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  3. Shavonne’s Story

Shavonne’s Story

Sep 21, 2016 | 2016 Scholarship Entries

My hearing loss has affected my education because when I was little, One of my friends whispered in my left ear and I couldn’t hear anything they said. That’s when I knew something was wrong with the hearing in my left ear. Every day, I would hope to get my hearing back in my left ear and be the same such as the other kids. As a 17 year old now, there have been so many challenges as I have led up to my senior year because when everybody is yelling and it feels like you can’t hear anything the teacher is saying. Every day in school, you have kids calling you stupid and making you feel down because they get mad because you have to repeat everything they say just so you can hear them.

Sometimes it made me feel like I couldn’t do anything right in school because I would always have to ask someone what the teacher said because I couldn’t hear them. After interning at a daycare for my Early Childhood class, I felt like I didn’t do a good job because I didn’t tell the lead teacher I couldn’t hear in my left ear. It made the internship so hard because I was scared to tell her I couldn’t hear in my left ear feeling that I would get laughed at because of the small difference. Every day, I would have to deal with my own twin sister yelling at me and acting like I can’t hear in both of my ears. You have people talking for you in school acting like you’re fully death and can’t talk for yourself.

For the past 12 years, I have always had to sit in the front of close up to the front and have people wondering why you aren’t responding to anything they are saying. But the reason that it has most affected my education is my relationship with my peers who make you feel like you can’t pursue a good education. Sometimes you just feel alone because you know that everywhere you look around you, none of kids in your school have the same problem as you. But the challenges i have faced are when people are yelling in your ear while a teacher is saying something and you have to pretend like you heard it so you won’t ask him/her to repeat it. It just gets harder when you ask teachers/peers to repeat what they said time after time and they get mad and ask you to go ask somebody else or make you think that you aren’t listening.

Every day, you have to convince yourself that you aren’t deaf and you can’t hear very well in your ear because you are scared to face the truth. As I go into my senior year of high school, I am still scared to face the truth that I’m deaf in my left ear and convince myself I’m not because you’re scared of getting judged. But I am learning that it shouldn’t affect how my education goes because I can do anything I set my mind to even with the physical differences I have. I make A’s and B’s which I have learned to not let my hearing disability stop me from accomplishing a goal to graduate from high school and college. Sometimes you may have people telling you  can’t do this because you have autism, or you’re deaf, or you were born with birth defects but you shouldn’t let that stop you from getting a great education.

The challenges that I have faced with my hearing loss have affected my education with my friendships, my grades, etc. But as I got older, i have not let that affect how I should think about myself and my grades or anything else about my education. I just have to know that no matter how much I wish I could hear like everybody, I will always have hearing loss in my ear.