One summer in 1880, a healthy baby girl was the third child born to a family in the rural area of Tuscumbia, Alabama. She was perfectly healthy and adored by her father and mother. All was well until 19 months when the precious baby became ill. The illness left the baby girl blind, deaf, and mute. As the baby girl grew into a young girl, she struggled immensely. Unable to see, hear, or speak, she reacted, looked, and behaved almost like an animal-she even growled!1 Her family was financially comfortable and educated. Her father was editor of the town newspaper and both parents were from prominent families. Because their daughter, Helen, had these physical challenges, her parents believed it would be unloving to require even basic life skills of her. Helen was utterly undisciplined when Anne Sullivan came to be her teacher.
Over the next many years, through unbelievable challenges, Helen Keller became the first deaf and blind person-man or woman-to earn a bachelor's degree. She graduated from Radcliffe at 24, and had overcome more than most of us can imagine. That wild girl went on to become a public speaker involved in national politics, a personal friend of Mark Twain, and a world famous author publishing 12 books and several articles1.
How did this happen? I believe it was through loving discipline. Anne Sullivan loved Helen Keller enough to discipline her.
What do you think of when you hear the word discipline? In our culture, discipline is typically seen as a negative, a punishment. But, deriving from the Latin discipulus, the meaning is student. From this we get disciple, and begin see the real meaning, and therefore purpose, of discipline is not to punish, but to teach.
When I was a young child watching the movie version of this story, The Miracle Worker, Anne Sullivan seemed so mean. (She actually expected Helen to sit at a table and eat with decent table manners!) However, as the movie progressed, the fruit of Anne's loving efforts toward Helen started to show. In the end, it became very clear that Anne Sullivan's disciplining of Helen Keller transformed her life.
May we embrace the discipline that comes into our lives, and may we love our children enough to discipline them!
"My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline, and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in." Proverbs 3:11-12
Soli deo gloria,
Jeanne Wilks
Secondary Principal
1 "Helen Keller Biography". American Foundation for the Blind. Retrieved 2 March 2015.