I've always wanted to write a book relating my experiences growing up as a deaf child in Chicago. Contrary to what people might think, it wasn't all about hearing aids and speech classes or frustrations.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the desire to share personal experiences beyond common perceptions of living with a disability.
Marlee Matlin expresses a longing to document her life as a deaf child in Chicago, emphasizing that her experiences were not solely defined by the challenges of hearing aids and speech classes. Instead, she suggests there is a deeper, more nuanced story to tell that goes beyond merely the frustrations often associated with being deaf, reflecting on the richness of her life and experiences.
In practice
In a speech about overcoming obstacles, one might quote this to illustrate the importance of sharing unique life stories.
I'm a proud person who happens to be deaf. I don't want to change it. I don't want to wake up and suddenly say, 'Oh my God, I can hear.' That's not my dream. It's not my dream. I've been raised deaf. I'm used to the way I am. I don't want to change it. Why would I ever want to change? Because I'm used to this, I'm happy.
It was ability that mattered, not disability, which is a word I'm not crazy about using.
The only thing I can't do is hear. I can drive, I have a life with four kids, I work on TV, I do movies, so the deafness question, is it that they want to know because, what? Not sure.
I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, and in spite of what most people might have expected from a young girl growing up deaf, life for me was like one long episode of The Brady Bunch. Despite whatever barriers were in my way, I imagined myself as Marcia Brady skating down the street saying “hi” to everyone, whether they knew me or not.
When I was 11, I knew that I wanted to write a kid's book and tell the world what it was like being deaf.
I like to say that the greatest handicap of deafness does not lie in the ear, it lies in the mind. I hope that through my example, such as my role on 'The West Wing,' I can help change attitudes on deafness and prove we can really do everything... except hear.
Notice how many of the Olympic athletes effusively thanked their mothers for their success? “She drove me to my practice at four in the morning,” etc. Writing is not figure skating or skiing. Your mother will not make you a writer. My advice to any young person who wants to write is: leave home.
My hope and wish is that one day, formal education will pay attention to what I call 'education of the heart'.
With this new initiative, Disney is doing what no major media company has ever done before in the United States. And what I hope every company will do going forward when it comes to the ads they show and the food they sell they're asking themselves one simple question: Is this good for our kids?
Like our physical bodies, our memory becomes out of shape. As children, we are constantly learning new experiences, but by the time we reach our 20s, we start to lead a more sedentary life both mentally and physically. Our lives become routine, and we stop challenging our brains, and our memory starts to suffer.
It is by teaching that we teach ourselves, by relating that we observe, by affirming that we examine, by showing that we look, by writing that we think, by pumping that we draw water into the well.
Education has for its object the formation of character.
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