Modern Miracle

IMPORTANT WORDS FROM THE LESSON

1. Achievements: Something done successfully with own efforts.

2. Charm: a Quality that pleases.

3. Eagerness: Willingness.

4. Disability: Weakness or defect which takes away one’s ability.

5. Reveal: Show

6. Handicapped: People suffering from mental or physical defect.

7. Extremely: Very

8. Scarcely: Hardly

9. Cause: Reason

10. Imitate: Copy

11. Dumb: Not able to talk

12. Nod: a light or quick movement of the head.

13. Miracle: Something remarkable and surprising.

14. Expert: Persons with special skills.

15. Self-Welled: Determined to do as one wishes.

 

SHORT ANSWER TYPE QUESTIONS

 

Q.1 Name Hellen’s Teacher.

Ans. Ms. Ann Mansfield Sullivan.

Q.2. How did Helen learn the letters and words?

Ans. By finger play.

Q.3. How did Helen learn to read?

Ans. With Braille System.

Q.4. Who taught her lip reading?

Ans. Ms. Sarah Fuller.

Q.5. Which languages, did she learn besides English?

Ans. Greek, Latin and French.

Q.6. According to Helen which language is ‘the violin of human heart’?

Ans. Greek

Q.7. Where and when was Helen born?

Ans. She was born in June 27, 1880. At Tuscumbia, Alabama in U.S.A.

 

SHORT ANSWER TYPE QUESTIONS

 

Q.1. What is our duty towards the handicapped?

Ans. We should provide them suitable environment and education to live a successful life.

 

Q.2. What arrangements did Helen’s parents make for her education?

Ans. Helen’s parents arranged services of capable teachers.

 

Q.3. How did Helen Learn to read Braille?

Ans. Helen learned by feeling raised dots of Braille with her fingers.

 

Q.4. How did Ms. Fullar teach Helen to speak words and sentences.

Ans. Ms. Fullar made Helen to feel and imitate the position of her own lips and tongue when she made a sound.

 

Q. 5. What things did Ms. Sullivan teach Helen when they were in the open?

Ans. She taught her how the rain comes and how the trees and plant grow by feeling and touching actually.

 

Q.6. What was revealed to her in the open?

Ans. The mystery of language was revealed to her by providing practical training.

 

Q.7. What reason do people sometimes give for suffering of the handicapped?

Ans. People say that the handicapped suffer because of their past actions or it is their fate or God desires so.

ABOUT THE TITLE

 

As the title suggests, the chapter deals with an achievement which is not expected possible in recent times in case of person having disabilities like other countries, in our country too, a person who is born blind, deaf or dumb or becomes handicapped due to illness or accident; accepts fate or God’s will, No doubt, they need sympathy, besides this, proper environment, opportunity and education should be provided. So that they could become self-reliant with full of confidence to lead a life with head high. The most remarkable person is Miss Helen Keller, a famous woman whose life and achievements are more than a miracle of Modern times.

 

CHARACTERS OF THE LESSON

 

Ms. Helen Keller

Ms. Ann Mansfield Sullivan

Ms. Sarah Fullar

 

Miss Helen Keller became totally blind, deaf and dumb when she was hardly two years old. She established herself as a distinguished writer and won awards crossing all the hurdles of her disabilities. Miss Sullivan was Helen’s teacher is the real example of dedicated teacher. Miss Sarah Fullar, a lip reading expert, taught her the lip-reading system.

 

SUMMARY OF THE CHAPTER

Helen Keller was born in 1880 at Tuscumbia, a little town in northern Alabama in U.S.A. When she was nineteen months old, she was attacked by a strange kind of fever and lost her eye-sight, became deaf and dumb. But her yearning to learn made her parents to provide her services of capable teachers. Ms. Ann Mansfield Sullivan was one of them, known to be an expert in teaching the blind. Since she herself had experienced the blindness so she was very kind and sympathetic towards the blind children and determined to spend the whole life for them. Ms. Sullivan acted as a torch bearer for Keller, She started her job by teaching letters then words with finger play.

In the first three months, Helen learnt near about three hundred words. Ms. Sullivan revealed her the mystery of language. Helen learnt that language is a means of expression to thoughts. Ms. Sullivan kept her day to day progress record of her training. Sometimes to quench her curiosity, she took her outside to teach her practically. Next Helen learnt to read through Braille System (a kind of writing for blind people) and started reading books in Braille. Helen learnt to speak in complete, and connected sentences. Ms. Sarah Fuller (an expert in lip-Reading) taught her the lip reading system. She got Helen to feed the position of her own lips and tongue when she made sound.

After taking a few lesson, She was able to speak. Her first connected sentence was. “It is warm”. She joined a school in Cambridge, Massachusetts with normal students where Ms. Sullivan helped her to spell everything on her hand. She completed her school education in 1897 with Arithmetic, Latin Grammar and English Literature. After that she went to Radcliffe College and got degree in four years. She learned Greek, Latin and French. She loved Greek more and described it as “the violin of the human heart.”

She felt pleasure in writing letters. She wrote letters to great people. Those were full of charm and humour. She wrote a number of books and became a distinguished writer of her times. She visited institutions of handicapped all over the world and helped them. Because of her sincere efforts, today the government as well as the people everywhere are more interested in the welfare of blind and the deaf than they were ever before.