Good Propaganda

IX. A Job Well Done

When the song was over, it was evident that some students were embarrassed because when I looked around, their faces were red. They were not red from exhaustion, but from embarrassment. However red their faces were, the exhaustion made for a good excuse as to why their faces were red. It is not as if they had no excuse for being embarrassed either. The song was targeted at their own parents, it was only fair to feel a little embarrassed. Now that the crowd was staring at us in awed silence, we were on the burner. The heat at the capital was intensified as their eyes seemed to burn through our hearts and souls with shame.

This feeling of shame was short lived, because everybody began to applaud and weep loudly. The thing we did not understand about the teachers is that they are not perfect. As a child, we all assume our peers to be perfect and flawless, having gone through life and learned from their experiences. However comforting this falsehood may be, this is a wrong way to look at things. Everybody is flawed, even our teachers. It took a loving act of art to snap them out of this illusion.

The music did just as we expected, moved their hearts. They would never had expected their own children to write, compose, and record a song about their teachers and parents because they cared so deeply for them and their education. After everybody got themselves together, the governor came out to make his address to an exposed people.

"These wonderful students are losing their education. They are losing it because of a paycheck. Surely, as adults, we can rise above and focus on the students instead of the money. These students have wonderfully demonstrated their deep care for their education as they have performed this song to you all. My hope was that it would touch every individual here and it seemed to have done just that. Because of their act, I have decided to give all teachers a pay raise of thirty-five percent. I have done this, not for the teachers, but for the students and their much needed education."

As his speech came to an end, he walked to the side with pride and waited for a response from the crowd.

After a moment of silence and shock, the audience roared with applause. Not only for the pay raise, but also for their students deep care for their education. The teachers had such an effect on these students, that they had made a choice to fight for their education and prevail against the odds. The life and education of the students must never be placed on the back burner because of a paycheck. The lives you affect and the seeds you plant in these students is worth taking a low paycheck. To find joy and satisfaction in our education, we must take this to heart and act on it.