special signs are used for behavior modification, such as when to get students to quiet down."

Barron shrugged his shoulders at all the attention regarding the Comcast award, and got emotional as he tried to described the true motivation for his involvement.

"I don't want my kids to ever feel embarrassed that their parents are deaf," he said. "When they're in high school, I want to be able to walk in there and communicate with anyone.

"I want to be able to talk to the kids, ask them how their football game went. I want to be able to talk to them, and I want them to be able to talk to me."

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