"The School Executive and Propaganda Analysis"
Excerpt from Edwards, Violet, “The School Executive and Propaganda Analysis,” School Management and School Supply and Equipment News 2 (May 1939) (permission, Christine Darby)
Excerpted by Marianne Kinkel
The peoples of the world today are victims of subtle and ceaseless propaganda – suppressing, exaggerating, distorting. Backgrounds are established against which identical facts appear so different as to be almost unrecognizable, and the task of finding solutions for difficulties is made infinitely more complex by the fact that in the modern world we can know only a few things from experience: we must depend upon “authorities,” upon what we read and hear for our knowledge. We must depend upon those who supply the news or other material for judgment. The work of educators in a democratic society must be continually to emphasize to young people – and to the general body of citizens - their duty to search out for themselves the matters on which it is the function of citizenship to form opinions and to record decisions.
A Vital Necessity
Increasingly, school executives and teachers are coming to see that the corrective which American must put to the weakness of their democracy – that is, to the temptation to take too much of their thinking ready-made from others - is practical education in recognizing and evaluating propaganda, which affects their interests and the interests of their community, State, and nation. In a democratic state, purposeful education in propaganda analysis is a vital necessity. […]
Acting on this belief, over 500 school executives – for the most part, public school superintendents and principals - are encouraging, or themselves directing, propaganda study programs in their school systems, at the secondary and junior college levels. These school administrators are actively cooperating in the experimental study program of the Institute for Propaganda Analysis. Specifically, they are working with, and refining, study materials developed experimentally in classroom situations and presented in the Group Leader’s Guide to Propaganda Analysis, and with the monthly Propaganda Analysis bulletins and Worksheets, issued by the Institute.
Stated briefly, girls and boys in these cooperating school systems are: (1) Learning how to recognize propaganda when they see and hear it. (2) Studying common devices used by special pleaders, and examining the channels of communication – the press, radio, motion picture - through which propagandas flow. (3) Learning how to appraise persuasion on its own merits - that is, asking the what, the how, and they why of propaganda. (4) Experiencing situations in which they apply the experimental methods of science to specific inquiry into their own daily problems. (5) Learning to withhold judgments until they have had sufficient opportunity to examine and to weigh the facts concerned. And (6) studying controversial propagandas of today, with special attention to the social, economic, political, and psychological conditions which create and sustain these, and all propagandas.
The Institute’s experimental study program enters into many phases of the formation of public opinion and the workings of propaganda, but it emphasizes particularly the necessity of “understanding ourselves,” of understanding how we as human beings with likes and dislikes, prejudices and ideals, interests and attitudes participate in the process which we have come to call propaganda. It necessarily includes the study of logic (simplified to meet the needs of high school and junior college girls and boys). However, it recognizes that one may know the rules of logic by rote, and still be incapable of applying them, if his prejudices, his biases, his patterns of thought serve as barriers to what has been called “straight thinking.” Therefore, basic in the Institute’s study program is the belief that we can best prevent this by studying ourselves – by knowing what our prejudices, ideals, biases are; by knowing how they developed, and how they may affect our thinking.
In cooperating schools and classes there is no one clearly defined pathway to propaganda analysis. Study of propaganda and of public opinion in the classroom may be approached from various starting points. Some classrooms place their chief emphasis upon recognition and understanding of the stock devices used by propagandists. Others begin with an examination of one or more of the media of communication – the press, radio, motion picture, speech, music –through which propagandists make their appeals.
Still others probe into some of the economic, social, political, and psychological conditions underlying the propagandas which are of special interest to the young people concerned. Possibly there are as many approaches to the study of propaganda as there are individual and group interests and needs. Certainly, each teacher and his pupils must plan their work in terms of these interests and needs, in terms of the specific classroom and community situations in which they find themselves. Pupils may be intensely interested in a local campaign for better lighting of streets, in the forthcoming State elections, in the national armament program, in a popular radio program, in last night’s “movie.” All these subjects, since they are concerned with the concrete and with the familiar, may make excellent starting points for propaganda study in the classroom.
Study Not Limited
Moreover, propaganda study is not confined to any one course, or class. Based upon clear cut objectives, effective study of propaganda is going forward not only in special courses and units of study but in such long-established courses of study as: American history, with aspects of nationalism or evaluation of evidence; English and American literature, with special attention to word study or techniques used in masterpieces of dramatic persuasion; home economics, in connection with aspects of consumer critical-mindedness; mathematics, with respect especially to reasoning logically to a conclusion and the relating of this process to such everyday activities as listening to the radio, reading the newspaper, carrying on conversation with parents and contemporaries; journalism, in the examination of newspapers, editorial and picture magazines, current books, and the like.
Clearly, many specific aspects of the study of propaganda and of public opinion are basic to the subject matter and activities in such courses as: Civics and Problems of Democracy, the Social Studies, the Physical Sciences, Speech, Composition, and Dramatics. And even in Art and Music. In many of these courses there remains, of course, much actual classroom work to be done in bringing about effective selection of emphasis and development of classroom procedures.
Teachers need not fear that they are “introducing” young people to propaganda. From infancy they have been influenced by as many kinds of persuasion as there are individuals and groups - as there are special interests and spokesmen for those interests in our modern world. From his embarrassment of experiences with all kinds of propaganda materials, the school executive - perhaps more than most educators - well knows that young people in the public schools will not depend on the teacher or any one textbook for propaganda examples with which to work in the classroom. They will bring into the classroom-laboratory, themselves, such materials as: promotion leaflets left at the door with the early morning milk; editorials clipped from newspapers and a variety of journals of opinion; “safe driving” stickers; scribbled excerpts from a radio broadcast; Pep Club throw-aways; magazine advertisements; cartoons and “funnies”; headlines; and pulp magazine stories. The modern world of entertainment and streamlined communication is their propaganda textbook.
As Young Folks Study
Young people taking part in classroom work in propaganda analysis are concerned with an examination of propaganda as one of the forces which molds public opinion in a democratic state. They do not look upon propaganda as a “problem” which can be “solved” in the manner of solving a problem in mathematics. In the most constructive sense of the word, their work in propaganda analysis is a positive social process: they learn to recognize and to appraise organized persuasion; through basic study they come to realize the importance of socially competent citizens; they see themselves, motivated by many drives and by many appeals to those drives, in relation to the constantly changing institutions, policies, and programs of our democracy. Propaganda analysis, conceived and carried out along these lines, is in fact, as well as theory, education and training for intelligent, informed, and competent citizenship.
II
That propaganda study programs in their schools make many positive, constructive contributions to their own administrative functions, superintendents and principals of schools throughout the country agree. Chief among the specific contributions made by propaganda study in one or more classrooms is: integration. So great is public interest in the vital study of propaganda in such classes as the social studies, English, American history, civics that the girls and boys themselves carry their inquiry over into other classrooms – into the physics and mathematics and psychology and home economics courses. Relationships between the contents of many courses in the curriculum become increasingly apparent to students. Moreover, both teachers and pupils take their zeal for propaganda study into their homes and into the community at large.
Thus does interest in propaganda study become a common meeting group for the entire school, for the community - especially for parent-teacher groups and for social, cultural, and civic clubs in the community. An able Illinois superintendent of schools, whose high school history and social studies courses in propaganda analysis are based upon the far-sighted planning of his teachers in faculty meetings for a period of a year, finds that pupil study of propaganda has brought about decidedly closer relationships between the school and the community. He asserts: (1) that interested and alert teachers and pupils introduce propaganda study to the community; (2) that parents and townspeople show vigorous interest in this aspect of their school’s work; that they themselves often launch propaganda study groups; (3) that the local newspaper gives its cooperation; that civic clubs, chapters of national patriotic organizations (which had previously been outspoken in their criticism of the school), and other groups have, in cooperation with the high school held special programs on “Propaganda, Public Opinion, and Democracy.”
Thus, did this superintendent of schools find ready-made a far-reaching and spontaneous project in public school relations. Other administrators have effectively centered their programs of school interpretation in the community around propaganda study work in their schools. In their programs they have utilized such media as the school assembly, Commencement program, parent-teacher meeting, Dad’s Day, local radio station broadcasts, school and community newspapers, and social and civic club programs.
In many cities and towns, as a direct result, propaganda analysis in the schoolroom is strengthened and supplemented by adult propaganda study groups, ranging in specific interests and membership from civic and professional, to farm and church. The net results of carefully planned propaganda study programs in the public school are, therefore, manifold: increasing integration of the curriculum itself; provision of a common meeting ground for young people, parents, and the community; resultant decrease in the friction between the school and the community; and the rise of community-school discussion to a more constructive and vital plane.
Analysis Lessens Criticism
In Kansas, in Missouri, and in California public school situations, several superintendents and principals find that propaganda analysis in their classrooms lessens parent and community criticism of the teaching of controversial subjects in their schools. They explain that inherently propaganda analysis is a method whereby – and in which – one must study all sides of a question; if the process used is analysis it cannot be attacked as propaganda since it is a study of many propagandas, of all of the problems concerned in a controversial issue. Thus, does the learning process of propaganda analysis, itself, tend to eliminate possibilities that teachers themselves will propagandize for particular points of view, for single programs and “solutions” which may appeal to them, personally.
Moreover, propaganda analysis based upon full and free discussion, upon individual and group discussion which is purposeful: upon inquiry into and thoughtful appraisals of today’s conflicts in terms of basic problems concerned in them -- rather than in terms of personalities, slogans, name-calling, and unconscious prejudices. Hence, through development of methods and techniques of group discussion, propaganda study makes a significant contribution to the maintenance and extension of our democratic way of life. Most of us know only too well that it is easy to submit, to obey, to conform, or to “call names” ourselves, but that it is harder to learn to join with others in intelligent discussion of common problems, and to come to decisions on the basis of relevant facts.
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Superintendents and principals also report contributions of propaganda study to intelligently--critical attitudes on the part of teachers, pupils, and parents in regard to materials used in the schools, such as textbooks, free films, the bulk of commercial advertising, and the like. Most schools, of course, use these materials freely, but teacher and pupil discussion of them takes on a new and healthy spirit of critical inquiry, of expression of many points of view, of free discussion of the subtle and the not-so-subtle devices of persuasion employed in many of these materials. This, they believe, as does the Institute for Propaganda Analysis, is all to the good: it means young people consciously recognize that in a democracy freedom of speech and of press necessarily means freedom to propagandize – and that this freedom implies the obligation resting upon them as young citizens to analyze propagandas affecting their interests. In other words, they are proceeding to appraise all types of persuasion on their merits.
What could be more basic to the challenge of democracy which the world offers today: For our American democracy to keep on making its own decisions concerning our problems, to make ever-wiser decisions concerning our problems, and to keep on inviting free, even if dangerous, choice. The fascination of democracy is that it is so often at the crossroads: there are so many propagandists pointing out the direction we should take.