What do you think, when you hear the word, propaganda? I believe it must be negative related to dictators like Hitler, Kim Jong-un and terrorist organizations like ISIS. They used propaganda to promote their views that was harmful for the world outside their control. It must be noted that how the countries and organizations under them flourished for a certain period of time. Let’s not discuss about them here. That was Grey Propaganda. You can read more about propaganda on Wikipedia. The best part from all of these was that how they motivated individuals for their belief. It is not just them .All political parties, religious organizations, self declared god men and cult leaders use this technique not only to gain followers but also direct the mass for their cause.
I grew in an environment that was more political. My house was office for a local political party and my father was head of that wing. This is the reason, our house has more open space. Regular political meetings and gatherings were conducted that was attended by sometimes thousands of people from central ministers to local members. I wondered why all of these people gather here leaving their work. Why everyone follows what is being directed from the central committee. I have seen people ready to kill and hurt someone, if their party directed so. Later, when I grew up, I studied most of the political and social events of the world from Rwandan Genocide to Israel-Palestine Conflict. My curiosity was still on, why do people follow someone?
In this article, I talk about white propaganda. It is still debated that what can be considered as a propaganda and what cannot be. White propaganda is defined as open disclosure of source and content. We used some techniques to increase confidence in our students. We were working diligently but our efforts could not bring results as expected. This was happening because the receiving end, i.e. students did not seem interesting. The classroom management techniques and innovative teaching methods didn’t matter. There was more to the scene. We needed to find that out. After finding the problems, we knew what to do. I would like to call it Propaganda, White Propaganda.
Pre White Propaganda
After we were placed in a community school of rural community, we had to face uncertainty. Due to years of bad school management and other factors, the quality of students had deteriorated so bad that they had lost all of the hopes. The politics in the school had led parents to believe that school is never going to improve. A school once that was pioneer in the region was now facing extinction. Parents were attracted to private schools and if they had enough money, they would send their children to boarding schools in the city. Most of the family couldn’t afford expensive education for their family, so they remained back in the village.
Once I asked a student about what he wanted to become. He answered simply, nothing. The role models were people who had gone for foreign employment in gulf countries who sent money back to their homes. Not only students but also parents believed that their children cannot compete with outer world so they end up as low skilled labors in gulf countries. Confidence was so low that they were afraid to dream about their future.
White Propaganda
Phase I
The final examination of class 8 is conducted by the local level government authorities. Since long the school results had not been satisfactory. School was being criticized all over. Good results in this examination could be a good way to revitalize the school’s reputation. I was chosen class teacher for this class. The class was of 45 students from different communities with different academic levels. For some initial days, I was even nervous to enter the classroom. Students refused to participate in the group works and remained silent. There was no problem in attendance but students were not attentive.
After some initial talks in the classroom, we started to pick trash around the school everyday for first 5 minutes of our class. School looked clean now. Seeing the tangible results and some praise from other students and teachers, now students of class 8 had some confidence built up. They had been lacking appreciation since long. This short appreciation for cleaning the school for 5 minutes everyday started a long series of activities. Everyday we would chant the slogan “We are the best”, “Best class in the school”, “Best School in the district” and “Best School in the country”. I could feel the confidence in their voice. I would add stories about how they were unique than other students. The energy in the classroom was amazing. We chanted the slogans for whole year. They became more respectable towards teachers which gained them more fame and proof that they are actually better. Later, in the final examinations, all of the students passed in good grades along with four of them in the top 10 with second position.
Phase II
Nepal’s education system is designed in such a way that, SEE (Secondary Education Examination) is considered as the benchmark of success for any secondary school, both private as well as government. Parents decide whether to admit their children in the particular school or not based on the results of SEE. The school where I was placed as a fellow had achieved a result which was considered academically low. The problem that we had with Class 8 was with Class 10 as well. In addition to that, because of the earlier issues, students were nor academically prepared nor mentally to appear in the SEE examinations.
At first, we held a parents meeting, where instead of revealing our plans, we wanted them to speak. Due to the social discrimination, most of the parents who had never visited school before, raised their voices in the first meeting. It was clear that a single model should be applied to the students that were appearing in the SEE exam that year. We decided to open hostel with full accommodation for boys and half for the girls. Due to the limited manpower and lack of infrastructure, Girls would return home in the evenings.
The caste discrimination outside the school followed inside the hostel. Initially, fights broke up between students. Students started to distance themselves from each other. Academically sound students didn’t want to help their classmates. For a first few days, we were busy in administrative and logistics part, that we couldn’t focus on students. After all this was settled, we started our work. We held morning sessions to set goals for the day and evening reflections to share their thoughts.
To be continued……
