Originally Posted by jillio

I agree with you. Helen Keller was a remarkable woman. She is one of our nastional heroines, and should be respected and admired for her accomplishments. There is nothing wrong with using her example as motivation in our own lives. I was only trying to point out that we can't use her accomplishements as a way to set standards for kids in the educational system today, because she had some very real advantages that kids in a classroom don't have. And we also need to keep in mind, that much of what has been written as history as been fictionalized. Hele Keller learned speech skill, yes. But by and large, she was not able to communicate using those skills only. She required an interpreter to voice for her in almost all situations. The main point is, she learned English, and could access the written word. But in order to do that, she required tactile signs that allowed her to understand that the sign was nothing more than a symbol for the thing being represented. Then she could apply that new found knowledge to understanding that the braille she sensed through touch was also just a symbol for the thing being represented. Remember the famous water scene where she understood her first concept? That was the connection that she was making....the sign being made in her hand was s symbol that represented the water running over her hand. That connection is mandatory for acquiring language whether it be sign or speech. Because she made that connection using a mode that was accessable to her...tactile sign...she was able to transfer than knowledge to learning English.

That is the point that Shel, Flip, Bear, Buffalo, and I (and others) are trying to make. In Bi-Bi, a child is given a language that is fully accessable to them (sign) so they may use that knowledge to learn a second language (English).