Learning about the World – Full Text

English Summary

Debbie comes from a family with parents and siblings who are Deaf, and when she was young, she thought the entire world was Deaf.  When she was young and living in Alabama, she visited her Grandmother who lived in Mississippi for a week in the summer.   On these visits, she looked forward to eating a type of grape, which starts with S–, but she is unsure exactly of its name.  She would always eat all of the grapes and pester her grandmother to get more.  Her grandmother told her it was too danger for her to go by herself because of the vines, snakes, and alligators.  So, Debbie was supposed to wait for her grandmother to be done with work and then they would go pick some together.  On this visit, Debbie decided to go off and pick them.  She found an empty coffee can and went and picked the grapes.  Some were ripe and some were not.  She returned to her Grandmother’s house and was eating them when her grandmother returned from work.  Debbie said that her uncle had helped her pick.  After finding out that she lied, the grandmother gave Debbie a spanking.  As her grandmother left, Debbie yelled after her.  Her grandmother returned to give her another spanking which confused Debbie.  She was always able to yell at her parents without them returning.  So, she yelled again which produced the same results.  Her confusion about how her grandmother would know she was yelling led her to pay more attention to the nature of the world., and through this, Debbie discovered that indeed the majority of the world was not Deaf, but could, in fact, hear.