Laurent Clerc was a man of many talents, born deaf, he made feats that were incredible even for a hearing man. He was able to teach the deaf, now he didn’t start that way. You see Laurent Clerc was born deaf, to a hearing family. Like all deaf people, he was considered ‘deaf and dumb’. His mother tried in vain to cure his deafness, even going so far to take him to a far off doctor for expensive treatments when he was six. The only thing that this did, was to make him dizzy, and to be in immense pain.
Finally when Laurent was twelve he was told by his brother, by using their home version of signing, that he was going to school. Of course poor little Laurent thought that that was just a mean trick. He traveled with his uncle to the school St. Jacques, it was a school for the deaf. It was here that Laurent learned, and later taught. With a newfound ability to communicate with others, he flourished. Now he wanted to learn and talk like everyone else. Before he could barely communicate with his family, but now he can have full conversations with everyone. He was learning to read, and right.
Soon enough he became the smartest in his grade, he tried to take speech class, one that only accepted the best students. But like all of the others in his class he kept mixing up da, and ta. For a deaf child they looked the same on the lips. After…show more content… Twice a week they had performances. The hearing people saw the deaf children as miracles, and the Abbe as a miracle worker. These performances brought money to their poor school. Laurent Clerc often helped Massieu with these performances. People would ask questions, the Abbe would write those questions for Massieu, and then Laurent would write his signed French onto the board. People were astounded at his answers, before coming to these performances people thought that deaf automatically meant dumb, all of Massieu’s answers sounded