海伦·凯勒(Helen Keller)(1880年6月27日-1968年6月1日),是美国盲聋女作家和残障教育家。1880年出生于亚拉巴马州北部一个叫塔斯喀姆比亚的城镇。她在17个月的时候因为一次猩红热夺去了她的视力和听力,接着,她又丧失了语言表达能力。然而就在这黑暗而又寂寞的世界里,她因为她的导师安妮·沙利雯(Anne Sullivan)的努力,使她学会读书和说话,并开始和其他人沟通。而且以优异的成绩毕业于美国拉德克利夫学院,成为一个学识渊博,掌握英、法、德、拉丁、希腊五种文字的著名作家和教育家。她走遍美国和世界各地,为盲人学校募集资金,把自己的一生献给了盲人福利和教育事业。她赢得了世界各国人民的赞扬,并得到许多国家政府的嘉奖。主要作品有《假如给我三天光明》、《我的生活》、《我的老师》等。
海伦·凯勒自幼因病成为盲聋哑人,但她自强不息,克服巨大困难读完大学。一生写了十几部作品,同时致力于救助伤残儿童,保护妇女权益和争取种族平等的社会活动。1964年获得总统自由勋章。
她在黑暗中摸索著长大。七岁那一年,家里为她请了一位家庭教师,也就是影响海伦一生的莎莉文老师。莎莉文在小时候眼睛也差点失明,了解失去光明的痛苦。在她辛苦的指导下,海伦用手触摸学会手语,摸点字卡学会了读书,后来用手摸别人的嘴唇,终于学会说话了。
莎莉文老师为了让海伦接近大自然,让她在草地上打滚,在田野跑跑跳跳,在地里埋下种子,爬到树上吃饭;还带她去摸一摸刚出生的小猪,也到河边去玩水。海伦在老师爱的关怀下,竟然克服失明与失聪的障碍,完成了大学学业。
1936年,和她朝夕相处五十年的老师离开人间,海伦非常的伤心。海伦知道,如果没有老师的爱,就没有今天的她,决心要把老师给她的爱发扬光大。于是,海伦跑遍美国大大小小的城市,周游世界,为残障的人到处奔走,全心全力为那些不幸的人服务。
1968年,海伦89岁去世,她把所有终生致力服务残障人士的事迹,传遍全世界。她写了很多书,她的故事还拍成了电影。沙利文老师把最珍贵的爱给了她,她又把爱散播给所有不幸的人,带给他们光明和希望。
死后,因为她坚强的意志和卓越的贡献感动了全世界.并且各地人民都开展了纪念她的活动。
In 1882 a baby girl caught a fever that was so fierce she nearly died. She survived but the fever left its mark — she could no longer see or hear. Because she could not hear she also found it very difficult to speak.
So how did this child, blinded and deafened at 19 months old, grow up to become a world-famous author and public speaker?
The fever cut her off from the outside world, depriving her of sight and sound. It was as if she had been thrown into a dark prison cell from which there could be no release.
Luckily Helen was not someone who gave up easily. Soon she began to explore the world by using her other senses. She followed her mother wherever she went, hanging onto her skirts, She touched and smelled everything she came across. She copied their actions and was soon able to do certain jobs herself, like milking the cows or kneading dough, She even learnt to recognize people by feeling their faces or their clothes. She could also tell where she was in the garden by the smell of the different plants and the feel of the ground under her feet.
By the age of seven she had invented over 60 different signs by which she could talk to her family, If she wanted bread for example, she would pretend to cut a loaf and butter the slices. If she wanted ice cream she wrapped her arms around herself and pretended to shiver.
Helen was unusual in that she was extremely intelligent and also remarkably sensitive. By her own efforts she had managed to make some sense of an alien and confusing world. But even so she had limitations.
At the age of five Helen began to realize she was different from other people. She noticed that her family did not use signs like she did but talked with their mouths. Sometimes she stood between two people and touched their lips. She could not understand what they said and she could not make any meaningful sounds herself. She wanted to talk but no matter how she tried she could not make herself understood. This make her so angry that she used to hurl herself around the room, kicking and screaming in frustration.
As she got older her frustration grew and her rages became worse and worse. She became wild and unruly . If she didn’t get what she wanted she would throw tantrums until her family gave in. Her favourite tricks included grabbing other people’s food from their plates and hurling fragile objects to the floor. Once she even managed to lock her mother into the pantry. Eventually it became clear that something had to be done. So, just before her seventh birthday, the family hired a private tutor — Anne Sullivan.
Anne was careful to teach Helen especially those subjects in which she was interested. As a result Helen became gentler and she soon learnt to read and write in Braille. She also learnt to read people’s lips by pressing her finger-tips against them and feeling the movement and vibrations. This method is called Tadoma and it is a skill that very, very few people manage to acquire. She also learnt to speak, a major achievement for someone who could not hear at all.
Helen proved to be a remarkable scholar, graduating with honours from Radcliffe College in 1904. She had phenomenal powers of concentration and memory, as well as a dogged determination to succeed. While she was still at college she wrote ‘The Story of My Life’. This was an immediate success and earned her enough money to buy her own house.
She toured the country, giving lecture after lecture. Many books were written about her and several plays and films were made about her life. Eventually she became so famous that she was invited abroad and received many honours from foreign universities and monarchs. In 1932 she became a vice-president of the Royal National Institute for the Blind in the United Kingdom.
After her death in 1968 an organization was set up in her name to combat blindness in the developing world. Today that agency, Helen Keller International, is one of the biggest organizations working with blind people overseas.
参考资料:baidu