Wescott Students Experience the Amazing Abilities of Helen Keller - Champion of the Disabled

Wescott Students Experience the Amazing Abilities of Helen Keller - Champion of the Disabled

On October 13, an actress from Historical Perspectives for Children visited Wescott School, and portrayed the late Helen Keller: writer, teacher, political activist, speaker, and dubbed "Champion of the Disabled.”

Her story is familiar to many. She was born healthy, but became blind and deaf after contracting a high fever as a toddler. It was in the 1880’s, so she was labeled blind, deaf and dumb. These days the word “mute" is used, instead of “dumb."

The actress reenacted Ms. Keller’s relationship with her first teacher and forever friend, Anne Sullivan, who first taught her sign language, and eventually she was able to speak.

Consequently, she became a world-famous lecturer and author. She said her first sentence at age seven, after Ms. Sullivan began working with her.

“I am not dumb now!” she exclaimed to her surprised parents and siblings.

It is written that after learning to speak, she felt "joyous, strong and equal to her limitations."

Despite Ms. Keller’s challenges, she attended Radcliffe College and wrote 12 books, before her death in 1968. She was the first deaf-blind person to earn a bachelor of arts degree.

One of her life’s great disappointments was not being able to marry her sweetheart, Peter. Her mother was afraid that if she married and had children, she wouldn’t be able to take care of them, so marriage was strictly forbidden.

One of her most famous quotes is, “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched - they must be felt with the heart.”

Her lectures throughout the world promoted an understanding of people’s differences.

Before she died, at the age of 88, she had received many awards and honors, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the United States’ two highest civilian honors.

She was also a member of the National Women’s Hall of Fame at the New York World Fair. She devoted much of her later life to raising funds for the American Foundation for the Blind.

The actress showed the kids how Ms. Keller learned to speak and write in Braille. A Braille book was available after for them to see and touch, following the performance.

The goal of the presentation was to try and instill within children a deeper sensitivity for those with disabilities, as they come to understand and accept the different ways people do the same things.

This program was held courtesy of the PTO’s Cultural Arts Committee, with chairs Tracey Becker and Catherine Caporusso.