No Limits

by Gloria
(Philadelphia, PA)

The Abbe de L'Eppe is my favorite role model in deaf history. In a world where deaf people were considered unteachable and basically useless solely based on their inability to hear, the Abbe did not follow conventional thought and took the first step to bring equality in education and human rights to deaf people.

It probably would have been easy for him to ignore the mother's request for the daughters to be educated or even just stop with them but he decided to devote his life to educating deaf people. He understood that the limitations put on deaf people were not self proclaimed limitations but rather limitations of ignorance and misunderstanding from people who had no idea what it is like to be deaf and no desire to understand.

I admire the Abbe not only for what he did for the deaf community but also for his role in enlightening hearing people as well. I believe any limitations we put on others are really limitations we put on ourselves, instead we should all strive to understand and support each other so we can all benefit from a smarter, brighter world.