Helen Keller

1051 Words3 Pages

Helen Keller is has changed the hearing, the deaf, and the blind culture. She inspired so many people to push beyond their limits and showed that, even the girl everyone called ‘dumb’ can be more than that. Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama in a small town on the Ivy Green Estate. On July 27th 1880, she was a perfectly normal baby, she could hear, and see. Until she was 19 months old she became very sick with a terrible she lost her hearing and her sight. She was called a ‘wild child’ because she couldn’t understand others losing her sight and hearing was unexpected for her and so she didn’t know how to communicate with others.

On March 3rd 1887 Keller’s life changed for the better, her mother Kate, heard about the Perkins school for the Blind and called Alexander Graham Bell and wrote to the head of the Perkins school for the Blind to ask for a teacher for Helen. This day was the day that Anne Sullivan arrived and became a large part of Keller’s life. Anne expected Keller’s behavior, because the girl was both deaf and illiterate. Anne knew she had to find a way to make Keller understand the meaning of words and, after a month of spelling in sign language words into Keller’s hand everything clicked into place as Anne held Keller’s hand under a water pump and the cool water washed over there hands she spelled out ‘W-A-T-E-R’ into Keller’s hand. Keller realized what this meant and was so excited and wanted to know everything, she learned 30 words that day.

From that day on Keller put up a fight to show she was more than just blind and deaf that she was smart and she wanted to communicate with people. Keller was no longer a wild child, she was too busy with learning everything she could and wanted to learn. She learned how to...

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...ters from eight U.S. presidents. Her fame resulted in many awards, including the French Legion of Honor and the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Helen Keller was a woman that stood up for all races and cultures and believed they all deserved the same rights; she was a spiritual woman and when Polly died in 1961 Helen resided in Arcan Ridge quietly and died in her sleep in 1968.

Works Cited

"Helen Keller Kids Museum." American Foundation for the Blind - Home Page. American Foundation for the Blind, 2010. Web. 06 May 2011. .

Keller, Helen, John Albert Macy, and Anne Macy. The Story of My Life, by Helen Keller: with Her Letters (1887-1901) and a Supplementary Account of Her Education, including Passages from the Reports and Letters of Her Teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1914. Print.

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