Letter: Keep Helen Keller in the Texas Curriculum

This e-mail was composed and sent to our Texas State Board of Education representative for District 5, Mr. Ken Mercer, on September 26, 2018.

Dear Mr. Ken Mercer,

I am writing to you concerned about the State Board of Education’s recommendation to eliminate Helen Keller from Texas’ 3rd grade textbooks and curriculum.

I’m a Deaf mother of three children with different hearing/deafness etiologies. My oldest son is Deaf and in 8th grade, my daughter is hearing and in 7th grade, and my youngest son, Orion, who is DeafBlind is in 3rd grade. I am currently studying for my M.Ed. in Special Education focusing on orientation & mobility via Texas Tech University. Meanwhile, I will be receiving my academic certificate in DeafBlindness in December 2018.

I understand a rubric was used to evaluate historical figures, with the goal that decisions can be as objective as possible. However, with this rubric, Helen Keller was given 7 points and recommended for removal, yet Billy Graham a pass to be kept in the curriculum regardless of a rubric scoring that was lower than others slated for removal. The rubric configuration that was used is clearly not working and is inconsistent, thus not credible in my eyes.

Helen Keller caused change and enlightenment to take place worldwide. Taking 40 minutes of instructional time to talk about Helen Keller is not only the tip of the iceberg, it opens a door to further development understanding, empathy and many friendships with people who are different. Approximately one out of five Americans have a disability. Our curriculum needs to reflect that. We need to retain exemplary role models who have disabilities for children with or without disabilities.

Although Helen Keller was not the first DeafBlind student in the U.S., she was the first DeafBlind graduate of Radcliffe College. She co-founded what is now known as Helen Keller International, an organization that brings awareness and prevention of blindness worldwide. Helen Keller met several US presidents, she challenged the Lion’s Club to aid the blind and visually impaired which they proudly still do to this day, she worked for the American Foundation for the Blind until her death in 1968. Her body [lies] in rest at the Washington National Cathedral. Keller was so famous that anywhere she went, people paid attention to her and what she had to say, making a positive difference. Helen Keller was not only an extraordinary DeafBlind person, she was a notable, exceptional person regardless of her abilities.

The Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults (HKNC) was established in 1967 after the Helen Keller National Center Act was passed to provide rehabilitation training for individuals who are DeafBlind.

In 1964, Helen Keller received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Lyndon Baines Johnson, our US president who hailed from Texas.

Governor Greg Abbott, proclaimed June 2018 as “Helen Keller DeafBlind Awareness Month” in the state of Texas. (Direct link to an online image of the document: https://gov.texas.gov/uploads/files/organization/disabilities/2018-Helen-Keller-DeafBlind-Awareness-Month.pdf)

Initially people are impressed by Helen Keller’s story as a person who is DeafBlind. Eventually, people will see quite a resume of accomplishments by anyone regardless of ability. I will be satisfied when the Texas State Board of Education withdraws their recommendation for removing Helen Keller from the curriculum. I thank you and the State Board of Education for your time spent on considering this very important, far-reaching matter on hand.

Sincerely,


Heather Lightfoot Withrow
Austin, Texas
www.OrionTheKid.com

My Musings on Helen Keller

I have met people who have heard about Helen Keller often and from different angles.  Helen has shared plenty of inspiring and thoughtful quotes, yet a quote or two may rub people the wrong way and be open to debate.  A couple of people I know can't stand her.  I can see how that can happen.  Two cents from me: 

Helen Keller poses with four young schoolchildren.
Photo source:  American Foundation of the Blind, www.afb.org.

1) Helen has done more than being a Deafblind person who didn't let her physical absence of vision and hearing stop her.  You know those inspirational posters with quotes? I recall one that read, "Extraordinary: Ordinary people in extraordinary situations."  This is why many people are fascinated with Helen Keller; that's the beginning of it, yes, just do not stop there.  She did things for people that you would not expect a deafblind person to go out of their way to do back during her day when they had their own barriers.  Her extraordinary situation was just right for her.

2) Helen is not the only Deafblind person we should emulate.  There are modern-day Deafblind individuals who inspire others.  I hope to introduce them to you soon, as well as to my children.  Especially Orion.  If you're reading this and are Deafblind, and thinking maybe I'm talking about you... I am.  I am not going to encourage Orion to be like Helen ("Be Like Mike") even though he will learn of her story one day.  I will, though, encourage him to be Orion Theodore Withrow.

I'm starting with Helen Adams Keller.  Today, June 27th, is her birthday, born 134 years ago. 

A very young Helen with a dog on her lap.

My Sources

I have not read all the books out there on Helen Keller, nor have I read a book written by herself, but I would recommend two books I've read thus far.

The first book was one I borrowed from the local library in good ol' Bothell, Washington, titled "Helen Keller: Rebellious Spirit", by Laurie Lawlor.  It was this book I learned more about Helen throughout her life, Anne's possessiveness of her and Anne's successors. Much of, if not all of what I shared here in my post is from my memory reading this book.

The latest and I think the coolest book of all I have read was borrowed from the local Austin Public Library branch is Center for Cartoon Studies Presents, "Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller", by Joseph Lambert.  Disney-Hyperion Books, New York, 2012.  This was in a fun illustrated comic book format covering Helen from around the time of Anne's arrival in Alabama to their departure from Perkins School for the Blind.  The illustrator portrayed visually, perhaps toward the abstract, how Helen must have perceived her experiences before and during language development. His idea for visual presentation was surprising and fascinating to me. I blogged about it here, Concept Building and the Coolest Book on Helen Keller Out There. 

Helen Keller trivia from the top of my head: 

Did you know that Helen Keller was born with sight and hearing?  She lost both due to an illness during her 2nd year of life (approximately 15-18 months old).  However she did not remember the experience of seeing or hearing. I've known of this fact for a long time.  When Orion was an infant, I mused that Helen was seeing and hearing during that age.  Since typical children learn to walk anytime from before their first birthday to around 18 months old, Helen must have been walking before she became deafblind.  There may be other skills she developed during her time with sight.  Orion, born completely deaf and very little light perception, is taking the longer road figuring out what those two long, flexible, fleshy soft-on-the-outside, hard-on-the-inside extensions of him are for.  The point is, they're both deafblind but come from two completely different etiologies thus different developmental and emotional progresses.   

Helen's father owned or ran a newspaper publication in their hometown.  He included pieces on Helen, this led to her being a news sensation spreading all over our country.  You can say this was a Blog of the 1880's.  The very first Deafblind "Blog"!

A very young Helen, her doll and Anne Sullivan.

Yes, Helen's family was well-to-do, how else would they have hired Anne Sullivan when Helen was 6 years old?  Anne was with Helen all the time.  Helen has Anne to thank for connecting her to the world and so on.  Even though we must not think this is the only way, can you imagine what it'd be like for someone to work constantly through the days and weeks exposing your Deafblind child to planned/unplanned learning and tactile sign language?  

Helen, however, was not the first Deafblind student in the United States.  It was Laura Bridgman.  Laura Bridgman attended the Perkins School for the Blind, where eventually Helen's teacher, Anne Sullivan went to school beginning in her youth.  You can say the instructional strategies used with Bridgman were in place waiting for Helen when she and Annie came to Perkins after years in Alabama.  Helen did meet the elder Laura Bridgman. 

If I recall correctly from Laurie Lawlor's book, "Helen Keller: Rebellious Spirit", Helen briefly went to a deaf school, perhaps in New York.  She was able to use tactile sign language with other deaf students.

Several things come to mind based on learning about Helen's brief deaf school experience.  Did Helen Keller have any Deaf friends or acquaintances outside of this school?  Did she know where to find them?  Did Deaf or Deafblind people feel comfortable approaching Helen?  These questions make me also muse about her motivation to speak.  Is it because she has always been around new hearing people who didn't know signs and speaking for herself she could provide a more direct connection to them?  Was the news on her speaking, or using the TADOMA method (Google it) intimidating for Deaf and/or Deafblind individuals?  An assumption that she was not interested in meeting them?

1880: A Dark Year for Sign Language, Worldwide

Now, going on a tangent from this tangent.  In Milan, Italy, 1880, the same year Helen was born, the International Congress on Education of the Deaf (ICED) passed a resolution to prohibit sign language from being used in the education of deaf students.  As I have learned through the years, Deaf teachers of the Deaf (at least those in America) lost their jobs because they were not able to speak, thus not in compliance with the then latest invention of the wheel. (This wheel kept getting unnecessary attempted makeovers even to this day!  The idea is "whatever works". ) This went on for scores of years until around mid-century, Deaf teachers of the Deaf started trickling back into the classrooms.  

In Vancouver, BC, Canada, July 2010, the 21st International Congress on Education for the Deaf took place.  The Congress voted to pass a resolution (http://www.milan1880.com/iced2010statement.html) to formally regret and reject the resolutions that were passed 130 years ago in 1880.  One line I plucked from the statement we all need to keep in mind: 

"...Call upon all Nations of the world to remember history and ensure that educational programmes accept and respect all languages and all forms of communication."

So now you know a little more about the world Helen was born into. Back to Ms. Keller...

The financial support from Helen's family dwindled and disappeared sometime after Helen and Anne left Alabama.  The duo were fortunately sponsored by other people who cared about them.  An example of a fund source was going onto a stage where people pay admission to see and perhaps to hear Helen speak.  Whoever was with Helen (Annie or her successor), repeated to the audience what Helen spoke.

So many people knew about Helen Keller and she was fortunate to have met famous individuals, including several Presidents of the United States and Alexander Graham Bell (AGB).  It is very interesting to note, while AGB opposed deaf intermarriage and strongly promoted choosing only spoken language for the Deaf, he is seen in a photo in Laurie Lawlor' book spelling into Helen's hands.  I don't know if he was drawing letters or using the British or American sign language alphabet.

Helen and Alexander Graham Bell communicating tactually as 3 other individuals look on.

Helen asked the Lions Club to look out for the blind and deafblind. 

1925: Eradicating Blindness 

"Helen Keller addressed the Lions Clubs International Convention in Cedar Point, Ohio, USA, and challenged Lions to become "knights of the blind in the crusade against darkness." Since then, we have worked tirelessly to aid the blind and visually impaired."  

(Source: Lion's Clubs International website, http://www.lionsclubs.org/EN/about-lions/mission-and-history/our-history/index.php. Retrieved online November 27, 2012.)

Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan lay in eternal rest in a gated crypt at the Washington National Cathedral, in Washington D.C.  I visited the site while I was a Gallaudet student.  Way before hubby and kids.

Helen Keller Quotes

Helen strikes me as an eternal optimist.  Eternal optimists get up again and keep pushing on even in unfavorable conditions.  

"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us."  

In this quote by Helen, she is aware of the opportunities that sprout from just moving on.  

"Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it."

 A realistic yet optimistic quote by her.

If I left you somewhat curious- great!  Check out a book on Helen Keller, especially the two I recommended.

Helen Keller quotes were from Quotationspage.com, Helen Keller (1880-1968), http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Helen_Keller. Retrieved online November 27, 2012.

Concept Building and The Coolest Book on Helen Keller Out There

Cover (two shots in InstaPicFrame).

I think the coolest book of all on Helen Adams Keller that I have read was borrowed from the local Austin Public Library branch (Oak Hill Branch to you Austinites). Think cartoons, think graphic novel: Center for Cartoon Studies Presents, "Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller", by Joseph Lambert.  Disney-Hyperion Books, New York, 2012.  

This is in a fun illustrated comic book format covering Helen from around the time of Anne's arrival in Alabama to their departure from Perkins School for the Blind.  I love how Lambert, supported by the cinematic experience of comics, cut in and out between Helen's progress and Annie's memories of her own childhood.  

My favorite thing to note is how the illustrator portrayed visually, perhaps toward the abstract, how Helen must have perceived her experiences before and during language development. His illustrated interpretation of Helen's perspective of her environment was surprising and fascinating to me.

Here, Helen learns that the object is "D-O-L-L".

For Helen and any other Deafblind child, their world is only as big as they can touch it. Especially in the beginning of life until memories and experiences build up. For example, if a totally Deafblind child stands up, hands to herself... there is nothing out there. If she is not touching it, it does not exist. I love how the empty world around faceless Helen is shown with the doll popping up into existence only to disappear and a new pair of hands touch her to spell D-O-L-L into her hands.

"The idea always precedes the word."
Helen is illustrated as connecting a small rock with the word,
"small rock". (InstaPicFrame)

As a mother of a nearly 3 year-old Deafblind child I've heard this concept before: "The idea always precedes the word." One could flap all the ASL and fingerspelling at first but if he has never experienced the experience nor touched the object, the language provided to him means nothing. He may recognize we're talking but nothing makes sense.  My husband and I being fluent in ASL does not mean the battle is half-won or that the "Deaf part" is taken care of by us. Deafblindness is more than the sum of two parts. Sign language is a vital part but only made small in proportion to many strategies, options and things we need to be mindful of! Anyway, off my soapbox I go.

The other big avenue of concept-building I know of is Routines. That's where you can sign/provide object cues consistently he may soon connect a part or all of the routine to what is being signed into his hand/on his body and/or object he found in the "now" box/presented to him. For example, I alway sign "eat" on his mouth before he eats and most of the time I give him a spoon, his object symbol for "eat". (Hello, what about routines, Mom?! Spoon ALL the time.) And then his activity is eating, his FAVORITE! With children like my son our mantra has to be "Concept Before Words"!

Fabulous job, Joseph Lambert! Naturally, I ordered a copy of this delightful book from Amazon.com for us to read and treasure.