Claim: Helen Keller's teacher was a woman.

Johanna Mansfield Sullivan Macy -LRB- April 14 , 1866 -- October 20 , 1936 -RRB- , better known as Anne Sullivan , was an American teacher , best known for being the instructor and lifelong companion of Helen Keller . At the age of five , she contracted trachoma , a highly contagious eye disease , which left her blind and without reading or writing skills . She received her education as a student of the Perkins School for the Blind where upon graduation she became a teacher to Keller when she was 20 .