Mahatma Gandhi’s Famous Quote And My School Slogan

Although my Senior High School grades warranted a place at the Ghana Institute of Journalism, my attempt towards a degree course in Communications was sadly unsuccessful. My disappointments knew no bounds on realizing that my name had not been picked for interview, a condition precedent for gaining admission. 

But for the messages of encouragement from family and friends, only God   knows how the shock that came with the news could have been managed.

Myself and my elder brother who had joined me on a school hunting spree, were directed to the African University College of Communication at Adabraka by a friend. He spoke highly of the school and recommended that I picked admission forms before it was too late.

This recommendation gave a refreshing lease of life into my ambition of entering a Communications School at the time. Nevertheless, all wasn’t settled. The fact that this recommended institution was Private plunged me into a state of dissonance.

At the time, the few Private Universities were reputed as charging colossal sums in fees and other incidental expenses. Indeed, students who attended such schools were tagged as having silver spoon in their mouths.

 Considering the prevailing financial circumstance at home, the thought of even announcing the school to my Auntie, Mrs. Beatrice Boateng, a retired Teacher who has been the financial pillar behind my education, was so costly for me to entertain. Truth be told, I was equally doubtful of the prospects.

As fate will have it, I gathered the required momentum to announce the school to some members of my family. This did not come without opposition. Even some of those who would never be part of footing a Private University bills objected to it in no uncertain terms.

But as fate will have it, my doubt was short-lived. Once again my Auntie is ready to bar the perceived huge financial burden to repose her confidence and investments into my education. The story of how her confidence in my education ended is self-evident and need not to be told.

Purpose

I do not intend to run my avid readers through the up and downs of my University life. Such will be so boring a tale to tell. After all, school ‘Wahala’ cannot be patented, as many students faces almost similar sets of challenges.

In this piece I want to explore how one of the greatest quotes by Mahatma Gandhi encapsulates my school’s slogan and how it played out in shaping the personality that I have become, even though I barely noticed ,while a student.

I dare say that for anyone who has walk through the walls of the African University College of Communication, the ‘Discover Yourself’ slogan is one the school’s brand properties that will usually and consistently greet you. No one, however snobbish they are, can escape it. 

Not only does the slogan meet you while you sing the school’s Anthem, you are exposed to it once you read any of the school’s literatures.

Personally, it wasn’t too difficult to commit it to memory. As a regular attendee of many of the extra-curriculum activities, the slogan was always thrown at me. In spite of this, little did I realize and notice that this slogan is crystalized by a favorite and life-changing quotation by Mahatma Gandhi.

How?

One of the world’s greatest leaders with indelible footprints, Mahatma Gandhi, was once quoted as having said that: ’the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in service to others’. This succinct statement, I confess, is one of the life changing and action-provoking quotation that has shaped the kind of personality that I am.

For this purpose and in keeping with the topic, I will want to couch it this way:

‘‘The best way to discover yourself is to absolve or dissolve yourself in service to others.’’

I find that Mahatma Gandhi’s quote as rephrased above, crystalizes the ‘Discover Yourself’ slogan that some of us merely memorized as students of the African University College. The nexus between what Gandhi said and what my school’s slogan states is so strong.

Indeed, while the slogan is a declarative statement, Gandhi’s legendary quotes shows us how to fulfil the declared statement.

How My Days in School brings the two to Life.

It is not my intention to unduly project myself by cashing in on these two powerful brands, my school’s slogan and Mahatma Gandhi.

I recount some of the sacrifices and services that I rendered in this piece in order to bring to life how I have lived the bill of self-discovering, without noticing.

For this to be simpler, I have captured what I discovered about myself under three thematic areas: Music, Leadership and Intellectual Contribution

v   

Music

I discovered myself in music by absorbing in the task of fixing the challenges that confronted the existing music group in my school. When I was talked into joining the school choir in level 100, the school had no set of instruments. It was my first time seeing a choir rehearse without an Organ.

When I registered as member of the Echoes of Africa, I decided to bear the responsibility of remedying this challenge.

I decided to use my personal Organ for the purpose, because the choir did not have its own office, I had to shuffle it(the Organ)between the school and my house anytime the group had to rehearse.

 For lack of financial support, I will usually strap the Organ at my back and walk through the Awudome Estate to Circle so I could board Trotro’ to school. Sometimes, it was more convenient walking with it strapped behind me than bearing the stress of public transport with it. 

It got to a point when I became so familiar walking from my Kaneshie residence to school with the Keyboard strapped behind. Except an occasion warranted that we performed, this was the physical stress that I had to endure to ensure consistent rehearsals.

Beyond this I will spend time planning, picking and choosing songs for rehearsals with the able assistance of some of my committed Executives.

As for whether or not I could play the Organ with dexterity, it was never in doubt. I have been doing that since my Primary school days. However, I discovered ironically that while I did not have a good voice I was a good choirmaster and composer. 

For many of the songs that we rehearsed, I composed them. I composed the school Anthem, counting on the lyrics Mr. Kojo Yankah,(President of the School) Benjamin Adu Kumi and Gloria Appiah -Kubi presented made available to me. I also composed and taught a graduation song and another song in commemoration of the school’s 10^th Anniversary.

In the run up to the 2012 elections and declaration of the Supreme Court’s verdicts in the landmark petition by the opposition party, I composed two different peace songs for these events. Without any financial support, we footed the cost for recording the songs.

These songs received massive airplays and widely patronized especially on YouTube. Perhaps, that was our widow’s contribution to the call for peace at that critical moment of our country’s history.

Through the thick and thins, I discovered that I was born to be a good composer. Indeed, my ability to bring this less resourced group to its feet after years of being in a lapsed mode speaks to my organizational ability.

Of all what I discovered, my awareness of the power of Team spirit and an unwavering resilience, are most significant.

v  Leadership

While a student I served my people creditably in many capacities. I was the Class representative, a responsibility that taught me many leadership lessons. Little did I know that I could lead a class of matured, many of whom were old enough to give birth to me. I may never have known how to manage all their egos and challenges, had I not absolved myself in such a service.

I also headed the IPR chapter of the school and under my leadership the membership of the association increased appreciably. But for the lack of commitment on the part of some of my executives, the group would have been the best on campus.

I was appointed the Chief Justice of the students’ representative council in the 2013/2014 academic year. That responsibility helped me to discover and put to use my critical thinking cap. The avalanche of petitions that the judicial council received at the time, required that I am critical and impregnable in my verdicts. I discovered how invaluable integrity is for anyone seeking success in leadership.

But for an uninformed court action by some diabolic students with unbridle political ambitions, my tenure as the head of the judicial council will have gone down as one of the best, having diligently adjudicated many of the petitions I received.

v  Intellectual Contribution.

I knew little about my ability to Teach until my Statistics lecture requested me to help some of colleagues out on a topic, having performed creditably in his Mid- Semester paper. This was when I was in level 100.

Surprisingly, a group discussion which was organized for few colleagues of mine grew in leap and bounds till I ended my undergraduate programme.

It became an unofficial academic calendar of a sort. Every two weeks in the run up to the semester’s Examination, a discussion class on all the subjects for the semester were discussed. It wasn’t long and this revision classes became the toast of many of my colleagues, even those in the Evening and Weekend streams.

I had to find a way of combing for other information that will always give my patrons a reason to participate. To this end, I could not only fall on my lecture notes. The responsibility of shouldering other people’s academic dilemmas.

The feedback I received from my colleagues after every paper was so impressive and encouraging. Indeed, the escalation in the numbers of attendees’ which compelled me to divide the class, sometimes, was a good performance benchmark.

I look back with so much content as my attempts at helping my colleagues consequently exposed a hidden potential.

Conclusion

I knew I could have gone faster had I decide to keep to my shell. But I take solace in the fact that I went far by doing the exact opposite. Indeed, I take pride in the fact that I have been able to live by the real import of my school’s ‘Discover Yourself’ slogan.

May be as students, many of us did not pay attention to the imports of what the ‘Discover Yourself’ slogan was, but looking back after school, I have come to realize how central and life -changing the slogan, especially when analyzed within the lenses of Mahatma Gandhi’s famous quote, is.

To me, the potentials I discovered while engaged in all these services is invaluable. That is why I was never bordered by the fact that I lost out on a whisker, the opportunity to read the Valedictory speech at my graduation ceremony though I scooped the best student in Strategic Communication and Overall best student in Communications awards.