Arkansas School for the Deaf valedictorian shares success after being deemed ineligible for education in China
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – The 2024 Arkansas School for the Deaf valedictorian is living out the American dream as he defies all odds, not only receiving an education but thriving along the way.
Levi Mott shared in his valedictorian speech that his high school graduation is a milestone that also feels like a privilege because of where he was born. Mott was adopted from China at 5 years old, where he’d been deemed ineligible to get an education because he is deaf.
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He was officially adopted on July 4, 2010, and began kindergarten in Arkansas that same year with his brother, who is also deaf and is now becoming visually impaired, learning alongside him every step of the way.
Mott said he has had to fight through barriers over the years, not just with communication but the idea that his future was less valuable than others because of his lack of hearing, but the education he has received not only in the United States but at the School for the Deaf has showed him the reality for his life.
“I didn’t want my life to be stagnant,” he said. “I didn’t want it to be worthless. I wanted my life to have value.”
Mott hopes his success story so far also inspires others, no matter their disabilities or barriers, that they are capable of anything they set their minds to.
“It’s not that deaf people are above one or the other, we really are the same,” he said.
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Mott is beginning his college education in the fall at the University of Arkansas Pulaski Technical College. He is majoring in the STEM field and already getting hands-on experience for his future working for the U.S. Geological Survey. He plans to transfer to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in two years.
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