Ramiya As A Role Model Of A Deaf Child

Panic rose inside of me. I felt like if I made one wrong move I would die of humiliation. What if I signed a word incorrectly? “Hi, nice to meet you.” I practiced for 5 straight days how to say those words in sign language. Thankfully, she smiled and said, “Hi, what's your name?” That's when an enormous lump grew in my throat, because I didn’t know how to sign my name. When the word role model is said the person that comes to mind is my friend Ramiya. I have known her for around 3 years, she was the only deaf girl that went to my middle school Jonas Bronck Academy and I wanted to be her friend since the first time I saw her signing with her interpreter. Even though some may say I can’t relate to Ramiya because she's deaf, she is my role model

For example, towards the end of my sixth grade year me and Ramiya were planning on interpreting the song “A Thousand Years” for our school talent show and I said "well having your hearing impaired has its perks like you have this super amazing language that only certain people can speak" and the teacher that organized that talent show also says hearing impairment when referring to Ramiya being deaf so I thought it was okay to say "hearing impaired" and "loss of hearing" but Ramiya pulled me aside and told me that it is okay that I said that, but she would rather that I were to just say deaf because those terms make her feel less of a person. Not many, myself included, can openly admit that or be able to say "no I dont want you to call me that" but she was not afraid to speak up and advise me that. I realized that people are not mind readers and advocating for yourself is actually an honorable thing to do not a shameful thing to do. Lastly, the 8th graders were learning chemistry and Ramiya was having difficulty with the vocabulary so Ramiya joined Ms.Gardeners after school homework help and asked as many questions necessary to understand every scientific term that she did not catch in class. This shows Ramiya, dissimilar to other people would rather advocate for herself then stay confused and fall behind in

During track practice one day we were doing races down the hall and we were on opposite teams I wasn't really at my best that day so my opponent was beating me and Ramiya started cheering for me all of the sudden and said "you can take him!" As loud as she could possibly could, then she said "lean forward! Move your arms back and forth! Come on you know this!" And at first everyone was confused as to why she was cheering for me since she was on the opposite team. But pretty soon everyone followed her lead and started cheering me on since I was still slightly behind but all of the sudden Charles my opponent started getting tired and next thing you know I passed him and won the race. She did not only do that for me she kept cheering on whoever was behind whether they were on her team or mines. While some people mostly cheer for only their team Ramiya cheers on the people that might need it the most now I can go out in the world and apply this great sportsmanship she has into my own life by cheering on others who need