Discuss helen keller as an exemplary child

The problems faced by Helen Keller in The Story of My Life include losing her sight, hearing, and ability to speak as a toddler. Later problems included associating objects with their names, having to learn to speak again, and solving the mystery of how she had inadvertently written a short story with striking similarities to a story already published. An illness when she was very young left Learning from Miss Sullivan to communicate through palm writing solved that problem, but as is often the case in life, solving one problem leads to new problems. As Helen was able to communicate with society and became a celebrity, she was almost discredited when she inadvertently plagiarized a story, creating a huge scandal. Later, as she sought more education, she faced the problem of learning in a society that had not grappled with the idea of accommodations for disability. A few books were in Braille, but as she entered Radcliffe, Helen had to rely very heavily on Miss Sullivan to provide her with a method both to take and read lecture notes and textbooks by writing their contents into her hand. Despite all the obstacles she faced, Helen Keller was grateful at the opportunities she was offered through education and Miss Sullivan's love and friendship. Helen Keller faces problems of a magnitude that most of us would only contemplate in our worst nightmares. At nineteen months old, Keller suffers an illness that leaves her blind, deaf, and without any viable means of communication. W...

I’ve been legally blind since birth. Ever since I can remember, Like many disabled people, I’ve lived under the shadow of Helen Keller. With the exception of Franklin Delano Roosevelt who had polio, she’s the most famous disabled person in the world. For decades, I’ve chafed against Keller. Until, I came to identify with her and respect her legacy. It took a while. Helen Keller feeding swans, 1913 Keller, born in Tuscombia, Alabama, lived from 1880-1968. She became deaf and blind after an illness at the age of nineteen months. Anne Sullivan, herself visually impaired, was sent by the Perkins School for the Blind in Boston to be Keller’s teacher. “The Miracle Worker” was an Academy-Award winning film (and before that an acclaimed play and TV show). But, even as a kid, I hated the story of Keller, the wild child, being miraculously civilized by Anne Sullivan. If I’d known of the late disability activist Sheila Young’s phrase “inspiration porn,” I would have shouted it at the movie screen! I had no love, either, for the images of Keller as a sexless, saintly woman that are the flip side of the wild child image. I’m all for doing good. But, from early on, I’ve known that I’m not asexual or saintly. Nondisabled people sometimes assume that, because of my disability, I can’t have romance or marry. Often, they say, I shouldn’t worry about not being coupled up because I can be “like Helen Keller.” Ironically, I began to identify with Keller after I met Anne, the love of my life. A...

Buy Study Guide Miss Sullivan taught Helen the names of objects by giving them to her and then spelling out the letters of their name in her hand. Helen learned to spell these words through imitation, without understanding what she was doing, but eventually had a breakthrough and realized that everything had a name, and that Miss Sullivan was teaching them to her. From this point on, Helen acquired language rapidly; she particularly enjoyed learning out in nature, where she and her teacher would take walks and she would ask questions about her surroundings. Soon after this, Helen learned how to read; Miss Sullivan taught her this by giving her strips of cardboard with raised letters on them, and then having her act out the sentence with objects. Soon, Helen could read entire books. In May 1888, Helen went north to visit Boston with her mother and teacher. She spent some time studying at the Perkins Institute for the Blind, and quickly befriended the other blind girls who were her age. They spent a vacation at Brewster in Cape Cod, where Helen experienced the ocean for the first time. Following this, they spent nearly every winter up north. Once she had learned to read, Helen was determined next to learn how to speak. Her teacher and many others believed it would be impossible for her to ever speak normally, but she resolved to reach that point. Miss Sullivan took her to the Horace Mann School in 1890 to begin learning with The winter of 1892 was a troubling time for Helen....

Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880–June 1, 1968) was a groundbreaking exemplar and advocate for the blind and deaf communities. Blind and deaf from a nearly fatal illness at 19 months old, Helen Keller made a dramatic breakthrough at the age of 6 when she learned to communicate with the help of her teacher, Annie Sullivan. Keller went on to live an illustrious public life, inspiring people with disabilities and fundraising, giving speeches, and writing as a humanitarian activist. • Known For:Blind and deaf from infancy, Helen Keller is known for her emergence from isolation, with the help of her teacher Annie Sullivan, and for a career of public service and humanitarian activism. • Born:June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama • Parents: Captain Arthur Keller and Kate Adams Keller • Died:June 1, 1968 in Easton Connecticut • Education: Home tutoring with Annie Sullivan, Perkins Institute for the Blind, Wright-Humason School for the Deaf, studies with Sarah Fullerat theHorace Mann School for the Deaf, The Cambridge School for Young Ladies, Radcliffe CollegeofHarvard University • Published Works: The Story of My Life,The World I Live In,Out of the Dark, My Religion,Light in My Darkness, Midstream: My Later Life • Awards and Honors:Theodore RooseveltDistinguished Service Medal in 1936, Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964, election to the Women's Hall of Fame in 1965, an honorary Academy Award in 1955 (as the inspiration for the documentary about her life), countless honorary degre...

• • • • • • • Where Was Helen Keller Born? Portrait of Helen Keller as a young girl, with a white dog on her lap (August 1887) Helen Adams Keller was born a healthy child in Tuscumbia, Alabama, on June 27, 1880. Her parents were On her father's side she was descended from Colonel Alexander Spottswood, a colonial governor of Virginia, and on her mother's side, she was related to a number of prominent New England families. Helen's father, Arthur Keller, was a captain in the Confederate army. The family lost most of its wealth during the Civil War and lived modestly. After the war, Captain Keller edited a local newspaper, the North Alabamian, and in 1885, under the Cleveland administration, he was appointed Marshal of North Alabama. At the age of 19 months, Helen became deaf and blind as a result of an unknown illness, perhaps rubella or scarlet fever. As Helen grew from infancy into childhood, she became wild and unruly. When Did Helen Keller Meet Anne Sullivan? As she so often remarked as an adult, her life changed on March 3, 1887. On that day, Anne was a 20-year-old graduate of the Perkins School for the Blind. Compared with Helen, Anne couldn't have had a more different childhood and upbringing. The daughter of poor Irish immigrants, she entered Perkins at 14 years of age after four horrific years as a ward of the state at the Tewksbury Almshouse in Massachusetts. She was just 14 years older than her pupil Helen, and she too suffered from serious vision problems. Anne un...

in: Helen Keller’s Own Story of Her Life Written Entirely by the Wonderful Girl Herself “In the story of my life here presented to the readers of The Ladies’ Home Journal, I have tried to show that afflictions may be looked at in such a way that they become privileges.” by Helen Keller, Cambridge, April 1902 AN EDITORIAL FOREWORD AS THE feat may seem almost incredible, it may be in order to say at the beginning that every word of this story as printed in THE JOURNAL has actually been written by Helen Keller herself — not dictated, but first written in “Braille” (raised points); then transferred to the typewriter by the wonderful girl herself; next read to her by her teacher by means of the fingers; corrected; then read again to her, and in the proof finally read to her once more. It is the editor’s hope to be able to publish at the conclusion of Miss Keller’s own story a supplementary article by one of her friends, explaining, in detail, exactly how this marvelous work was done. THE EDITOR OF THE LADIES’ HOME JOURNAL. PART ONE: THE LONG NIGHT Miss Helen Keller (1893) Photo: IT IS with a kind of fear that I begin to write the history of my life. I have, as it were, a superstitious hesitation in lifting the veil that clings about my childhood like a golden mist. When I try to classify my earliest impressions I find that fact and fancy look alike across the years that link that period with the present. The woman paints the child’s experiences in her own fantasy. A few impress...

Because of her disability, Helen has not been held to the same standards as other children. In their dysfunctional family dynamic, the Kellers do not wish to deal realistically with the fact that Helen is blind and deaf. It is as if their pity for her is so great that they cannot give her the normal discipline with which parents raise their children. But the paradoxical result is that Helen is treated almost as if she is not human. Instead of having a place at the table, she is permitted to walk around the table and grab things at will from the plates of the other family members. The unfortunate Annie immediately recognizes that this is not only wrong but appalling. She asserts control by getting the Kellers to allow her to take charge of the situation and to begin teaching Helen to behave and to eat her meals in the way children should. In doing this, she accomplishes two things. First, she establishes that if she is to be Helen's teacher, the family (including the imperious patriarch Captain Keller) must follow her rules, not the other way around, as perhaps would be more typical in a situation where Annie is considered part of the "servant" class. Second—and this is obviously just as important—she is changing the family dynamic. From this point, Helen is longer uncontrolled, free to behave in a totally undisciplined and essentially uncivilized way, taking food from other people's palates. Third, though it takes time for the message to sink in, Annie impresses upon the K...