Here is something I didn't know existed: a film clip of Hellen Keller and Anne Sullivan. (If the embed doesn't work, here's a link to the clip, which I found at Double X.)  

Do you not love Anne Sullivan's face? I don't know much about her or her pupil, but I remember being struck, as a child, by the crushingly huge amount of labor it must have taken to break into Hellen Keller's consciousness. 

I remember hearing someone laugh incredulously when he first heard the name of the book Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons (I don't use this book, by the way, and have no idea if it's any good). One hundred sounded like an awful lot of lessons to him!  Like, "How to chew gum in 24 easy steps." 

But I explained how hard it is when you're sitting on the couch, silently commanding yourself to be patient, be patient, be patient, be patient, while the poor earnest, baffled little kindergartener chews over "buh  . . . ah.  Buh . . . ah.  Buh . . . ah" ten thousand times before . . . AHA! he finally, stupendously, and without warning arrives at "bah." And this is for a kid who can hear! And see! And knows that other people can look at a page and derive a sound and a meaning from what they see. 

In the film, Hellen Keller's fingers are on Anne Sullivan's mouth, nose, and throat, so she can feel the shapes and vibrations made while different sounds are uttered. What impressed me was not only the tremendous effort, patience, and labor that went into teaching Helen Keller to communicate. It's also that it all went to teach this one little girl. 

Anne Sullivan wasn't trying to start a movement or revolutionize an educational system.  She just had one soul in her hands, and she poured herelf out for that single soul.  Her motivation? As I said, I don't know much about her life.  But just knowing the basics of what she did:  sheesh, what a woman!  Someone to remember as we start another school year.