Anne Sullivan
Anne Sullivan
Johanna "Anne" Mansfield Sullivan Macy, better known as Anne Sullivan, was an American teacher, best known for being the instructor and lifelong companion of Helen Keller. At the age of five, she contracted trachoma, a highly contagious eye disease, which left her blind and without reading or writing skills. She received her education as a student of the Perkins School for the Blind where upon graduation she became a teacher to Keller when she was 20...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTeacher
Date of Birth14 April 1866
CountryUnited States of America
Too often, I think, children are required to write before they have anything to say. Teach them to think and read and talk without self-repression, and they will write because they cannot help it.
You cannot touch the clouds, you know; but you feel the rain and know how glad the flowers and the thirsty earth are to have it after a hot day. You cannot touch love either; but you feel the sweetness that it pours into everything. Without love you would not be happy or want to play.
It is a rare privilege to watch the birth, growth, and first feeble struggles of a living mind; this privilege is mine.
I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built upon the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think. Whereas if the child is left to himself, he will think more and better , if less "showily." Let him come and go freely, let him touch real things and combine his impressions for himself... Teaching fills the mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of before the child can develop independent ideas out of actual experiences.
My heart is singing for joy this morning! A miracle has happened! The light of understanding has shone upon my little pupil's mind, and behold, all things are changed!
Education in the light of present-day knowledge and need calls for some spirited and creative innovations both in the substance and the purpose of current pedagogy.
You can't touch love, but you can feel the sweetness that it pours into everything.
We imagine that we want to escape our selfish and commonplace existence, but we cling desperately to our chains.
Certain periods in history suddenly lift humanity to an observation point where a clear light falls upon a world previously dark.
We all like stories that make us cry. It's so nice to feel sad when you've nothing in particular to feel sad about.
No matter how mistaken Communist ideas may be, the experience and knowledge gained by trying them out have given a tremendous impetus to thought and imagination.
Our material eye cannot see that a stupid chauvinism is driving us from one noisy, destructive, futile agitation to another.
The truth is not wonderful enough to suit the newspapers; so they enlarge upon it, and invent ridiculous embellishments.
We have no firm hold on any knowledge or philosophy that can lift us out of our difficulties.