Tuesday, September 6, 2011

"Indeed everything that could hum, or buzz, or sing, or bloom, had a part in my education." What did Helen Keller mean by this sentence?

In this passage from The Story of My Life, Helen Keller is describing the delightful way in which her teacher, Anne Sullivan, taught her to read and instructed her in science. To make the lessons enjoyable and tangible to Keller, her teacher brought her outdoors. As Keller writes, "The loveliness of things taught me their use." Things that she could touch, such as crickets or frogs, dogwood blossoms and wildflowers, were put into Keller's hands so that she could learn what they were through touching them and then learn what they were called. In this way, Sullivan taught Keller science in a way that was thoroughly enjoyable. Sullivan had had extensive experience teaching the blind, and she knew how to make Keller's lessons real and lasting by making them educational but enjoyable. Keller says that she associates her early educational experiences with Sullivan with a sense of delight, unlike the memories of many children who attend mainstream types of schools and have to plod through subjects that seem boring and irrelevant. 

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