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.
We must recognize the fact that adequate food is only the first requisite for life. For a decent and humane life, we must also provide an opportunity for good education, remunerative employment, comfortable housing, good clothing, and effective and compassionate medical care.
My ideal viewer is an 11-year-old girl who, like me, was once reading a book by Jean Plaidy and might be in the position of deciding what to make of the world and what to do with her life.
In education, we are striving not to teach youth to make a living, but to make a life.
Television is a non graded curriculum and excludes no viewer for any reason, at any time. In other words, in doing away wtih the idea of sequenece and continuity in education, television undermines the idea that sequence and continuity have anything to do with thought itself.
The most important thing is to make a percussive instrument a singing instrument. Teachers should stress this aspect in their instruction, but it seems that very few of them actually do.
Throw aside your scriptures in the Ganga and teach the people first the means of procuring their food and clothing, and then you will find time to read to them the scriptures.
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