Breaking barriers
“… (I)n the dreary month of February, came the illness which closed my eyes and ears and plunged me into the unconsciousness of a new-born baby.”
Helen Keller lost her hearing, sight, and speech at the age of 19 months. She became an unruly child living in a dark and silent world – until her life changed. “The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me.” After giving a doll to Helen, Miss Sullivan spelled the word doll in her hand again and again. Step by slow step, the teacher opened the world to her student.
Over time, Helen Keller emerged from darkness, silence and isolation to become a great writer, traveler, speaker, and social activist.
As for Miss Sullivan, she was a relentless educator, uncompromising in her own positive mind-set. She used every teaching technique at her disposal. And she never gave up on her student.
She exemplified learning without limits, as did her pupil.
Indeed, whether it is shattering the darkness of a blind, deaf, and silent child, opening the world of English to a child who speaks Spanish, nurturing a child living in poverty, or teaching a child to play the violin, the principles are the same. Learning without limits happens every day in every school at JUSD.
It could be a custodian encouraging Pacific Avenue Academy of Music students to become self-guided, or a teacher training students, step by step, to become violinists. It could be an instructor developing the next great broadcaster. It could be a math teacher discerning a new way to teach factoring equations, or our maintenance crew devising a better way to wire a classroom.
Every time a person learns something they never thought they could learn, overcomes an obstacle, helps a tough lesson “click” for a student, or performs a task better than ever before, that is learning without limits.
Each of you has had your own experience in learning without limits. It wasn’t easy, but you got your degree, or learned to weld, or taught your first class. What did it take? Persistence, optimism, faith, self-confidence, hard work and, just maybe, someone who believed in you.
For Helen Keller, the experience was communicating with, and making a difference in, the world around her. For me it was and still is becoming the best superintendent I can be for each student. What is it for you? Learning without limits is about our work together to help Jurupa students break barriers, shed doubts and soar to new heights.
