The Miracle Worker
Cathy and I went to see a local production of “The Miracle Worker” yesterday, about how Annie Sullivan helped Helen Keller learn to communicate. It was quite good. The problem with a play like that is that the whole show is carried by a little girl (Helen Keller was 7 years old at the time, though the actress is usually older), and most kids can’t act well enough to pull it off. The girl in this production was outstanding, though not all the actors were.
It was, of course, quite interesting to contrast Helen Keller’s life with Maria’s. Helen didn’t lose her vision and hearing until she was almost two, so had the roots of language already. She didn’t have other problems so could walk, feed herself, and so on. She also had a live-in teacher who did nothing but practice communication with her all day.
Then again, Maria’s vision and hearing are improving. Her father isn’t a big jerk. Medical and therapeutic science are much further advanced. And Maria’s a sweetie, while Helen was a horrible little brat (lots of pent up anger, not surprisingly).
In those days, the focus was on language. Today, the focus is on communication which is not necessarily the same thing. Many impaired kids were assumed to be mentally retarded as well, so there was no effort to actually teach them.
Most chilling is that if Maria had been born back then, she probably wouldn’t be living at home. She’d likely have been sent off to some rat-infested asylum full of dying old people, child molesters, and teen prostitutes with disease-infested babies (like the asylum Annie Sullivan lived in much of her young life). Or, if she were lucky, she would have just been kept hidden away in the basement where the neighbors wouldn’t have to see her. Since shunt surgeries are only 50 years old, she would probably have died very young anyhow.
OK, this post has taken a darker turn than I had intended. That’s the problem with stream-of-consciousness writing.
Anyhow, the parallels were interesting. The family wouldn’t discipline Helen because they didn’t know how. Punishment without a message is just cruelty. If the child can’t communicate, how do you get the message across? We often run into that with Maria. We want to teach her what is acceptable and what is not, but what kind of negative reinforcement do you use? For example, when she is in one of her hair-pulling moods, I put her down and walk away. I come back a few minutes later and she doesn’t pull my hair. Does that mean I’ve corrected her action, or is she just bored and has moved onto a new game?