One of the most profound lessons that this whole "Ethnic Fiesta" gig taught us is the strong relationship between emotion and the way we reason. The school, enraged with decision made against Elektra, was unable to make simple deductions that would expose the entire exercise as a complete fabrication. Why would the SMT appoint a new leader without informing the IB1 class? How could these changes be suggested a mere month and a half before the launch of the Elektra project? What would have been made of the effort that had been made over the last few months towards the fun fair? Why was Sanjana smiling so much the whole day? All these put together were dead giveaways that "Ethnic Fiesta" was a hoax, yet nobody was able reason this out due to the obstacle that our emotions put in front of us.

The first thing that comees to mind when I think about this hoax is emotion. I must say that this hoax played with a lot of emotions. Hearing that Sedem and Molisa were being demoted from their positions, produced shocked reactiolns from IB1's.Hearing that Sanjana was to take over produced very angry reactions and finally hearing from Sanjana that she had changed thr project from ELEKTRA to ETHNIC FIETA, made peopl extremely outrageous.

However, just like what Albert said, our Emotions clouded our minds so much that we failed to any form of reasoning. Just like what the french author of maxims and memoirs, La Rouchefoucauld said," THE HEAD IS ALWAYS FOOLED BY THE HEART" just justifies what happened. Because we were so angry we failed to (quoting from albert) "make simple deductions that would expose the entire excercise as a complete fabrication". I believe emotion is very strong for I was quite apalled with the things people said because of their anger. Is emotion therefore superior to reasoning in most cases???

Actually, while Albert makes good points he leaves out factors such as the obvious distrust of our authority figures and the generally accepted character profile for Sanjana.
Many people actually while unhappy with the "coup d'etat" were glad of the change of management and project believing it more feasible or that Sanjana would be a better leader. To them, from their perspective, based on their knowledge of the workings of elektra the only problem with this new development was the way it was presented.
In the views of the majority (and while these views may not have been overtly stated there are very few cases in which significant effort has been made to hide them)the event seemed entirely plausible.
While it is understood that we were decieved one must conceed that there have been problems with the funfair, especially of the variety where not only is the left hand unaware of the activities of the right , but the right itself may not have the foggiest. There is also the amount of work that contrary to popular belief has gone into it and how CAS is almost sacred to persons hoping to complete the IB diploma course
The cast was well chosen in that they were the people who would have been expected to behave in the manner they did so Sanjana smiling all night was considered normal.
Also he is not entirely right after the initial outburst some people did figure it out.
Another point is that the activity at least in my class did not quite yield the expected results, while different people observed points that pertained to themselves differently the story was the same, the difference being some of the points people chose to emphasize. It did teach us history can be staged but i don't know how often people will want to make themselves look bad.
This did'nt prove that our conceptions were wrong (it din't prove them right either)but as they say, there's no smoke without a fire. All that was acomlished in terms of awakening us to our tendency to pre judge was wafting it into our collective face.
The only lessons I can confidently say iv'e learned is that emotion circumvents the inhibitors and logic, our class is not very trusting, we have toungues dripping venom and though we must accept some things on faith,( you cannot survive this world doubting evrything) even what you choose to believe for working purposes is quite possibly untrue too.

how does being in the know affect your reactions. those in the know tend to come across as at least a little high handed(there is an ongoing argument about deceiving us , using us as guinea pigs and causing stress anxiety etc.. and if it was ethical or otherwise justified) especially since they are seeing it as an experiment and for one thing have not laid their cards down like the majority and need not test their beliefs that they would have been more reasonable or compassionate etc... Also having planned this they have a preset attitude to the event and expectations of the conclusion (what they think we should have learned from it) seeming in some cases to have extreme difficulty understanding why peoples reactions aren't falling into their set pattern or even recognizing that they are not.

An intresting thought however is what state we would be in if it actually was for real.
and I believe within the framework of the created reality the reactions were valid,( not perhaps very reasonable, as we would have been stuck with the program and bad mouthing Sanjana would not have delivered us a CAS project, but emotionally honest) having changed, so to speak, the reality (and now who decides what was real, afterall could have been a dry run and this is simply the retraction failsafe) should we still consider the reactions within the framework of the new reality? Afterall we've just seen how easily we can be deceived. To what extent should the words exchanged and the reactions expressed be considered an alternate course of history or to still apply (remain relevant)?

Before i start, i want to congratulate the organisers of what i call 'HGIC's Greatest Deception'. I must say, i was extremely fooled. Anyway, I do not completely agree with Albert. I believe the emotions expressed were extremely valid. I think that our emotions were the way they were not because we failed to see the flaws in the setup, but rather beacause we did see them. Most people were angry BECAUSE the class was not addressed before the change. I for example, was angry because i didnt understand WHY we were not consulted. I was angry because a lot of effort had been put into Elektra. I was angry because i actually DID notice these numerous flaws. I noticed the reasons for the change were absurd and crude. I dont think anyone is at fault. People were not 'Fooled by their hearts'. Our minds actually realised the mistakes/flaws, which influenced our hearts, not the other way round. Our reasoning was quite valid. Most people, when expressing their anger said things like, ''why would SMT do something like this?''. This shows that we actually did realise that it was almost impossible and could not accept that it was ACTUALLY happening. Our emotions kicked in after our reasoning. I hope i've put my thoughts forward in the right way. Feel free to correct me

big ups. i think u agrees with osca's point. and so yes it shows we really don't trust them to be reasonable

During the exercise that we performed during class in which we were meant to recount what happened during the event after prep, it was interesting to hear the different ways in which people recounted the story; some mostly giving the straight facts, and what they observed, and then others giving accounts of emotions they and other people felt as the event was taking place. That prompted then, a few questions in my own mind: in the recounting of historical events, or in history as a whole, is it correct to allow the feelings of the historian to influence the account that is given, or is it more accurate to have an account of an occurrences that is totally devoid of bias? the fact of the matter is though in some way or another, i think that most things as long as they are written by humans must have a certain amount of bias whether the writer does so consciously or unconsciously. Even details that a historian chooses to include may reflect their bias.

Mr. Akita I am in total support of your argument. This is because if people critically analyse this significant historical event!!!Most of the people took it really personal and some even came to me(in my room) to talk to me and change my attitude towards this whole situation.Even I am so sure that if this was to go on for than a day or two...some people like" Michael Annor" would have even booked my return ticket to INDIA as he claimed....

Or even the "REAL HEADS" were like "HITLER IS BACK IN TOWN"... Thankgod! stabbing is not allowed in SOS-HGIC...!

March- the month of Ghana’s independence but also the month of my BIRTHDAY!! “ MOST PROBABLY I WAS BORN TO TAKE OVER”- Maybe in the form of Ghaddafi or HITLER(according to some people).This act was a predicament for me and I had to take life-threatening criticism from my own colleagues. All this may atleast be a part of a footnote in the SOS-HGIC history sometime , somewhere….

History is difficult to understand because it is like I WANT TO KNOW THE PAST which no longer exists.

Some lessons that can be learned from our study of TOK are as follows:-
1.The importance of past in our lives.
2.Dangers in ignoring the past:- e.g.ACTUAL TAKEOVER BY ME!!
3.Gaining Knowledge from our past.
4.The importance of evidence:- eg My evidence to change the idea of ELEKTRA was supported by the SMT. This raised a question in folk’s mind:-

Some said it was too less for evidence as in like after my speech, people actually came to my room to enquire and ask me for further explanation for this albeit act of mine…. This shows less evidence is misleading and can be justifiable in a wrong way but not with a wrong intention.

Some people who were quiet because I think they actually believed in me(as Osca also said) and may have thought there is too much evidence about this act. Eg Mr. Nkyeker introducing the new head and I was seriously serious with my speech. There was an act of self-realizing expectation for if they thought that something cannot be changed they won’t even bother trying to change it.
5.“History shows”:- At the beginning of the DRAMA people were pessimistic and by the end of it they were optimistic .

Actually History also brings out some characteristics in Human behavior basically because it showed loyalties of some people towards this reaction and towards me(not going to mention names) , also some showed horrendous allegations towards the whole situation as they were actually confused if their positions will remain or QUEEN RASTOGI may come up again with some unfavourable idea like changing the COMMITTEE HEADS…

Being in the know affects person’s reaction to the event:-The people who already knew about this whole show were happily enjoying the era of me getting blasted (operation of sending SANJANA back to INDIA) by people. But on the other hand they were very supportive as well.

The Truth which we learn from this situation can be:-
•Wake up call for IB-1’s CAS project.
•Understanding the History lesson of TOK in a more effective manner.

These events help the community to understand their mistakes and learn from them. And be alert for any of these situations to happen again…

The kind of Historian which is the most reliable for acquiring knowledge can be:-
AN OUTSIDER:- most probably because he would not be biased by any side. On the condition that he knows about the general info of the IB CAS PROJECT. But this raises a question that how accurate will his point of view be?

On the whole it was not done with an adrift intention but in order to achieve a serious motive.

“A PAGE OF HISTORY IS WORTH A VOLUME OF LOGIC” by Oliver Wendell Holmes

First lesson to be learned: words cannot be retracted once they have been said. I agree completely with Albert.

Looking back at this, there were too many flaws in this plan for it to have worked out. All that was needed was to get our emotions to cloud our reasoning. And once that was done, the plan was foolproof. Like Albert said, “Why would the SMT appoint a new leader without informing the IB1 class? How could these changes be suggested a mere month and a half before the launch of the Elektra project? What would have been made of the effort that had been made over the last few months towards the fun fair? Why was Sanjana smiling so much the whole day?” All this would never make sense. Not in the real world. The only reason we fell for it was because Mr. Nkerkyer's presence cleared any doubts in our mind and from then, all we could do was to fall deeper and deeper into believing this. Once we had been fooled, it only took each other’s attempt to understand to make the plan work better.

The lesson intended to be learnt about the nature of historical accounts didn’t really come out. At least in my class we were all writing the same things except for the little exaggerated details which obviously were added for comic relief. I mean should this have been a formal appeal to the principal to reverse this “decision” I doubt we would have things like Sanjana Ghaddafi or Sanjana Mubarak. The basis of our accounts remained the same. Meeting after prep, Nkerkyer, Sanjana, Sedem, Mollisa, Elektra, Fiesta. Hardly any historical accounts are made up, only retold in line with our emotions.

More importantly, it highlights the flaws of rationalism and deductive reasoning as a way of knowing. Thinking that Kojo Nkerkyer is a teacher, therefore he is reliable only led us more and more astray. Can we always rely on the known to make predictions about the unknown? Or did the lines of reasoning like, “I am a head of Elektra, Elektra is no more, therefore I’m no more head” influenced some people’s emotions and hence their actions.

On that note, Miss Ghaddaffi, Miss Mubarak, Cheers!

This event pretty much shook our trust in the TOK teachers. After all, would you believe anything else they say from now on? But I think the point is, as we all agree, emotions cloud the narration of an account. We all reacted in the same way, except the moles of course, but why were we so quick to believe what Sanjana said? Was it because she's a good actress, as she says, or because it was Sanjana? Would we have been so quick to anger if it was Adjoa or Kojo or even me? A lot of people said she had suggested it before and that's why they knew she was capable. As unethical and expensive as this hoax was, I believe it served its purpose. After all, one should always be objective in an account so as to not change the course of history.
I don't think we'll ever forget how "Shady Sanjana overthrew Sedem and Molisa" - Ref. to Adjeley!

i have to agree with Oscar on this one! this is just to say that obviously the only reason that we believed this whole ethnic fiesta fabrication is because we all know Sanjana and we know what she is capable of doing. I do not think that the point of this lesson was proven and i can confidently say that if this same scenario happens again I will not hesitate to believe it. i think the wrong person was chosen to act as the GADAFI of the class this is because she really fit the character as she was acting her natural self... this is not to insult our deal Sanjana but honestly if someone who was calmer and less 'post kaya' (sorry i cant get an ebglish word for this) than Sanjana was choosen to play this prank all the obvious signs Albert was playing would have been clear to see. this whole thing is opaque because in my opinion the students who were asked to chose some one for this task took advantage of the job they were given and used it as an oppurtunity to prove that the IB1 class does not know how to control their temper!! i have to agree with Sanjana RAstogi on one thing though >>>THANK GOD STABBING IS NOT ALLOWED IN SOS-Hermann Gmeiner International College

To the anonymous person above, I would like to say that I do not think the only reason we believed this whole ethnic fiesta fabrication is because we all kno Sanjana and we know what she is capable of doing. Excuse me to say, how do u know that we all know Sanjana? Please do not generalise because YOU think she acts a certain way and so she is capable of doing whatever.

I THINK that the reason why we believed this Ethnic Fiesta fabrication is because we all know in our hearts that the planning of our CAS PROJECT has not been the best so far (Even though know people are doing their best) and so we were all kind of expecting it.

Why is it that some people exclaimed that, " I said it! I knew it! It has been cancelled. Elektra has been cancelled!" This is because we all know that with they way we have been a little disorganised, it is possible for management to step in.

Of course, our natural reaction was anger and I do not thing that was a wrong reaction because we as a class, or should i say specific people have put in a some hard work towards ELEKTRA, however, I believe that our guilt resulted in extreme anger which was directed towards Sanjana (for some people just because it was Sanjana and not some one else) and for some people because she barged in with a whole new idea.

So to the anonymous person, is it because the person who was chosen was "Sanjana" and so that is why we failed to reason like what Albert said earlier and instead we let our emotions get out of control? Because I must say, some people took their emotions to a different level!

i really think that prank was really unnecessary. playing with poeple's emotions is really childish and tedious. imagine something out of the ordinary happened what would the organizers have done. in fact my doubt about this schools' intelligent has been proven right. as for SANJANA RASTOGI i have nothing to say to her maybe later in her face.

I believe if some people did not learn anything from the hoax, well i can confidently say that my class did.
This hoax was a single event that the entire class and school witnessed. However, when it came to the time to recall the event, everybody produced something different, although to some extent, most were almost similar and these are exactly what happen in real life situations, when we read different sources of an event that took place some time ago, like the Cold War or the First World War.
These differing accounts are as a result of some factors:
1. The relationship with the affected party. Naturally, those close to the affected party will give an account in favour of their "loved one" and generally paint the other party as evil.
2. Focus. depending on what you are focusing on, your account will differ. Some people focused on the speaker(Sanjana),while other focused on the affected parties(Sedem and Molisa) and others focused on the reactions of the rest of the school.
Being a part of this hoax, my account i believe was not too different.i neither focused on what was being said or done by the speaker(Sanjana) or Sedem and Molisa because to some extent i expected it. My main focus was the reaction of people as i was hoping to convince them into believing that "Ethnic fiesta" would be a success and would tell somewhere that it was since i was part of it(ignoring what other thought of it).

Firstly, I salute Sanjana for her courage and willingness to sacrifice her dignity to improve our knowledge store. Whether or not it did, her motive was to help us understand the role of bias and emotion in history.
The hoax drew my mind to the role of private and public knowledge in history. When the account was written, those of us who knew that it was indeed a prank were not bothered to give long and emotional accounts like those written by the ‘innocent.’ To make my point clearer, I will inject this into another real-life situation. If those who played an integral role in bombing were asked to give an account of the incident, it will definitely be different from an innocent person. The bomber will not deem it important to include certain points in his account, probably with the fear that the brains behind the bombing will be figured out. An innocent person however, will go all out to deliver a saturated account because he or she is free from the troubles of guarding any private information.
What if the history we have is actually an illusion of reality because of private information? What if the private information could restructure the framework of history forever? How can we even tell if there is private knowledge? Should there even be anything like private knowledge in history?

And then to the sentence I have heard about a million times this week:

'What you guys did was unethical!!'

Let us not forget that issues of ethics are subjective and I seriously do not see the immorality of the prank when it has actually served as a wake-up call for our Elektra. I understand that it went quite far but instead of putting your emotions first, why don't the ethics crtitcs think about how Elektra has already started improving and how that child who has never drank fanta is going to smile.

Sanjana- SALUTE!

To the anonymous person above, I would like to clarify that this is a TOK BLOG; A PLACE TO DISCUSS ISSUES WHICH WOULD BE RELEVANT TO OUR TOK EXPERIENCE. This is not a place to express your personal vexations!!!

I suggest that instead of questioning the school's intelligence you should question your own intelligence. I find it very insulting that you would post such a statement as "in fact my doubt about this schools' intelligent has been proven right."

I BELIEVE AN APOLOGY IS IN ORDER!

Amanuel Nigussie

I learnt how personality affects history, how our emotion changes history (the truth) and also I learnt how natural persons affect history in order to Compromise both sides.

I agree with Abigail. I was even considering removing the comment because of its inappropriateness. Once again, the blog is strictly academic so please read over your comments to make sure they make sense before actually posting. Thanks

Well said Abigail, AN APOLOGY IS IN ORDER

I would like to show full support to Abigail's idea because this anonymous person is not being reasonable at all.

He/she is questioning school's intelligent...?? How can you even say something like that?

Further i totally agree with Efua that-my motive was to help us understand the topic "History". I understand this is a difficult topic as describing something which no longer exsists is not very easy. I was able to evaluate quite alot of things from this event relating to history ...therefore @ anonymous please read my second comment on this blog and try and think on those lines, it will be more reasonable and advisable.

Abigail has already made a very intellectual point on which I would like to put more emphasis" THIS IS A TOK BLOG; A PLACE TO DISCUSS ISSUES WHICH WOULD BE RELEVANT TO OUR TOK EXPERIENCE INSTEAD OF JUST FINDING FAULTS IN EACHOTHER".

This also shows to me that , there is no point in badmouthing the past!!! "AS IT NO LONGER EXSISTS".

I would even want the anonymous person to write his/her name as a form of showing that he/she accepts his/her fault in saying " in fact my doubt about this schools' intelligent has been proven right. as for SANJANA RASTOGI i have nothing to say to her maybe later in her face."...

"if you don't respect the school;WE DO"

Thank you!!

i think this hoax thing was the best way to test the IB1 students emotions and how they reason. it seems like a lot of people believed in what sanjana told us that day without really thinking about it.in the first place i dont think SMT would do such a thing without informing us especially something concerning our CAS project. the reasoning we had was kind of shallow even if we know sanjana and what she can do. also it had something to do with our emotions, almost everyone was sad,disappointed and staff. this was a good way in testing our reactions in certain things like that.

I would like to add my commendation to what has been said above - concerning Sanjana. I was not the central organizer of this particular hoax and so I actually had nothing to do with the role she agreed to play in this affair, and this only intensifies my admiration for her willingness to go through with it. Would each of us have been equally willing to suffer the reactions that she experienced? I'm not sure if I would have. So thanks, Sanjana.

well the hoax was based on emotion as it has been argued by my fellow collegues. what i have come to realise is that emotions affect our logic and reactions especially if there is a change of what we wanted to occur, to do or even what we believe in. and since the hoax was pulled to introduce us to History as another area of knowledge it really proved why history is said to be subjective

A new dimension to creativity, a new skill in the TOK experience, a lesson well taught(which I hope every one had a share) Firstly to Sanjana I will say well done for your bravery to hold all these emotional counteracts fro the IB 1 class.

What I peronally learnt from the hoax in terms of TOK are:
1. The emotions attached to the events we encounter and the differing accounts recorded. From the mini reports in class, I noticed that some accounts tried to be objective whilst others as Efua said wrote long paragraphs describing their emotions towards the matter
This brings us to the problem of choosing betwen historical facts. Which account will you deem accurate and towars the truth of the matter?

2. The second lesson has to do with how emotions can take over our reasoning? For this hoax many attached too much emotions (e.g. anger, surprise,ixd feelings, etc) about our new leader Sanjana than to think about the message being conveyed to us. If we were to push aside such emotions questions such as "How could the SMT just halt the CAS Project?" would have prompted us that this was just a hoax.

However, this has been a good lesson to guide us not only in learning about History in our TOK lessons but also re-light the Elektra spirit.

Mr. Kitching. Your most welcome.
Marilyn...i really like your first point, I guess that is actully a real problem in History...Well do you think there are any solutions??

And Thanks for understanding my motive- with due regard i fully respect your last statement..

Mr. Kamau.
This is simply a fantastic discussion. I love it all. As a History teacher, this hoax presented a wonderful opportunity to explore the following questions:

· Which aspects of history would be lost if a drive for objectivity was pursued to its logical conclusion

· The question of whether the “inside” (psychological factors) or the “outside” (physical circumstances) of an event should be prioritized

· The asymmetric way in which evidence is laid down

· How the degree of significance is attributed to events in the past, and by whom – how selection of evidence is approached by the historian

· The pitfalls of relying on memory for the construction of historical accounts

· Whether history should consist more of narrative story-telling or rigorous source analysis

· Which of these is more appropriate in an international context

· Whether history should aim for coherent explanation alone or also try to provide guidance for the future

I should note that all the questions were raised in a different forum by Mr. Kitching.
Please continue with the discussion, you are all doing a wonderful job. Do get your other colleagues who continue to remain silent to contribute.
John Kamau