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Wonderful, the boys are all here, isn't it lovely! Ah, you over here, well well well,
is he helping you? Yes sometimes, have you got a two well here now? Ah yes that is what
I was going to tell you. We have this crop ever since you came, the building has been
done, we have plated those bananas there, compost pits have been dug, and if you turn
to this side...
In India, a dynamic American woman at the age of 87 is pioneering new ways to give rural
adults new basic ways of education. In 1906 Welthy Fisher began her teaching career in
central China. She had learned the universals of teaching of communicating with human beings
of other cultures and conditions. Her goal is to furnish for those many millions who
can not read or write, a fighting chance for opportunity and hopeful change. It was Mahatma
Gandhi who said to her, if you want to help India, go to the villages, for the villages
are India.
And one for you and Doris, and one for the teachers, and then there are four teachers,
now we can build out of brick a little oven and a chimney right out in the open and cook
our food, can't we? We have put some brick temporary structures for living of the boys,
now we have our classes here and under the open shade of the tree, oh lovely of course,
and then we have planted these patty, Oh wonderful!
Part of every year is spent lecturing and fundraising, here at an international conference
on Adult education.
We have to sell ideas, I feel like an advertising agent most of the time going from place to
place selling an idea because literacy is a very good subject for a N*******, because
you can become so eloquent on the subject and every president and every statesman now
being elected make eloquent speeches about the three elements of mankind. The first is
poverty, that is appealing and we send wheat. Poverty, illiteracy and disease. We send everything
for disease we send everything for poverty and we do so little for illiteracy because
we say that these primary schools will take care of themselves just give them time. The
primary school will not supply the solution for the problem.
Why don't you take this off? Well I'll do as you like, I was afraid my hair looks bad
I think, I lose something? Last time you lost a hat (laughing) that's alright too, here
are all the new babies and the old ones, these are the old ones, I heard you were ill, I
see you're well. Oh look at the dish, isn't that beautiful? Hello, my they look so beautiful,
all dressed up, (singing) oh dear, isn't that charming? Alright well I've got one here,
its alright.
Through 60 years of active service her goal is to furnish for those many millions who
cannot read or write a fighting chance of opportunity and hope for change. At Lucknow in Central India on
a stretch of barren land, she established a training center to bring practical education
to people in remote villages. She was 72, the time when few people contemplate beginning
a new venture. Over the past 15 years a system of research. writing, publishing, new techniques
of teaching have been developed at literacy house.
Where did you get that picture? Did you do it? How wonderful, oh lovely, how wonderful!
Thank you, thank you.
Above all a unique team of trained and dedicated teachers devoted to the idea of literacy house
and to Mrs. Fisher's life long cause.
I want to kiss the baby, oh yes we've come to see you. Oh he's lovely! I have a little
note for you from Mrs. Dale, Hello there! I can't believe this, so nice to see you all,
alright here we come, you know pretty soon you won't be able to see me at all, I'll be
all smothered.
This remarkable woman's concern is the whole life of the uneducated man, his family, his
future, and her thinking is that even a little learning brings the opportunity to grow and
move ahead, to break old patterns of ignorance and custom.
The villager of India is conscience of the fact that he has capacity, he's born with
capacity. He has an urge, a yearning, an ache for nurture to develop that capacity because
he knows that he has something within him.
The training of teachers for their work in the villages in carefully planned, so are
the special books and visual materials. All manner of teaching methods may be tested and
used.
Puppetry all over the world has been a great feature of delight for children, but to use
it as a medium for education was a new idea that the government has become so interested
in our use of it that they have asked us to prepare a drama and train puppeteers to introduce
life insurance to the elderly people of the thousands of villages in this great state
of UP. How could they communicate the uses and the benefits of life insurance to people
who could not read or write?
Puppet shows and troops of strolling singers are ancient forms of entertainment. For a
village audience they can be as up to date and observing as films or television. Teaching
about family planning, child care, nutrition, village government, the villager and his wife,
the local official, the rich and greedy landlord, they are universal characters in many dramas,
real and imagined. Here the idea and importance of life insurance is put to the audience.
The notion of protection, particularly against the village money lender.
The government is meeting the financial needs of this puppet team and it has already given
hundreds of performances in villages. This is a great new medium for social education
throughout the illiterate world, communication has begun. Some have come direct from poor
villages surrounding Literacy House because we are in the center of many villages. This
case in point is of a young woman who had a little bit of education but we put her through
the condense course which enabled her to become a puppeteer, she seemed to have a marchant
for art and the interpretation through puppetry and now she's on the house staff as a puppeteer.
Most of the people in villages are illiterate, through these puppet plays she can educate
those people who cannot read and write.
Many people have asked me "how is this enormous campus that you have built financed?" I get
money from foundations, the cultural unit of the United States State Department, the
ministry of agriculture of India, we get money from the community development projects, in
the great industrial city of Kampoor we have 23 night schools for the workers and now the
trade people are anxious to continue our work. He wants better educate for his children and
he wants better sanitation and he wants fertilizer, he wants insecticides, he wants the things
that science has produced that will help him in his work, this is functional education,
we use that word functional very loosely I think. It's got to point to something that
will develop his capacity. As to what he thinks he can do and what he thinks he can do is
the only thing that is in front of him that is the soil. Other things will develop from
those villages, there will be great souls coming out of these villages, great technicians
coming out of these villages, great people that will have the zeal to go back to their
villages.
So nice to see you again, oh wow you have a large class. Do you like studying? Do you
like to study here? Anybody that doesn't like to study here let me see your hand! (laughing)
You all like to study here? How many days a week do you come? (laughing) How can you
come 8 days a week? We have a Jeep that has a large canvas over the top like the old covered
wagons that used to cross my country in the early days. And they have pockets in them
like our shoe pockets in our closest and in these pockets there are books.
Once a man can read, he needs books. books for out of the way villages are hard to come
by. They need to be specially written for the interest of the village reader, and this
means special publications.
Last year from that Jeep they gave out 47,00 books and lost only about 500 books, its estimated,
but since we didn't have enough jeeps, Mr. Shaw added the books on bicycles and they'd
go in to villages, 2 a day, which means 10 a week and ringing the bell as they go in.
From Literacy House the books go out in regular circulation to road side villages and crowded
country markets, wherever potential readers await them.
And its in the market place of big villages and they come from 25-30 villages into that
same spot, every week, we call it a hut, you know its a wonderful place to spend a day,
marriages are made there. I have a son, you have a daughter, well you know we have this
all arranged. Gossip is wonderfully cheap there, and its a great day, it's the biggest
day of the week, and you must know that the smartest men of the village come there because
they're the business men. and we discovered to our great surprise that many of them are
self taught. And they sell their cattle and their goats and their sheep and they sell
their eggs and chickens and they sell the lovely home spun that the women have made
in their cottages and they sell the pottery they have made and the lovely flowers they
have put on them. The villagers are interesting people, the women of the villages, I hate
to tell you about the strong women but there's one in every village. Just beware and if you
really want to know something about that village you go find her. And if you convince here
that a thing is good, it will be done and if you convince her that illiteracy night
school is going to help put food in their stomachs it will be done, if not it won't
be.
All of the people sitting in front of you are all local leaders, and village leaders,
of villages around ---- these persons visit us 10 days at a time, they stay at Literacy
house and there they get the training and the art of administrating their own villages,
how to conduct their own council meetings, how to start the discussion.
The village is still the central unit of India's society. From nearby districts village leaders
come in to literacy house for courses in local government, administration, and finance. Teachers
in turn go to the villages for refresher courses, and help in local problems. To convey the
information and to make it clear, they use booklets and charts designed at the teaching
center.
What is literacy for? People tell me, "all you're teaching them is to read and write"
No I'm not, I'm teaching them to read SOMETHING, these women are running a whole village, why?
Why did you gentlemen ever elect these women to run your town? And he says well you this
women's association raised the money for this brick road coming into the town and of course
we men built it. And that was as it should be, and then they said you see we have two
wells, they raised the money for the two wells, we dug them. You see we have a primary school
for girls, and I said what? a primary school for girls not for boys? Wasn't this wonderful,
I thought this was mature, they said you see, the only primary school available is 6 miles
away, we couldn't allow our girls to walk those 6 miles over and back everyday it wouldn't
be safe or proper, but we could allow our boys to go. So we said lets take the money
that you saved and planned and lets make one for girls. And now they're raising the money
for one for boys, i thought that was magnificent, and I came away with great admiration of what
villages can do if they're only given a head start.
Oh here is the gal that I have seen. Cooking demonstration. Cooking? Yes, and especially
applied nutrition for them. Prepare out of ground flour and coconut. But aren't they
doing anything about books? What about books? are they reading? or studying? They haven't
started I don't think, they only just do what they did back . These are girls that have
been here for 20 years, these are old friends, they must do high school, its wonderful. Next
year we can have this high school, of course. You'll have to arrange for the classes, yes,
you've got teachers haven't you? Only for 6 months. Well Maybe they'll be another group
for the next 6 months. Yes, but they first have to see-- that's true that's true, but
we have to engage them for a year I think so, to make sure these girls don't miss anything
because having taken them so far, what a shame to let them drop, after they've gotten so
far. Even to stop for 6 months would be most unfortunate I think. Because there's nothing
in the atmosphere around in the village that helps build them up or help them use it unless
we can find a way for them to use it.
The notion of a central meeting place for village women was a new one. A place reserved,
clean, peaceful, to stimulate and demonstrate new skills. Literacy house has pioneered such
centers and intends to see them grow.
Can i take a little bit now? Too hot? Too hot? No, mmm very good! Thank you thank you,
namaste.
A place for village children as well kindergarten, a new idea for village life. A park or playground
protected for children's use so their mothers can take time for study. Another notable woman,
now a member of Parliament in New Deli, comments on the work of Welthy Fisher. I think she
does inspire many women, I have very great appreciate for the work she is doing and admiration
for her. She is a remarkable character, one hardly remembers she's so old, she is bubbling
with enthusiasm, I have yet to find younger people with more eagerness to do things, more
eagerness to cover and conquer new grounds than Mrs. Fischer. She has deep sympathy and
her friendly attitude is such that she wins over friends, she wins them over to her ideas
and she inspires people to come out and do more work. Our advance in the field of education
condition is not satisfactory. Anybody who does considerable work in this field is doing
very valuable service to this country. Mrs. Fischer is very down to the ground, she understands
the problem, she goes to the villages, she and her very devoted band of workers, they
are doing immense work in finding out the correct kind of textbooks, the correct methods.
I would like to take you to the pumping center, Do I walk down or up? Walk up, I'll just support
you. Don't be in a hurry, Well it's better to be in a hurry.
In India, food is priority, how to increase it, changes of methods, crops, tools, all
these are needed, to make the changes means understanding the part of the villages, to
achieve understanding, means education. Welthy Fischer established the young farmers institute,
where young farmers learn to read and write and with these new skills modern techniques
of growing more food for their families. The young farmers institute is helping to resolve
the conflicts of the unschooled farmers, such teachings gives them the key to open up prospects
of new opportunity, help, and growth.
The boys have done such marvelous work. in agriculture, i see all this wonderful "patty"
and I'm accustomed to patty because i once lived in China right in the middle of it and
then you have a pump down your well so that you're getting irrigation, you've planted
bananas trees, so many things, and I've brought back some very good things to help you, these
young men don't know that I have 6,000 dollars in the bank for the school house, Oh i'm so
glad about this! Isn't that wonderful? Yes! Then we can help the school building pretty
soon I think. I want our people all to know how you are going equate functional literacy
that these boys are going to get with this all together, marvelous agricultural development.
As you know Mrs. Fischer this is our first venture that we are bringing illiterate boys
to learn literacy as well as agriculture. Now what i have thought of is I divided this
10 month course, for these young farmers who are illiterate into two parts. One part is
for 8 months the other one part is for 2 months. For first 8 months for 4 hours they come here
and farm and do practicals and in a half and hour to 45 minutes they sit down under the
shade of this tree learn the theory of what they have done. This will be carried over
7-8 months. And after that they will have more of theory because they will have learned
by that time how to read and write they will have more of theory and less of practicals.
Now on the other side, on the first 7 months what we started doing to correlate literacy
to agriculture was that when they come back from this class they will ask questions, what
have you done today? On the first day they have translated the Patty so they said in
Hindu ------- so the word Tan was the key word and as teachers said, let us write the
word Tan.
In India one hundred million young adults ages 13-21 cannot read or write. These young
people are the future, it's a problem and its hope.
You know as I think more and more about this plan, it is the most natural and functional
literacy program that i have ever heard anything about. because they are farmers already, they
are eager to become better farmers, they have motivation. But you know what i feel is, sometimes
these young people, Mrs. Fischer those people are the ones left behind, those people could
not afford to have literacy because of poverty so when these people come here these are mostly
those young men who didn't have the chance to read and write. They are ready to work
hard to learn new things to learn to read and write but what they need is something
so that we can give them something in their hands. We must have things that they can sell,
yes! For that we already have a lot of these men who have land, small pots, and what they
produce on that particular plot which has been allotted to them they will sell it. Already
that begins a new kind of life for these boys, Wonderful! Self reliant, Self-reliance that
is what we are trying to teach them. Educated people have often said to me why do you disturb
these lovely people in the villages? They're so comfortable, they're so happy, they have
companion-ed with poverty. Well if you have ever companion-ed with poverty you would never
want to suggest it as a remedy or as a pillar of democracy. This will not be tolerated and
whether these educated people like it or not there is going to be a revolution- a rising
of illiterate people around the world, they are going to demand that they have a share
not only in just casting a vote but also a wider contribution of government. And if you
and I have been fortunate enough to have for fathers who made an affluent society for you
and me in the West, how can we but share it with the people of the world? I cannot understand
how a person could hold back anymore, so I have great hope!