Miracle Worker Reflection

In a society that encompasses children who fall all throughout the spectrum of learning capabilities, how is a teacher expected to facilitate learning that connects with every student they encounter? The authors of the teaching textbook, Those Who Can, Teach (2015), describe a teacher as a “gatekeeper” and “dispenser of supplies” which denotes an image of a master who holds the power to guide and facilitate another individual’s learning (Ryan, Cooper, & Bolick, p. 41). It is imperative that a good instructor be able to work with not only those who are easy to teach but also with students who struggle with disabilities. In Arthur Penn’s (1962) film, The Miracle Worker, we can see how necessary it is for a successful teachers to master three demanding concepts: patience, …show more content…
In the film we are introduced to young girl, Helen Keller, who suffered from an illness that left her both deaf and blind (Penn, 1962). Due to her emotional destruction and disobedience, her parents hire a first-time teacher named Anne Sullivan to teach Helen the basics of being civilized. Anne is an extremely successful teacher because she exercises these three aspects of good teaching. She does what others believe is impossible: she eventually teaches Helen that every object has a word associated with it. Students need teachers to act as guides and facilitators for their own self discovery (Ryan, Cooper, & Bolick, 2015, p.163). Anne, who has no choice but to create her own flexible, discovery-based teaching style due to Helen’s disabilities, exhibits traits of a good teacher because she is able to, more often than not, create and maintain intellectual, social, emotional, moral, and physical control over Helen’s learning environment (Penn, 1962). When teachers become overwhelmed and frustrated with a current circumstance they are setting everyone involved up for failure, and instead should practice checking in