名人的故事

海倫·亞當斯·凱勒（Helen Adams Keller，1880年6月27日—1968年6月1日），美國殘障教育家。她幼年因意外疾病而引致失明及失聰。後來籍著她的導師安·沙利文(Anne Sullivan)的努力，使她學會說話，並開始和其他人溝通並接受教育。她畢業於哈佛大學。

命運改變
海倫·凱勒作為一個健康的嬰兒於1880年6月27日出生在美國阿拉巴馬州的塔斯比亞城。他的父親是當地軍隊的最高長官，為人極為豪放和好客。她在19個月大的時候突然患了急性腦炎，從此失去了聽覺和視覺。但是她仍然努力的保持著和外界的聯繫，運用自己的手語和家庭成員交流。但是，隨著年歲的增長，這樣的交流不再能滿足她，她的脾氣開始變的暴躁。全家人對她的狀況都很擔憂。海倫6歲時，在其家庭醫生的協助下，她的父母邀請柏金斯盲人學校的沙利文老師作為海倫·凱勒的啟蒙導師。

得遇良師
沙利文老師十分有愛心，她首先瞭解海倫的脾氣，與她建立互信的關係，再耐心的教導海倫手語，讓她能與別人溝通。其後再教導海倫用手指點字以及基本的生活禮儀。在經過一番訓練後，她父母在她10歲時聘請了霍勒斯曼學校的莎拉·傅樂瓦老師教導其說話，而海倫最終亦學會了說話。對於一個失明和失聰的人來說，這是十分艱巨的事情。在父母和沙利文老師的悉心教導下，海倫對世界改觀，開始努力向學，認真做人。也學習運用觸覺去感受周遭的事事物物。

教育大眾
海倫於1924年組成海倫·凱勒基金會，並加入美國盲人基金會，作為其全國和國際的關係顧問。其後她在國際獅子的年會上發表演說，她要求獅子會成為「協助失明人士戰勝黑暗的武士」。並說：「我為你們開啟機會的窗，我正敲著你的大門。」1946年任美國全球盲人基金會國際關係顧問，並開始週遊世界，共訪問 35個國家。她盡力爭取在世界各地興建盲人學校，並常去醫院探望病人，與他們分享她的經歷，以給予他們生存意志。她同時亦為貧民及黑人爭取權益，以及提倡世界和平。

名垂青史
海倫·凱勒享年87歲。而在她死後，因為她堅強的意志和卓越的貢獻感動了全世界，各地人民都開展了紀念她的活動。有人曾如此評價她︰「海倫•凱勒是人類的驕傲，是我們學習的榜樣，相信眾多的有疾病而聾、啞、盲的人都能在黑暗中找到光明」。

Childhood
Helen Keller was born at an estate called Ivy Green in Tuscumbia, Alabama, on June 27, 1880, to parents Captain Arthur H. Keller, a former officer of the Confederate Army, and Kate Adams Keller, cousin of Robert E. Lee. The Keller family originates from Germany. She was not born blind and deaf; it was not until nineteen months of age that she came down with an illness described by doctors as "an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain," which could have possibly been scarlet fever or meningitis. The illness did not last for a particularly long time, but it left her deaf and blind.
In 1886, her mother Kate Keller was inspired by an account in Charles Dickens' American Notes of the successful education of another deaf blind child, Laura Bridgman, and traveled to a specialist doctor in Baltimore for advice. He put her in touch with local expert Alexander Graham Bell, who was working with deaf children at the time. Bell advised the couple to contact the Perkins Institute for the Blind, the school where Bridgman had been educated, which was then located in South Boston, Boston, Massachusetts. The school delegated teacher and former student, Anne Sullivan, herself visually impaired and then only 20 years old, to become Keller's teacher. It was the beginning of a 49-year-long relationship.

Sullivan got permission from Keller's father to isolate the girl from the rest of the family in a little house in their garden. Her first task was to instill discipline in the spoiled girl. Helen's big breakthrough in communication came one day when she realized that the motions her teacher was making on her palm, while running cool water over her palm from a pump, symbolized the idea of "water;&;quot; she then nearly exhausted Sullivan demanding the names of all the other familiar objects in her world (including her prized doll). In 1890, ten-year-old Helen Keller was introduced to the story of Ragnhild Kåta - a deaf blind Norwegian girl who had learned to speak. Ragnhild Kåta's success inspired Helen — she wanted to learn to speak as well. Anne was able to teach Helen to speak using the Tadoma method (touching the lips and throat of others as they speak) combined with "fingerspelling" alphabetical characters on the palm of Helen's hand. Later, Keller would also learn to read English, French, German, Greek, and Latin in Braille.

Keller's pre-teenaged years were marred by allegations that her story, The Frost King (written in 1891) had been plagiarized from The Frost Fairies by Margaret Canby. An investigation into the matter revealed that Helen may have suffered from cryptomnesia, having once had Canby's story read to her, only to forget about it, although the memory had remained hidden in her subconscious[citation needed]. She found having her honesty questioned difficult to bear and came close to giving up writing altogether for fear of making the same mistake again.