海伦·凯勒

患有视障与听障的美国作家，社会运动家及讲师
出生 1880年6月27日 美国阿拉巴马州塔斯坎比亚
逝世 1968年6月1日 美国康乃狄克州韦斯特波特

海伦·亚当斯·凯勒 (Helen Adams Keller，1880年6月27日-1968年6月1日)，是美国的一位残障教育家。她幼年因意外疾病而引致失明及失聪。后来籍着她的导师安·沙利文(Anne Sullivan)的努力，使她学会说话，并开始和其他人沟通并接受教育。她毕业于哈佛大学。

Hellen Adams Keller


The life of Helen Keller
Summary: About the life of Helen Keller, the deafblind woman who became a role model for millions of people



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Helen Adams Keller was born on 27 June 1880 in Tuscumbia, a small rural town in Northwest Alabama, USA. The daughter of Captain Arthur Henley Keller and Kate Adams Keller she was born with full sight and hearing.

Kate Keller was a tall, statuesque blond with blue eyes. She was some twenty years younger than her husband Captain Keller, a loyal southerner who had proudly served in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War.

The house they lived in was a simple, white, clapboard house built in 1820 by Helen’s grandparents. At the time of Helen’s birth the family were far from wealthy with Captain Keller earning a living as both a cotton plantation owner and the editor of a weekly local newspaper, the “North Alabamian”. Helen’s mother, as well as working on the plantation, would save money by making her own butter, lard, bacon and ham.

Helen falls ill
But Helen’s life was to change dramatically. In February 1882, when Helen was nineteen months old, she fell ill. To this day the nature of her ailment remains a mystery. The doctors of the time called it “brain fever”, whilst modern day doctors think it may have been scarlet fever or meningitis.

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 realise this dream. What would Helen have made of the technology available today to blind and deafblind individuals? Technology that enables blind and deafblind people, like Helen, to communicate directly, and independently, with anybody in the world.

Helen Keller may not have been directly responsible for the development of these technologies and teaching methods. But with the help of Anne Sullivan, through her writings, lectures and the way she lived her life, she has shown millions of people that disability need not be the end of the world.

In Helen’s own words:

“The public must learn that the blind man is neither genius nor a freak nor an idiot. He has a mind that can be educated, a hand which can be trained, ambitions which it is right for him to strive to realise, and it is the duty of the public to help him make the best of himself so that he can win light through work.”