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Oh, Brian, Thank you so much for posting
that!
I've read it before but it never ceases to give me
goose-bumps and tears of emphathetic joy.
And does it not say, better than anything else
could say, how important the symbolization process is to the process of human
development?
One also has to be reminded of those children who
were isolated for the first few years of their lives and when found, never
really developed properly although they may have been able to learn
language at some level depending on how old they were when found.
Again, thank you Brian for your wonderful
post.
For those of you on the list that are celebrating
Thanksgiving, I hope you have a wonderful, happy day and the same for the rest
of you.
Selma
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, November 28, 2002 11:55
AM
Subject: Re: NYTimes.com Article: Indian
Languages: Tending the Flame
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.
--------------------------------------
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
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