Helen Keller

 "Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn whatever state I am in, therin to be content"
-Helen Keller


          I think education is worth fighting for. If you have disorders, like dyslexia, you shouldn't quit trying to read. You should work hard to learn how to read or make it easier on you. Helen Keller never gave up, and she wasn't dyslexic. She was deaf and blind. Could you imagine how hard her life must have been? Even though she had these problems, she never gave up on her education. Education is very important. She never wanted to stop learning, and she fought to improve her education. She struggled through hard times, and became very famous. 


          On June 27th, 1880, Helen's parents were delighted. Their daughter was finally born. They named her Helen. She was a very happy, healthy child. She was already learning how to speak, she could say a few words. She was very happy, until she got a very high fever. The fever (which was later thought to be Scarlet Fever) made her lose her eyesight and hearing. The happy, healthy child was now a very unhappy child. 


          She couldn't see, or hear, so she couldn't speak. Helen became frustrated because of this, so she began to throw temper tantrums. Her parents knew they had to do something. They asked Alexander Graham Bell (the telephone inventor) for advice. He suggested that they write to Michael Anagnos, the director of  the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind, to try and find a teacher for Helen. He immediately sent Anne Sullivan to teach Helen. She used to be blind, too, so she understood how Helen felt. 


          Anne was also a miracle child. When she was five years old, she lost all of her eyesight. Her mom died, and her dad left her. She was sent to a poorhouse with her brother, Jimmie. Jimmie died in the poorhouse, and Anne was all alone. In October 1880, she was brought to the Perkins Institution to commence her education. One summer, at the institute, she had two operations on her eyes, and she regained her eyesight. 


          Anne graduated from Perkins in 1886 and began to search for work. After a few years of searching, Michael Anagnos gave her an offer to work as the teacher of Helen Keller. She accepted, luckily, or Helen and her family would've been in some trouble.


          Anne Sullivan was a great teacher. She taught Helen words, but how could she if Helen was deaf? Well, Anne spelled out the word on her hand. One day, Anne led Helen to the water pump, and poured water on her hand. She spelled out the word "water" on her hand using sign language. She pressed the sign language letter on her hand. She did this a few times, and finally, Helen understood what she meant. It was like someone opened a key to the world for her. Everything was suddenly easier. 


          There began a tough life for Helen. Anne Sullivan spelled out every word for her. After a long time, she learned many, many words. They communicated using their hands. Anne Sullivan then taught her how to read. There is a certain type of language that lets blind people read, called Braille.  It's just a series of bumps in the paper that blind people feel. The bumps  represent letters.  The Braille alphabet is listed below:

The dots that are black show that those are the ones that are raised, so blind people can read.


          Anne also taught Helen how to type. Not with a pencil and a paper, but with typewriters. They first began with a braille typewriter. The braille letters were on the typing keys, and she immediately knew what to do. She typed up what she wanted to type, and had Anne read it. She kept practicing on the braille typewriter, until she remembered where the keys were. By that time, she started using ordinary typewriters.


          Helen was a very smart girl. She continued to work hard and continue her education with Anne Sullivan. She read braille, and understood everything Anne said, on her hand. She also began to learn how to speak. Learning how to speak was very difficult. Some say it is an impossible thing to accomplish for a deaf-blind mute, but for Helen, nothing was impossible. 

In Mach, 1890, Helen heard of a little girl in Norway, who was also a deaf blind mute. This girl learned how to speak. Helen didn't know that deaf blind mutes could speak, so when she heard of this girl, she really wanted to learn how to speak. She told Anne she wanted to learn how to speak. Anne told her it was very difficult and tried to discourage her. Helen insisted and Anne knew she had to find the best teacher available to teach her how to speak. Anne asked Sarah Fuller, an expert on education and the principle of the Horace Mann School for the deaf. Sarah agreed and started teaching her how to speak.           Helen was very excited. She wanted to learn how to speak for a very long time. She knew others could speak, and she wanted to communicate with them too. She later wrote in one of her books, "Sometimes I stood between two persons who were conversing and touched their lips. I could not understand, and was vexed. I moved my lips frantically without results. This made me so angry at times that I kicked and screamed until I was exhausted.           One day, Ms. Fuller was successful. She began the lesson by putting Helen's hand on her face and mouth. This allowed Helen to feel the position of Ms. Fuller's tongue and lips when she made a sound. She then shaped Helen's mouth for making basic vowel sounds. She took Helen's hand and put it on her throat, so she could feel the vibrations in her throat when she talked. Helen touched Ms. Fuller's mouth, tongue and throat. It took her a long time to be able to speak, but when she learned how, her first sentence was "It is too warm."

          Helen was very educated, and by the time she was 17 years old, she got into Radcliffe College, and became the first ever deaf blind person to enroll into an institution of higher learning. Anne went with her, to translate what the instructor said into her hand. 


          Life at Radcliffe College was tough for Helen and Anne. The huge amount of work they needed to do stressed them out. During college, Helen wrote a book about her life, in braille and in normal letters, so both blind and normal people could read it. Helen met John Albert Macy, and he helped her edit her book. It was published in 1903. It didn't sell very well, but now, it's a classic. 


          On June 28th, 1904, Helen graduated from Radcliffe, becoming also the first deaf blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. 


          Helen had an amazing memory. She could remember almost everything the instructor said (Anne translated it, of course). She also had some amazing skills very few people had. She could put her fingers on somebody's mouth, and while they were speaking, she understood what they were saying. 


          John Macy became very good friends with Helen and Anne, and in 1905, Anne and John were married. Anne's name was changed to Anne Sullivan Macy. Because they were married, they all lived in Wrentham, Massachusetts. Helen continued writing books, and John continued to edit them. Soon, she wrote "The World I Live in" and "Out of the Dark."
"The World I Live in" revealed her thoughts about the world for the first time. "Out of the Dark" was a book with essays in them, about socialism. In 1909, John introduced Helen to a new and revolutionary way of viewing the world. She then became a member of the Socialist Party of Massachusetts. 


          Helen and Anne filled the following years of their life by going to countries and giving lectures about her experiences and beliefs. Anne interpreted every sentence for the crowd. Mane people had questions, and they answered them all. They travelled around the world lecturing people, and got a decent amount of money. By 1918, demands for Helen's lectures had decreased, so they travelled to countries showing them a video about how Helen learned the word "water." This show was very popular, so Hollywood movie producers offered to make a movie about her. They agreed, and in a while, the movie was released. Anne told Helen how it went (because unfortunately, Helen couldn't see). She didn't like it, and it didn't seem to be as much of a success as they hoped for. She continued giving lectures, which were becoming more and more popular, so they earned about two thousand dollars a week!! 


          Unfortunately, Helen's mom died of an unknown disease, and Anne fell ill, too. She had a  bad case of Bronchitis, which left her not being able to speak louder than a whisper. She couldn't interpret Helen's words on stage anymore, so Polly Thomson, who started working as Helen and Anne's secretary in 1914, started to help Helen on stage. 


          Anne's health was getting worse, and she died on October 20, 1936. Polly continued to tour the world with Helen, until she got a stroke in 1957. She didn't recover, and died on March 21st, 1960. Her ashes were put right next to Anne Sullivan's, which was at the National Cathedral in Washington DC. 


          Winnie Corbally, Polly Thomson's nurse, started to help Helen on stage. It wasn't until a year later that Helen started getting stokes. She couldn't tour the world anymore. She spent her remaining years at her home in Arcan Ridge. While she was recovering, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian award, by President Lyndon Johnson. A year later, she was elected to the Women's Hall of Fame at the New York World's Fair. 

          On June 1st, 1968, Helen died in her sleep. Her ashes were put next to Anne Sullivan's and Polly Thomson. The National Cathedral in Washington DC is a very popular tourist attraction now, and there is a bronze plaque that says, "Helen Keller and her beloved companion Anne Sullivan Macy are interred in the columbarium behind this chapel," in braille. So many people visited the Chapel and touched the braille letters, that the plaque had to be replaced twice. 




          Helen is very famous around the world, for starting a hard, educated life and not wanting to give up on anything. She wanted to learn as much as she could; she never quit. Helen is one of my role models, she has persuaded me not to give up and to keep trying something if I can't accomplish it, so if you're feeling down, or stuck, or you feel like you're not good or smart enough to do something, think of Helen Keller. She is a trooper and a miracle worker, and she led a harder and more complicated life than you. If she can do it, so can you.






Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan learning together

http://gardenofpraise.com/ibdkell.htm


http://www.rnib.org.uk/aboutus/aboutsightloss/famous/Pages/helenkeller.aspx


http://www.pharmabraille.com/pharmaceutical-braille/braille-alphabet.htm


http://www.afb.org/braillebug/askkeller.asp?issueid=20058