140 YEARS SINCE THE BIRTH OF HELEN KELLER

RESEARCH ON A UNIQUE PERSONALITY

Abstract

The present research is not committed to the chronology of Helen Keller’s life path, but it rather puts the emphasis on the dynamics of the multiple dimensions in the development of her unique personality. The purpose of this research is to analyze systematically and to summarize the fundamental directions that Helen Keller’s activities followed, drawing the attention to unknown and little-known ideas and facts about her life that recent research of others has thrown light upon. The analyzed historical documents show that the initial education of this deaf-blind person does not evolve on the basis of pure chance and spontaneity, but comes in result of the thorough training provided by her remarkable and unconventional teacher Anne Sullivan. It has been found out that she described her pedagogical experience not only in her letters to Hopkins, but in her correspondence with M. Anagnos and in the yearbooks of the School for the Blind in Boston. Helen Keller’s education was based upon 4 major support pillars: the initial experience in the education of the deaf-blind, the psychology of child development at the end of the 19-th century, the influence of Montessori’s methodology and Anne Sullivan’s personal experience and pedagogical intuitiveness. After outlining how she mastered the fundamental concepts, we then follow Keller’s intellectual growth and creative development. On the basis of her diverse social activities we have explored the following: the attitude towards blindness, religion, pacifism and humanism, socialist ideas and feminism, as well as personal life.