Being deaf and blind, her greatest miracle is his confidence that she and all the disabled-should be treated as decent human beings in spite of whatever lack they have.
The story of Helen Keller is now an American legend. Even school children know the part where Helen was freed her muteness isolation when the she was at the water pump in her family’s house, as dramatized on stage and movie screen in: The Miracle Worker. But Helen’s greatest struggle just began when that crucial scene ended. As she realized later, her biggest challenge was not in learning how to communicate but was in struggling being despite whatever she was lacking of.
As a baby, Helen Keller was reactive and cheerful, this father, a wealthy landlord of Alabama in the area after the Civil War, boasted the signs of her natural intelligence and even claimed that the first words uttered by six months old Helen was, “How are you?” But after she suffered from scarlet fever illness at the age of 18 months, her parents were alarmed by some changes in her. Strong light hurt her eyes, and several days later she didn’t response to any light or forms at all. Not long afterwards, it was clear that the little child didn’t only loose her eyesight but also her hearing. When she became more engulfed in the silence, she also then lost her ability to speak.
As Helen could not hear her parent’s words, either soft or loud, she changed into a wild child. Unable to express her frustration, she poured out her feelings by striking and attacking wildly whenever she didn’t get what she wanted. She got her family and relatives didn’t see any other alternative but to send her to a mental hospital where she treated as if she suffered from mental illness or insane.
But still, the silent withdrawn child didn’t show any symptom of mental disorder. When she was five years old, she even invented her own sign language. They were six gestures including, “Mother”, “Father”, “bread”, and “candy”. Convinced that Helen could be educated, her mother took her to Alexander Graham Bell who at that time was handling the care of the deaf and blind, through a series of recommendations, Annie Sullivan, a young graduate of Perkins School for the Blind in Boston, was sent south to become Helen’s private teacher.
In Helen, Annie saw what others didn’t: an ordinary little girl, just like other children. She was determined not to spoil Helen or tolerate her negative attitudes. She strictly disciplined Helen. Even one day, she taught Helen to sit and use fork to eat her meal by herself. Before that she was always ate from another person’s plate. But Annie didn’t always succeed. In the first week of handling Helen she already had to loose two of her front teeth.
Annie taught Helen sign language, spelling letters on the child’s hands. Helen, hungered for mental stimulation, quickly learned what she thought as a game and memorized the letter combinations. But it seemed she could not comprehend that the letter combinations were supposed to form words and words would have some meaning related to objects and ideas.
It wasn’t until one day when Annie held Helen’s hand under the water pouring from the pump and all the while kept spelling “water”, that Helen was enlightened. She came to understand that w-a-t-e-r was what she uttered as “wa-wa” at the time before scarlet fever disabled her, and that w-a-t-e-r was cool and went, something spurting on her hand. Language was her rescue from darkness, muteness isolation, and she was eager to learn more words. By the end of that day, she already knew 30 words. In the most three weeks she had mastered 300 words.
Friends, relatives and neighbors were all amazed by that transformation and the news of Helen’s improvement soon spread across the country. When she revisited Graham Bell in the following year, he said, “Her achievement is in no way related to the education for the deaf and blind”. The trip was followed by a visit to president Grover Cleveland. At the age of 12 years, Helen had become a well-known figure all over the world. Even Mark Twain, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Queen Victoria of England and Queen Olga of Greece were all her admires.
Helen was reclaimed for her amazing achievement, but despite her known hard work and fighting spirit, some people still looked upon her as someone helpless and weak. Helen would not accept this label; in fact her physical inabilities were actually the very source of her strength: “I am grateful to God for this imperfection, because through that I came to find my true self, my job, and my God”. Then both Helen and Annie realized that Helen needed more education than Annie could give. So they decided that Helen would continue her study for several years in Perkins School for the Blind Where Annie was educated before. There Helen didn’t only learn her lessons in her own language, but also in French, Greek, and Latin. And when she got a glimpse of hope to have university education, she chose to study in a High School in Cambridge which was located close to Radcliffe, a university she dreamt of, that had some relations with Harvard.
In Cambridge School, Helen immersed herself in her study with the same strong enthusiasm and even greater efforts because the school had no facilities for the deaf and blind. With Annie by her side, Helen worked hard preparing herself for the entry test. But the headmaster was worried it would be too much for the girl to face this challenge. He blamed Annie for urging Helen too hard and for not seriously taking Helen’s handicap into consideration. To his opinion, what Helen needed was to restrain her steps and somewhat lowered her expectations. When Annie protested, he forcibly took away Helen from Annie’s side, then wrote to Helen’s mother stating that Annie was risking her daughter’s well-being. Mrs. Keller came to Cambridge to see about the situation, listened to what Helen wanted, withdrew her from the school and reunite her with Annie. Helen undertook the last part of her preparation on her own but with the same resoluteness.
Helen grew more disappointed by the way Radcliffe treated her. After she successfully passed the entry test and got high grade especially in Latin language test, the man in charge of the student enrollment saw her in private. Once more, the school was in the opinion that the curriculum might be too difficult for a deaf and blind student. It seemed they were not ready to see Helen worked twice as hard as other students only to fail later. So, in that year of 1899, they didn’t accept Helen in.
Although it broke Helen’s heart, she remained stubbornly determined. Cornell University and The University of Chicago were willing to accept her and even were ready to grant scholarship to her, but she turned down their offers and concentrated in preparing herself again for the next entry test to Radcliffe. The following year’s entry test required higher passing grades but Helen managed to pass the test and was accepted by the university in that year of 1990. She managed not to skip classes and at last, not only did she graduated with honor, but she also wrote her experience in The Story of My Life. The book was highly praised and became a world’s best seller.
Helen spent the rest of her life struggling to face challenges as faced by other normal people. She stated firmly, “Life is either a brave adventure or nothing at all”. She learned to swim, to ride bicycle and horse and to go camping. She took side of controversial political view, openly joined the movement for woman’s right to vote, adopted love and peace belief and socialism, despite strong suggestions to her to stay out of such things. When faced by find difficulties, she and Annie conducted some activities considered vulgar by Helen’s relatives, and the most popular was the routine interview with American societies about Helen’s struggle.
When the declining eyesight of Annie made her unable to take care of Helen any longer, Helen went on dedicating herself in favor of the rights of the disabled. She rejected publisher’s offer to write more of her experiences. Instead she made tours to talk and raise funds for American Foundation for the Blind. This effort took her around the world. She met Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, The Japanese Emperor, and every president of USA elected during her
remaining lifetime. Through her personal example and public appearances, Helen strived harder than other activists in the effort to change the perception and promote the education and treatment for the disabled in this world.
Following Annie’s death, Helen wrote the biography of that close friend of hers, but then the nearly completed manuscript was lost in a fire than took place in 1946. As a lasting tribute to Annie’s perseverance, Helen started rewriting it from the beginning. In 1955, she published Teacher: Annie Sullivan Macy. 13 years later, Helen was put to eternal rest beside her friend and teacher in National Cathedral Cemetery in Washington D.C.
As a baby, Helen Keller was reactive and cheerful, this father, a wealthy landlord of Alabama in the area after the Civil War, boasted the signs of her natural intelligence and even claimed that the first words uttered by six months old Helen was, “How are you?” But after she suffered from scarlet fever illness at the age of 18 months, her parents were alarmed by some changes in her. Strong light hurt her eyes, and several days later she didn’t response to any light or forms at all. Not long afterwards, it was clear that the little child didn’t only loose her eyesight but also her hearing. When she became more engulfed in the silence, she also then lost her ability to speak.
As Helen could not hear her parent’s words, either soft or loud, she changed into a wild child. Unable to express her frustration, she poured out her feelings by striking and attacking wildly whenever she didn’t get what she wanted. She got her family and relatives didn’t see any other alternative but to send her to a mental hospital where she treated as if she suffered from mental illness or insane.But still, the silent withdrawn child didn’t show any symptom of mental disorder. When she was five years old, she even invented her own sign language. They were six gestures including, “Mother”, “Father”, “bread”, and “candy”. Convinced that Helen could be educated, her mother took her to Alexander Graham Bell who at that time was handling the care of the deaf and blind, through a series of recommendations, Annie Sullivan, a young graduate of Perkins School for the Blind in Boston, was sent south to become Helen’s private teacher.
In Helen, Annie saw what others didn’t: an ordinary little girl, just like other children. She was determined not to spoil Helen or tolerate her negative attitudes. She strictly disciplined Helen. Even one day, she taught Helen to sit and use fork to eat her meal by herself. Before that she was always ate from another person’s plate. But Annie didn’t always succeed. In the first week of handling Helen she already had to loose two of her front teeth.
Annie taught Helen sign language, spelling letters on the child’s hands. Helen, hungered for mental stimulation, quickly learned what she thought as a game and memorized the letter combinations. But it seemed she could not comprehend that the letter combinations were supposed to form words and words would have some meaning related to objects and ideas.
It wasn’t until one day when Annie held Helen’s hand under the water pouring from the pump and all the while kept spelling “water”, that Helen was enlightened. She came to understand that w-a-t-e-r was what she uttered as “wa-wa” at the time before scarlet fever disabled her, and that w-a-t-e-r was cool and went, something spurting on her hand. Language was her rescue from darkness, muteness isolation, and she was eager to learn more words. By the end of that day, she already knew 30 words. In the most three weeks she had mastered 300 words.
Friends, relatives and neighbors were all amazed by that transformation and the news of Helen’s improvement soon spread across the country. When she revisited Graham Bell in the following year, he said, “Her achievement is in no way related to the education for the deaf and blind”. The trip was followed by a visit to president Grover Cleveland. At the age of 12 years, Helen had become a well-known figure all over the world. Even Mark Twain, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Queen Victoria of England and Queen Olga of Greece were all her admires.
Helen was reclaimed for her amazing achievement, but despite her known hard work and fighting spirit, some people still looked upon her as someone helpless and weak. Helen would not accept this label; in fact her physical inabilities were actually the very source of her strength: “I am grateful to God for this imperfection, because through that I came to find my true self, my job, and my God”. Then both Helen and Annie realized that Helen needed more education than Annie could give. So they decided that Helen would continue her study for several years in Perkins School for the Blind Where Annie was educated before. There Helen didn’t only learn her lessons in her own language, but also in French, Greek, and Latin. And when she got a glimpse of hope to have university education, she chose to study in a High School in Cambridge which was located close to Radcliffe, a university she dreamt of, that had some relations with Harvard.
In Cambridge School, Helen immersed herself in her study with the same strong enthusiasm and even greater efforts because the school had no facilities for the deaf and blind. With Annie by her side, Helen worked hard preparing herself for the entry test. But the headmaster was worried it would be too much for the girl to face this challenge. He blamed Annie for urging Helen too hard and for not seriously taking Helen’s handicap into consideration. To his opinion, what Helen needed was to restrain her steps and somewhat lowered her expectations. When Annie protested, he forcibly took away Helen from Annie’s side, then wrote to Helen’s mother stating that Annie was risking her daughter’s well-being. Mrs. Keller came to Cambridge to see about the situation, listened to what Helen wanted, withdrew her from the school and reunite her with Annie. Helen undertook the last part of her preparation on her own but with the same resoluteness.
Helen grew more disappointed by the way Radcliffe treated her. After she successfully passed the entry test and got high grade especially in Latin language test, the man in charge of the student enrollment saw her in private. Once more, the school was in the opinion that the curriculum might be too difficult for a deaf and blind student. It seemed they were not ready to see Helen worked twice as hard as other students only to fail later. So, in that year of 1899, they didn’t accept Helen in.
Although it broke Helen’s heart, she remained stubbornly determined. Cornell University and The University of Chicago were willing to accept her and even were ready to grant scholarship to her, but she turned down their offers and concentrated in preparing herself again for the next entry test to Radcliffe. The following year’s entry test required higher passing grades but Helen managed to pass the test and was accepted by the university in that year of 1990. She managed not to skip classes and at last, not only did she graduated with honor, but she also wrote her experience in The Story of My Life. The book was highly praised and became a world’s best seller.
Helen spent the rest of her life struggling to face challenges as faced by other normal people. She stated firmly, “Life is either a brave adventure or nothing at all”. She learned to swim, to ride bicycle and horse and to go camping. She took side of controversial political view, openly joined the movement for woman’s right to vote, adopted love and peace belief and socialism, despite strong suggestions to her to stay out of such things. When faced by find difficulties, she and Annie conducted some activities considered vulgar by Helen’s relatives, and the most popular was the routine interview with American societies about Helen’s struggle.
When the declining eyesight of Annie made her unable to take care of Helen any longer, Helen went on dedicating herself in favor of the rights of the disabled. She rejected publisher’s offer to write more of her experiences. Instead she made tours to talk and raise funds for American Foundation for the Blind. This effort took her around the world. She met Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, The Japanese Emperor, and every president of USA elected during her
remaining lifetime. Through her personal example and public appearances, Helen strived harder than other activists in the effort to change the perception and promote the education and treatment for the disabled in this world.
Following Annie’s death, Helen wrote the biography of that close friend of hers, but then the nearly completed manuscript was lost in a fire than took place in 1946. As a lasting tribute to Annie’s perseverance, Helen started rewriting it from the beginning. In 1955, she published Teacher: Annie Sullivan Macy. 13 years later, Helen was put to eternal rest beside her friend and teacher in National Cathedral Cemetery in Washington D.C.
Post a Comment