鎵樼鑰冭瘯锛氭柊鎵樼鍐欎綔楂樺垎婊″垎浣滄枃鑼冧緥
11
If you could ask a famous person one question, what would you ask? Why? Use
specific reasons and details to support your answer.
If
I
had the opportunity to sit
down and meet one of
my
idols
or
heroes,
I
could
come
up with
hundreds of questions to find out what they did to get where they are, but in particular I like
to have asked Helen Keller, what would she have made of the technology available today to blind
and deafblind individuals?
When
Helen
Keller
was
nineteen
months
old,
a
serious
illness
almost
took
her
life.
She
survived
the disease had left her both blind and deaf. Her education contributed to her first teacher,
Anne Sullivan. Anne taught Helen to finger spell, and manage to let her understand the meaning
of words. Imagine how
hard it
is
for
a person
both
blind
and
deaf
to relate words with
real
world
objects, although she never had a chance to see those objects!
Another
teacher
Mary
Swift
Lamson
who
over
the
coming
year
was
to
try
and
teach
Helen
to
speak.
This was something that Helen desperately wanted and although she learned to understand what
somebody else was saying by touching their lips and throat, her efforts to speak herself proved
to be unsuccessful. However, Helen moved on to the Cambridge School for Young Ladies and later
entered Radcliff College, becoming the first deaf blind person to have ever enrolled at an
institution of higher learning.
After World War Two, Helen spent years traveling the world fundraising for the American
Foundation
for
the
Overseas
Blind.
They
visited
Japan,
Australia,
South
America,
Europe
and
Africa.
Her
hard
work
and
achievements
was
widely
recognized
throughout
the
world,
and
she
was
acknowledged
as "the Miracle Worker".
If Helen Keller were born today her life would undoubtedly have been completely different.
Her life long dream was to be able to talk, something that she was never really able to master.
Today the teaching methods exist that would have helped Helen to realize this dream. What would
Helen
have
made
of
the
technology
available
today
to
blind
and
deaf
blind
individuals?
Technology
of today has enabled blind and deaf blind people, like Helen, to communicate directly, and
independently, with anybody in the world.