The Truth About Helen Keller

The article was written by Ruth Shagoury, “The Truth About Helen Keller” stood out to me because there are many times we all fall to read books with the lense of vagueness and simple representations of the biography of many important people that lived their life to fight against the status quo. To begin, I consider myself a life learner and this was a great opportunity for me to learn the real-life story of Helen Keller. The main purpose of the article can be summarized in one simple quote in the article, “Like other people with disabilities, Helen Keller deserves to be known for herself and not defined by her blindness or her deafness” (p. 96). Similar to the articles found in Part 2, “Politics, Violence, and Sanitized History”, teachers and students must know the real-life story and not the washed down version. 



Most children's books about Helen Keller focus on her childhood years and rarely past her teenage years. It is a shame most of the books only focus on the “American- ‘can do’” part of her life, a blind child who lives on. The truth is Hellen Keller does more. Although blind, she was a tireless advocate of the poor and disenfranchised and became a socialist and suffragist. Hellen wrote for women’s voting rights and against war and corporate domination. Not only was she a writer, but she also used her voice to speak against injustice. Isn’t this much more inspirational than just a girl who was blind and had to learn to live with her disability? I think so. 



During class we discussed dominant ideology through the acronym of S. C. W. A. A. M. P. If we were to look at Hellen Keller, she would only fit two of the letters. This shows the adversity she had to fight against. As an educator, it is important to tell the true stories of all the amazing people who fought for justice. As Shogoury mentions, Hellen Keller and Rosa Parks would have loved to share more than just one glimpse of the adversity they had to face.


Comments

  1. Jeanette's Blog 2021July 5, 2021 at 4:00 PM

    Thank you for sharing this article. It was one of the ones I was contemplating so having you write your blog gave me a good glimpse into the article. You are absolutely right, I do not know much about Helen Keller beyond the story of her childhood. I think we, as a society, tend to focus on parts of people, and not people as a whole. When we do this we miss out on many of the aspects that make us human and connect us.

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    Replies
    1. AnonymousJuly 5, 2021 at 5:54 PM

      I agree with Jeanette! I too was interested in knowing more about this article and I enjoyed reading what you wrote, Roberto. I appreciate the connection to SCWAAMP as well - it's interesting to me to use that framework when I build lessons for students. I will definitely read more about Helen Keller!

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  2. AnonymousJuly 5, 2021 at 10:18 PM

    This is so true. We don't ever learn the "whole" history of something, only the pieces that fit the larger agenda.

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  3. Hope WrightJuly 14, 2021 at 12:28 PM

    Roberto, Thank you so much for sharing this chapter. I grew up learning all about Helen Keller, but only in the context of her disabilities. Her political, social, and cultural contributions were often left out of the narrative, but they were so powerful. I think what you mentioned about S.C.W.A.A.M.P. playing in role in narratives is so important here.

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