A RECLAMATION OF THE EDUCATIONAL THOUGHT OF HELEN KELLER:
HER JOURNEY FROM NO-WORLD TO WORLD-HOME

Pam Whitty

University of Maine 1993

ABSTRACT:

This study reclaims the educational thought of Helen Keller by considering how her thinking can better inform an educational ideal sensitive to both gender and disability. Although special education is sensitive to disability, educational thinking by and about women is neglected thereby demonstrating what Jane Roland Martin calls "epistemological inequality." Seventy years prior to Martin, Helen Keller, in her essay "The Modern Woman," theorized about the problems women experience in the educational realm. These problems parallel Martin's three counts of epistemological inequality: exclusion, distortion, and devaluation, thus providing evidence of Keller's educational thought in the context of sensitivity to gender.

To further examine Keller's sensitivity to gender and disability, her autobiographical idea of her educational journey is reconstructed from her three narratives: The Story of My Life, Midstream: My Later Years, and Teacher: Anne Sullivan Macy. Before reconstructing Keller's thought, consideration is given to the current feminist criticism that frames this re-visioning of her writings.

Keller's educational journey is reconstructed through case study analysis of her four worlds: no-world, home-world, public world and world-home. This analysis demonstrates that Keller's education depended upon the connectedness traditionally associated with the home-world curriculum to first exit her Phantom existence in the no-world, and later to withstand the isolating educational experiences she encountered in the public world.

In the final chapter of this study Keller's educational journey is reclaimed in light of her interpretation of Emmanuel Swedenborg's "Law of Use." Keller's capacity and opportunity to claim her education and to integrate her four modes of life - love, thought, communication and action - allowed her to make educational contributions in her world- home. Meaningful communication, loving companionships, intellectual commitment and contemplative action shaped her eventual "Life of Use" in her evolving world-home ideal. It was through literacy, visibility, and advocacy that Keller began to correct for exclusion, distortion and devaluation in her life and thought and move towards her own "politics of inclusion." In the context of this inquiry the implication of Keller's thought for all learners, regardless of gender or ability, attests to the importance of symbolic representation as a means of inclusion, relationships as a means to authenticity, and participation as a means to valuing self in society.