Helen Keller's story fading out of schools

The News Sentinel ^ | 15/08/03 | Nara schoenberg

[tdadams]

Sad. I'm just glad Helen Keller isn't still around to see... er, hear... er, learn how her story is fading from our memories.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

When I was a kid, we wallowed in the story of Helen Keller - and it always bored me stiff. It made no difference to my educational experience at all.

I'm just glad that my kids don't have to sit through insufferable filmstrips about her (of course, the time spent talking about her was always great for making paper footballs and drawing pictures of dinosaurs attacking Manhattan).

[Piquaboy]

We don't have time to be teaching that old history stuff,We need to teach them how to put a condom on a banana and polictal correctness.

[From The Deer Stand]

Right on! Schools today do a poor job of teaching history, if they teach it at all. Ask a high school graduate what the Tet Offensive was, or who Dwight Eisenhower was, or what the Louisiana Purchase was - most don't have a clue!

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Keller was a socialist

. . . making it odd that Winston Churchill was enamored of her . . .

[two23]

I remember tha chart in the back of Helen Kellers book, for universal sign language (alphabet) which I taught myself in 5th grade. And still remember to this day. A few of my friends learned it to so were we able to silently communicate in class. The librairian who was teaching us the Dewey Decimal System caught us and we suspect she knew it too, because she kind-of "over-reacted" to our soundless antics-- (we were signing about what an old bat she was)

[laconic]

I'll bet Helen Keller overcame a hell of a lot more than you ever did.

[ChewedGum]

"It will soon be set in stone, because you'll have (a situation in which) your young teachers haven't read it, either" and won't feel compelled to share it with their students, Jago said.

This pretty much goes for all the classics. I know there was some 'classic' literature which I hated reading, but in reading great literature, you learn not only advanced reading but it also improves your writing. Sad state of affairs.

Gum

[tdadams]

Possessed of what she called "a strong sex-urge," Keller at one point had a major love affair that was broken up by her relatives.

I guess being a man, thus visually-oriented in such matters, this is a bit difficult for me to conceptualize.

[Sacajaweau]

Helen was a "child friendly" example of a disabled person just as the famous Washington/cherry tree tale was a "child friendly", "be truthful" example. (Except the cherry tree story is false and Washington actually killed one of his mother's horses).

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Oh, I'll grant you that. I simply didn't care, and don't find myself caring a lot even now.

[N. Theknow]

Didn't you at least laugh at the Helen Keller jokes?

[The Radical Capitalist]

Filmstrips!

Man, I haven't thought about filmstrips in 30 years. I went to Catholic school with a nice library of filmstrips and I'll never forget the fun I had with them and one of the nuns.

The strip was always accompanied by a record which would narrate the storyline. Every so often, the record would beep - actually, "boop" is more onomotopoetic - and the nun would turn a knob on the filmstrip projecter to change the scene.

Well, I was a pretty good mimic of the "boop" and was always able to get the nun out of sync by faking a "boop" at an opportune moment. Sometimes I'd get her as much as 4 or 5 scenes ahead. Everyone else in the class knew what was going on, of course, which made me a daylong hero in the 4th grade.

[The Radical Capitalist]

Why were Helen Keller's fingers purple?

Because she heard it through the grapevine.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Of course I did - sad thing about the net is that the whole visual effect can't be done. I know some good ones....

[Chancellor Palpatine]

LOL - I was generally a fiddler or a sleeper, depending on my mood. I always managed to sit in the back, too, so I pretty much did whatever I wanted.

[TalBlack]

Multiculturalism, an outgrowth of the civil rights movement, has brought books about African-Americans, Latinos and Asians into the schools, with the idea that students should be able to read about people who resemble them and that works by minority authors have been unjustly ignored.

Archie Bunker felt the same way and was viewed as evil or "stoopid" for it. What elevates it when someone darker skinned than "the lovable bigot" requires it?

Yeah, whatever.

Kiss America and American culture goodby.

[07055]

Yes and no. Alabama thought enough of her just last year to put her on the back of the Alabama quarter. http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/50sq_program/states/index.cfm?flash=yes&state=AL

[Treebeard]

Keller's story is being replaced by the tale of Shaneekia who shat out 16 kids, by 7 different fathers, and is on welfare.

Who needs inspiration and determination when Uncle Sugar is handing out checks?