Learning from Helen Keller Essays -- Helen Keller Deaf Blind Essays

Learning from Helen KellerFacilitated Communication InstituteHelen Keller is believably the most universally recognized disabled person of the twentieth century. (Others such as Franklin Roosevelt were equally well-known, but Keller is remembered mainly for her accomplishments which ar disability-related.) Those of us who bind grown up in the last half of this century see only known Keller as a figure of veneration. We know her primarily finished popularized versions of her life such as the sportswoman The Miracle Worker, or through her autobiographical works such as The Story of My Life (Keller, 1961 1902) and The cosmos I Live In (Keller, 1908). Most of us have enter away with the image of a more than-than-human person living with the b littleed entertain of an equally superhuman mentor, Annie Sullivan Macy. There is little wisdom, however, to be learned from the stories of superheroes. It is from sight the struggles, losses and compromises in both Keller and Sullivans lives that we are likely to find parallels to the frequent experiences of ourselves and our friends. Dorothy Herrmanns recent biography of Keller, Helen Keller A Life (Herrmann, 1998) creates a much more complete picture of the costs of Kellers celebrity and iconic status, and of the xsions present in her life-long relationship with the woman whom she always referred to as Teacher. In this paper, I depart discuss two important themes from Helen Kellers life in terms of their implications for those of us who are also part of a community of heap prosecute in the enterprise of finding their voices in the world. The Frost King casualty Helen Keller was born in Alabama in 1880, and became deaf and then art following an illness when she was 19 months old. Annie Sullivan came to Alabama to work as Helens instructor in March, 1887. Scarcely a month later, on April 5, 1887, came the well-known chip at the water-pump, where Helen first associated the objects she experienced with the words being spelled into her hand. Within the adjacent year, Helen began keeping a journal, and was studying the poetry of Longfellow, Whittier, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. By the time she was ten years old, Helen Keller was literally world-famous. As early as October, 1888, she was writing letter such as the following one to Michael Anagnos, the director of the Perkins School for the blur Mon cher Mon... ...in facilitators, for administrators who provide access to enriched staffing resources, and for allies involved in connecting an individual with his or her broader community. The world will never see another Helen Keller. Those visible people with disabilities of our generation do not stand alone and unique -- increasingly, they are reasonful members of a powerful community, in control of those who support them alternatively than controlled by them. Those of us who are supporters and allies of facilitated communication users can play an important role in helping our friends come into possession of their power and full citizenship in our community. The most powerful acts -- and often the most mingled and painful ones -- by which we can support movement in this direction, are those acts by which, a piece at a time, we become less and less indispensable. REFERENCES Herrmann, D. (1998). Helen Keller A Life. New York, Alfred A. Knopf. Keller, H. (1961 1902) The Story of my Life. New York, Dell. Keller, H. (1908). The World I Live In. New York, Grosset and Dunlop. Shevin, M. (1993). Editorial Who are our Phyllis Wheatleys? Facilitated Communication Digest 1(3) 1-2.