【原】Metro English-299 - 奇迹的创造者 - 海伦·凯勒的老师安妮·沙利文

Miracle Worker

奇迹的创造者

Many parents have probably felt at one time or another that one of their child’s teachers was a “miracle worker,” a teacher who somehow gets results where other teachers have failed. Although the idea of a miracle worker has entered common parlance, the phrase was coined by Mark Twain to describe one particular person. In fact, the term has become almost synonymous with her name. That person is Anne Sullivan, the teacher of Helen Keller.

很多家长可能曾经觉得他们孩子的某一位老师是个“奇迹工作者”，在其他老师失败的情况下，他不知何故取得了成绩。虽然奇迹创造者的概念已经成为一种普遍的说法，但这个短语是马克吐温创造出来的，是用来描述一个特定的人。事实上，这个词几乎成了一个人的名字的同义词。那个人是安妮·沙利文，海伦·凯勒的老师。

A mere 20 years old when first employed to school the deaf and blind Helen in 1887, Anne Sullivan herself was blind for much of the first part of her life. Educated at the Perkins School for the Blind in Boston, Sullivan had recovered part of her eyesight by the time she traveled to Alabama to begin her job as Helen Keller’s governess. Undoubtedly, Sullivan’s own partial blindness gave her insight (in the fullest meaning of the word) into the little girl’s closed-off world.

1887年，当安妮·沙利文第一次被雇佣到聋哑失明的海伦的学校时，她才20岁，在她生命的前半段时间里，她自己也是盲人。苏利文在波士顿的珀金斯盲人学校接受教育，到阿拉巴马开始担任海伦凯勒的家庭教师时，她的视力已经恢复了一部分。毫无疑问，沙利文自己的部分失明使她对这个小女孩封闭的世界有了充分的理解（在这个词的最充分的意义上）

As the 1957 play The Miracle Worker so effectively dramatized it, Sullivan’s breakthrough with Keller came as she spelled words out on her open palm to make her understand that things had words attached to them. Sullivan placed one of Keller’s hands under running water; on the other, she spelled “w-a-t-e-r.” Soon, Keller could express herself far beyond the series of primitive signs that had been her sole means of communication up to that point.

正如1957年的《奇迹创造者》戏剧化地上演了那样，沙利文与凯勒的突破出现于在她张开的手掌上拼写单词，让她明白每个事物都有一个文字与其相对应。沙利文把凯勒的一只手放在流水下；另一只手，她拼写出了“w-a-t-e-r”。很快，凯勒就可以表达自己了，这远远超出了她当时唯一的交流手段 - 一系列的原始符号。

Sullivan directed Keller’s family to send her to the Perkins School, and from that point on, she remained Keller’s companion until her death in 1936. Helen Keller would live a long life as a successful and inspiring writer, lecturer, and activist. None of this would have been possible without Anne Sullivan, the woman we remember as the “miracle worker.”

沙利文指示凯勒的家人把她送到帕金斯学校，从那时起，她一直是凯勒的伴侣，直到1936年去世。海伦·凯勒作为一个成功的、鼓舞人心的作家、讲演者和活动家，长久地活在这个世界上。如果没有安妮·沙利文，我们记忆中的“奇迹创造者”- 安妮·沙利文，这一切都不可能实现。

parlance  说法，用语

governess  家庭教师

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2020年9月起，Metro English将为你介绍一系列最令人赞叹的老师们，在这个开学季，在这个教师节的当月，我们向所有值得我们尊敬的老师们致以崇高的敬意。