Blind Schools: Spreading Light of Knowledge that Enlightens the World

Helen violently threw away her breakfast as her plate came crashing down to the ground. The toasts fell to the ground and her father Arthur Keller, who was the editor for the “North Alabamian, at that time came running out of the kitchen. His daughter was having another attack. He gently held Helen and scared on the noise that the plates caused when they fell, Helen bit her father’s hand. This was a common phenomenon in the Keller Residence at Alabama, and Mr. Keller was used to it. Lots of parents with blind children across the world must also be facing the same scene. The reasons could however differ.

Helen Keller took ill at the age of one-and-a-half and as a result, became deaf and blind. Her once noisy world was reduced to silence. The Keller’s had almost abandoned hope for their child, believing that the girl was mentally disabled and detached from all forms of communication. Till there came a turning point in Helen’s life and the phone rang… it was Dr. Alexander Graham Bell...a friend of her fathers who suggested Helen be taken to Boston’s Perkins Institute for the Blind.

Helen’s gray-blue eyes and round face, lit up with joy….. at least there was someone who could do something for her. At the Institute, Helen was introduced to Anne Sullivan who was a stubborn, ambitious, empathetic young woman who opened up the doors to a new world where communication was unique. Sullivan was persistent and patient with Anne, teaching her the art of experiencing a word as she taught it. She would often open a tap and put the child’s star-like little hands saying the words “water” (“wah-wah” ‘ter’) over and over again and spelling the word out on the child’s palms.

In her first letter that she wrote with a pencil, Helen wrote: “helen write anna george will give helen apple simpson will shoot bird jack will give helen stick of candy doctor will give mildred medicine mother will make mildred new dress”There was hope for all the blind. In her book called the Mainstream Helen wrote, "I had once believed that we are all masters of our fate - that we could mould our lives into any form we pleased ... I had overcome deafness and blindness sufficiently to be happy, and I supposed that anyone could come out victorious if he threw himself valiantly into life's struggle. But as I went more and more about the country I learned that I had spoken with assurance on a subject I knew little about. I forgot that I owed my success partly to the advantages of my birth and environment ... Now, however, I learned that the power to rise in the world is not within the reach of everyone."

It is said that the Egyptians were perhaps the first civilization to recognize the gifted abilities of the blind who often found their services as musicians at the Pharoah’s court. The early 20th century saw a handful of blind students enrolled in their neighborhood schools, after the white cane was adopted as a symbol of blindness in the 1930s. Today the blind have accessories like talking watches and Braille watches as part of their lifestyle. The education of the blind doesn’t necessary mean the visually blind, but an education for all of us who despite our eyes, live in a make believe world of darkness and ignorance so that the light of knowledge will dispel the darkness in us.

Osa - About Author:
This article has been posted by a school guide of OnlineSchoolAdmissions.Com, who also provides free of cost counseling to parents on school admissions. A visit to the site lets parents know about the The millennium School or The Grammar School of their choice. They can also search for The Little Kingdom as per their choice and fill up the school application forms online.

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