Helen Keller Assembly Photo Gallery
Fourth & Fifth-grade students met the great grandniece of an American icon
At a Lion's Eye Institute-sponsored assembly, Duanesburg students had the pleasure of meeting and listening to a presentation from Keller Johnson Thompson who is the great grandniece of Helen Keller, an American icon. For the past 10 years, Keller Johnson Thompson has been visiting schools throughout the country to share with them the program she developed that educates students about the life and legacy of Helen Keller.
"Her life is truly inspiring," explains Thompson who details the struggles Helen Keller and her family faced when she lost her sight and hearing at the age of 2 after a high fever coursed through her little body for days. "Despite being blind and deaf, she was still determined to learn--and learn she did. She used the sense of touch to learn how to communicate," she adds.
With the help of dedicated teachers, Helen Keller learned how to communicate by using sign language. Her teachers would sign in her hand so she could feel the letters since she couldn't see them. She also learned how to read lips by touching people's mouths and throats (for vibrations) so she could feel the shape their mouths made when saying words. She also learned how to read Braille, write in print-style and how to use a Braille typewriter. Using these modified tools and techniques, Helen Keller was able to communicate. She even graduate from high school. In fact, Helen Keller further pursued her education and attended Radcliffe College. She was the first women to graduate from college who was blind and deaf. She even wrote a book, "The Story of My Life" which details the struggles of being a blind and deaf citizen in the early 1900s.
Thompson's presentation was accompanied by photos of Helen Keller throughout her life, including ones of Helen with President Kennedy, Mark Twain, and other famous Americans. The Governor of Alabama, where Helen Keller grew up, even chose to put Helen Keller on the state's quarter. (See photos of students an Alabama quarter.)
There were so many questions being asked by students that Thompson ran out of time while answering them all.
At the end of the presentation students were given a Helen Keller commemorative bookmark which had the word 'water' (the first word Helen Keller could understand and speak when she was learning how to communicate) written at the bottom in Braille.
