Thursday, July 1, 2010

Communist Propaganda

I was looking through some of the pictures on my camera and realized I never posted these...

We spent a couple of weeks in class talking about Communism and the Cold War, and it was the first year that I think the kids kind of understood what Communism actually advocates. It is a surprisingly difficult concept to explain, especially since the kids tend to confuse economics and government. Ah Communism.....When I was putting these up in the hallway, the thought occurred to me that 40 years ago, I might have been fired for doing a project like this. As part of their assessment, the kids had to create a Communist propaganda poster (and analyze it on the reverse) that would encourage someone to turn to Communism. I liked this assessment because they had to show an understanding of both Communism and propaganda and I am always wildly amused by their posters. It also shows me what the kids DIDN'T understand. As I was trying to get them to see that Communism wouldn't work, I said that Communism would be like everyone in class having one bank account and everyone gets a debit card. You can take what you need, and we all help provide for each other. Unfortunately, what I didn't realize is that some of the kids thought that having one common bank account was LITERALLY what happened. **sigh**
Some of the kids understood the concept better than others. I particularly liked the above poster. I constantly try to get the kids to use the magazines we have in class to make posters, but they are a little reluctant to do so. I think this one really illustrates the main ideas I was looking for. Sometimes there is just a piece of a poster that sticks out to me. In the above poster, the dictator on the building cracks me up. There is so much detail in this poster but the guy is a stick person.
This above poster was drawn by my resident Communist. We had a somewhat....tense....relationship throughout this unit. =) It was good for him, I think.
Some of the kids used much more color and were more to the point. Despite the misspellings, I really like this one.
This one cracks me up. I love the little businessman and the farmer shaking hands while a factory spews pollution out and apparently all the earth's water evaporates. =) The one below is hands down my absolute favorite. It is unintentionally ironic. The kid that did this poster did not intend to make it so funny, but I ended up showing it to my entire department and I am saving it.
I love that the message of the poster is so encouraging...."join the communists and join us"....but that the poster itself is so uninviting. Ironically, it is a picture of the way Communism actually ended up working out, but we never talked about that in class, so he did this under the firm belief that this would be an encouragement to join Communism. I particularly like the Stalin-esque sun in the corner glaring down on all the downtrodden stick people under a smog filled sky.

Pure Awesome.

6 comments:

Melissa B. said...

I love the paradox of illustrating communism as the ultimate democracy. Bravo!

Ronnica said...

Those are good! That's a good idea for a project...makes them show that they "got" it (or didn't).

Anonymous said...

Speaking of Communism (and I love having a friend I can say that to, btw), if you haven't seen "Good Bye, Lenin!" check it out. It's a great movie!

Anonymous said...
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james boutin said...

Awesome posters! And, I'd have to disagree when you say communism wouldn't work. Star Trek tells us that the human tendency toward greed will one day be overcome by education and money will cease to exist. That's what I'm waiting for. Plus - my dad looks like Captain Picard!

Christy said...

yes and human nature has certainly improved SO much in the 20th century. Lots of hope for humanity there. =)