News Article: "Education of the Blind"
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Catalog Entry
Carrie C. Green, a native from Fitchburg, MA, decided to establish a school for the blind in London with her two associates, Professor Cambell and Professor Smith. They left the country and continued their journey to what I would call greatness. The school board of London was mesmerized by her work and her success in the institution that they were able to establish more schools for the blind. The school board of London gave her full control of the department so she was able to pick teachers, rearrange classrooms, and do what she felt was needed. Because of her, there were five successful schools running at the time. This inspiration caused a lot of news back in her hometown. It made people realize that no matter where you are from, big or small, if you put your mind to something you can achieve it.
Just like Miss Greene, Helen Keller was also inspirational. Keller was born blind and deaf. Growing up she wanted to understand why people around her would communicate through their mouths and not their hands. This filled her up with rage (this is what filled her with rage?). In her autobiography she wrote, "the need of some means of communication became so urgent that these outbursts occurred daily, sometimes hourly.’’(where is this quoted from?) On March 3, 1887, a women by the name of Anne Sullivan made her mark in this young lady’s life. Anne Sullivan was Keller’s teacher. At first, their relationship was very rocky. Keller would hit, pinch, and even kicked her teacher so hard that her tooth came out.Through hardwork and patience Sullivan was able to win this little girl’s heart. She taught Keller a finger spelling technique where she would spell familiar objects in her hand. Keller didn’t understand this technique until Sullivan pumped water into her hand while spelling out the word water on her hand. Keller started to realize the true meanings of words. “ I did nothing but explore with my hands and learn the name of every object that I touched; and the more I handled things and learned their names and uses, the more joyous and confident grew my sense of kinship with the rest of the world.’’ said Keller. Soon Keller would’ve became one amazing woman of our time. Thanks to Sullivan teachings and guidance she was the first deaf blind person to earn a Bachelors of Arts degree. This shows that you can reach your goal if you put your mind to it. Today Helen Keller is a recognized author, political activist, and known as Perkins best student. (unclear the point of this paragraph in this entry - do not need this much about her - why is the focus on Keller and not Sullivan given the rest of the entry?)
Helen Keller and Miss Greene were very connected in this way because they both wanted to show people to be open-minded. Miss Greene was able to build five more schools in London, and it was all because people felt inspired towards her work. Keller became the first deaf-blind person to get a degree. Doesn’t that make you feel motivated to accomplish something? I'm a true believer that, if you want to get something done and you truly believe that you can, you wholeheartedly can reach that goal.
This also shows that having a support system, like Sullivan and Professor Cambell, can benefit you because they wish for you to succeed and they are on the same page as you.
Anne Sullivan was a teacher who was determined to teach Keller. It took time and patience, but have you ever thought about what it feels like to teach somebody with a visual impairment? As you know there's a lot of challenges we face in life, but it's all about overcoming and learning. I wanted to know how it felt to be a teacher who teaches the visually impaired. I learned that there's not much difference: every teacher has the same goal and that is to let your students learn what you are teaching and apply what they learned into real life. In a physical setting, for an example a classroom, a teacher needs to make the classroom efficiently organized so students can get to places without any harm. Teachers would also have to plan everything accordingly and do everything carefully to ensure the child’s well being. For the teacher this means alteration in planning and awareness, instruction, and social being. Essentially you would dedicate your time in learning and gain new strategies and resources.
Mentally you also need to have the patience to teach these children because there are going to be times where it can get frustrating, so you need to persevere through it and not give up. This is where hope comes in because, if you don’t have hope, how do you expect the students to learn? Students need hope because it gives them a sense of courage to be stronger than what they are.
I also believe that students who are visually impaired should feel connected to a person who has the same disability as them because, if you have someone who is "related" to you in a sense then you know how it feels to go through the same thing. Sometimes having a similarity can help because the person might know how you feel or actually have been through it. One way this can happen is to have visually -mparied teachers teach visually-impaired students, according to the National Federation of the Blind (where is this in the bibliography?), "School staff can turn this situation around and help create an atmosphere of opportunity for blind students by making contact with active, competent adults, adopting positive attitudes about blindness, acquiring good training, and encouraging independence and full participation on the part of blind students."
Furthermore, this artifact I chose is very important because it helps people recognize how a small-town girl can do something very big. In life sometimes we are told that we can’t do certain things because it's beyond our expectations, but Miss Greene was able to prove that wrong. With dedication and persistence she was able to build five schools, and with this inspiration she was able to win the school board hearts. (And this is the most she did?)
Bibliography
“Perkins School for the Blind.” Perkins School for the Blind, 15 Nov. 1970, www.perkins.org/.
“Royal Normal College for the Blind Annual Reports, Pamphlets and Clippings.” Perkins School for the Blind, www.perkins.org/history/collections/royal-normal-college-for-the-blind.