At 3:06 PM -0500 11/27/02, Selma Singer wrote:
It is very interesting that Helen Keller is referred to in your post. As I
may have mentioned before, one of the things I was most proud of in the 26
years I taught Sociology and Women's Studies was the way I was increasingly
able to find concrete examples in order to illustrate the very abstract
concepts I was constantly trying to explain. One of the examples I used in
explaining the importance of symbolization was the story of Helen Keller as
portrayed in the play *The Miracle Worker*. The entire play illustrates the
importance of symbolization from the beginning and build-up to show how wild
and uncontrollable Helen was and then to the gradual build-up to show how
she was able to make some progress with understanding words to the climax of
the whole play in which Helen was pumping water and suddenly made the
connection between the substance *water* and the word *water*. If you've
seen the play, you know what an absolutely thrilling moment that was. It was
a dramatic depiction of the importance of the human ability to symbolize; to
make an intellectual connection between a symbol and an object to which it
is connected arbitrarily. The word water could possibly mean any one of
hundreds of different things; there is nothing inherent in the word that
suggests what it stands for in our language. Helen Keller was, of course,
blind and deaf. Certainly the deaf can symbolize regardless of the fact that
they use gestures as their symbols.
I referred to Helen Keller because I too use the Miracle Worker(
the movie with Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke) in my teaching. I ask my
students to try to put into words what transpired in the moment you
describe:
"to the climax of the whole play in which Helen was pumping
water and suddenly made the connection between the substance *water*
and the word *water*"
In the film this CONNECTION was made while Anne Sullivan was
finger spelling into the palm of Helen's hand the word W-A-T-E-R and
pumping water over the other hand. My students usually say something
like:
"for the first time Helen real-ized that the touch
sensations being pressed into her hand by Anne Sullivan re-presented
the stuff (water) pouring over her other hand."
I then ask them how sign-ificant that is. Be-cause after that
miraculous moment many nouns were easy to learn (eg. pump, mother,
father, teacher) but not all. How would she learn 'word', 'faith',
'tomorrow'...? What would her teacher use as a learning aid? And if we
leave nouns what about 'remember', 'eventful', 'revealed', 'vainly'.
How did we , who can see and hear, learn these?
Here, in her own words, is Helen Keller's
re-membering:
'THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY'
In this poignant recollection from her book, The Story of My Life, Helen Keller writes of the triumphant day when, as a blind, deaf child, she first unraveled the mystery of language:
The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me. I am filled with wonder when I consider the immeasurable contrast between the two lives which it connects. It was the third of March, 1887, three months before I was seven years old.
On the afternoon of that eventful day, I stood on the porch, dumb, expectant. I guessed vaguely from my mother's signs and from the hurrying to and fro in the house that something unusual was about to happen, so I went to the door and waited on the steps. The afternoon sun penetrated the mass of honeysuckle that covered the porch, and fell on my upturned face. My fingers lingered almost unconsciously on the familiar leaves and blossoms which had just come forth to greet the sweet southern spring. I did not know what the future held of marvel or surprise for me. Anger and bitterness had preyed upon me continually for weeks and a deep languor had succeeded this passionate struggle.
Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how near the harbour was.
I felt approaching footsteps. I stretched out my hand as I supposed to my mother. Someone took it, and I was caught up and held close in the arms of her who had come to reveal all things to me, and, more than all things else, to love me�
One day, while I was playing with my new doll, Miss Sullivan put my big rag doll into my lap also, spelled "d-o-l-l" and tried to make me understand that "d-o-l-l" applied to both. Earlier in the day we had a tussle over the words "m-u-g" and "w-a-t-e-r." Miss Sullivan tried to impress it upon me that "m-u-g" is mug and the "w-a-t-e-r" is water, but I persisted in confounding the two. In despair she had dropped the subject for the time, only to renew it at the first opportunity. I became impatient at her repeated attempts and, seizing the new doll, I dashed it upon the floor. I was keenly delighted when I felt the fragments of the broken doll at my feet. Neither sorrow nor regret followed my passionate outburst. I had not loved the doll. In the still, dark world in which I lived there was no strong sentiment or tenderness. I felt my teacher sweep the fragments to one side of the hearth, and I had a sense of satisfaction that the cause of my discomfort was removed. She brought me my hat, and I knew I was going out into the warm sunshine. This thought, if a wordless sensation may be called a thought, made me hop and skip with pleasure.
We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Someone was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten - a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of a language was revealed to me. I knew then that "w-a-t-e-r" meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set if free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away.
I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house every object which I touched seemed to quiver with life. That was because I saw everything with the strange, new sight that had come to me. On entering the door I remembered the doll I had broken. I felt my way to the hearth and picked up the pieces. I tried vainly to put them together. Then my eyes filled with tears; for I realized what I had done, and for the first time I felt repentance and sorrow.
I learned a great many new words that day. I do not remember what they all were; but I do know that mother, father, sister, teacher were among them -words that were to make the world blossom for me, "like Aaron's rod, with flowers." It would have been difficult to find a happier child than I was as I lay in my crib at the close of that eventful day and lived over the joys it had brought me, and for the first time longed for a new day to come.
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Whenever I read this passage I marvel at the genius of Anne
Sullivan, Helen's teacher. I'm reminded of how 'experts' use to advise
parents about children born with Downe's Syndrome. They were told to
put them in institutions and most were. This advise had devastating
consequences for these children. So little of their potential was
real-ized. So much for nature-nurture debates and intelligence.
Take care Selma,
Brian McAndrews
