Ducklings, Mozart, and Helen Keller

Yesterday was a great morning. I went to see one of my students in his classroom and no one was there. I had forgotten that today was 'Field Day'. So I spent a few minutes cuddling with two tiny ducklings. The class had a dozen duck eggs in an incubator and have been waiting for them to hatch. One of them hatched two days ago. I am afraid the other eggs are duds. The other duck is from another classroom; they were borrowing it so the little guy can have a buddy. They are so cute with their fluffy soft bodies and their tiny bills.

Then I went to check up on another one of my students who goes to the same school. I visited his classroom where he and his classmates were working on individual research projects about famous historical figures. My student decided to research Mozart. We spent some time listening to Mozart before doing work he needed help with. Ducklings and then Mozart, what could be better?

After I was finished with my student, I walked around his classroom and looked at everyone's projects as they were working on them. One of them was doing a project on Helen Keller. I told her that I knew a lot about this fascinating person and would love to see what she is doing. It was great! Lots of interesting facts and pictures. Then I noticed something that stopped me for a bit.

She had written down as an introduction:  

"Helen Keller was blind and deaf and suffered like that for almost 80 years."

I immediately pointed this out to the student and told her, "Oh my goodness! Helen suffered for almost 80 years?! Was she in pain or something? Did she have a terrible life? Was she miserable?" 

The little girl replied, "No, she did all kinds of stuff with her life. She did a lot! She traveled and published books. I think she was very happy."

I asked, "Then would you say she mainly suffered all of her life?"

The girl paused for a moment and said, "No, I guess not." 

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