Collective Worship
Title: Louis Braille
Theme: Louis Braille
School: Secondary
Term: Spring term
Summary
How Louis Braille created Braille – a method of reading for blind people. He was a modest, unpretentious man, always willing to sacrifice for the sake of others.
Teachers’ Notes
Occasion: close to Louis Braille’s birthday (4 January)
Instructions: The pictures should be shown on PowerPoint as the story is told. The ( ) show when the slide should be changed. To attract the pupils’ attention, we recommend the first slide is already on display as they enter.
The Main Text
(Picture 1)
There was a time when some people believed that blind people couldn’t read at all.
One young boy from France, called Louis Braille, believed differently. He had been blind since he was 3 years old and he was desperate to learn to read. He realised that there was a new world of information which he couldn’t benefit from because of his disability. So, he was determined to find a way of changing that situation - for him, and for every other blind person.
(Picture 2)
His story begins on 4 January in 1809 – the date he was born in a village outside Paris. His father was a saddler, and he used many sharp instruments to puncture the leather in his workshop.
One day, when he was only three years old, one of the sharp instruments slipped and hit one of Louis’ eyes in an accident. He was in great pain for days and in time the infection spread to the other eye and he became completely blind.
It was a difficult time for the young blind boy, and he had to go to a special school for the blind in Paris.
He was a fantastic musician and he learnt to play the cello at a very young age.
He was also a very creative and intelligent boy, and he decided to think of an easy way for blind people to read.
(Picture 3)
One day, he heard about a special alphabet used by the French army. A special code was used to send messages from officers to the soldiers at night. These messages couldn’t be written on paper because the soldier would have to light a match in order to read it, and this would be seen by the enemy. The code was a mixture of dots and dashes, slightly raised from the surface of the paper. Charles Barbier was the name of the man who thought of this method of communication.
After receiving this code, Louis worked at perfecting it and making it more accessible to blind people. What’s interesting is that Louis did the work with the very implement which blinded him.
(Picture 4)
And that’s how we got what is referred to today as Braille – which is a method of reading used by blind people.
In creating his method of reading, Louis didn’t think about taking the praise all for himself, and he would always express his debt to Charles Barbier. That was in spite of the fact that Barbier tried to fight against the Braille system and get his own reading system adopted.
(Picture 5)
Louis Braille was always a modest man and he hid many of his acts of kindness. Some of these meant a sacrifice on his part. For example, he gave up a position which he loved, which was playing the organ at his church, because another blind person needed the work more than he did.
Unfortunately, Louis Braille did not live to see his system becoming global. He died in 1852 at 43 years of age.
(Picture 6)
For some time, it appeared as if people had forgotten about it. But, in 1868, four blind men came together under Dr Thomas Armitage, and together they founded the Royal National Institute of the Blind (R.N.I.B), and Braille became familiar throughout Britain and Europe because of this organisation.
By 1990, Braille was used in nearly every country throughout the world and it was adapted for all sorts of languages.
(Picture 7)
In France, Louis Braille’s success was finally acknowledged by the state. In 1952, his body was moved to Paris and buried in the Pantheon, the home of some of France’s great heroes.
PRAYER O God, thank you for the work of people like Louis Braille. Through his efforts and through his sacrifice people with sight impairments today can read. Open our eyes, the eyes of all of us, to see the opportunities around us in order to sacrifice in our own way for the sake of others. Amen.