Find out how a Colin Firth movie helped one student overcome his stuttering. It’s a story that inspired his classmates and brought them to tears; warning, it may do the same to you. More of the story is here.
Meet Musharaf ‘Mushy’ Asghar. He used to stutter his words ever since he was a young boy. He was teased relentlessly for it and bullied by his classmates who would make fun of him.
Now I know how that feels because from the age of 10 to 12, I had a bad stuttering problem. I went to different speech therapists to improve my speech. I suffered teasing like you would not believe and was called every name in the book by my classmates in elementary school.
Luckily, Mushy had someone in his corner: his English teacher Mr. Burton. To help Asghar, Mr. Burton tried a technique he saw in the Oscar winning movie about the stuttering monarch King George VI (played by Colin Firth), The King’s Speech.
Just like Firth’s character in the movie, Mushy wore headphones that gently played music while talking in front of the class to help take his mind of his speech impediment.
With his teacher’s help, Mushy was able to then deliver a 10 minute oral presentation as part of his English assessment. He used the headphones to make a speech in front of 200 of his classmates at his final school assembly which moved staff and students to tears.
His story was captured for the Channel 4 show Educating Yorkshire, which is a documentary series set inside the Thornhill Community Academy near Leeds in England.
Here are some pictures of his emotional classmates and the video is below (fast forward to 2:49 to see him speak in front of his class). Check it out.
Here’s a video documenting Mushy’s struggles.
