Schoolteacher Ron Jones's personal account of his experiment which created a proto-fascist movement amongst his high school pupils in Palo Alto, California, which in 2008 was subject of the award-winning film The Wave. [9] Jones started a movement called "The Third Wave" and told his students that the movement aimed to eliminate democracy. For other uses, see, Last edited on 15 February 2023, at 16:27, reliable, independent, third-party sources, Learn how and when to remove this template message, Human experimentation in the United States, "Palo Alto student social experiment goes terribly wrong in 'Invisible Line', "This Classroom Experiment Explains How Hitler Rose to Power & No One Protested", "Anthea Lipsett meets the teacher who carried out a terrifying experiment in fascism in the 1960s", "The Catamount: "Society is Sterile" -- R. Jones", "Experiment in Fascism at an American High School: The Lesson Plan @ The Newport Beach Film Festival", "In 'The Wave,' ex-teacher Ron Jones looks back", "Netflix's 'We Are the Wave' Is Inspired By an Infamous '60s High School Experiment on Nazi Germany", "Nazis fr fnf Tage" ("Nazis for five days"), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Third_Wave_(experiment)&oldid=1139531317. I reiterated the importance of this event and asked once more for a show of allegiance. April 21, 1967. I was shocked! It's one of those occasions experienced by teachers when they least expect. It was 12:07. How a ballet dancer or painter works hard to perfect a movement. I turned it off. Soon everyone in the class began popping up with answers and questions. I saluted back. As friends they chummed together. How could they have lived alongside the slaughter of Jews, communists, gypsies and many more factions of society? they asked. Upon receiving this card the new member had to demonstrate knowledge of our rules and pledge obedience to them. Many questions haunted me. This unethical experiment is one of many reasons review boards were created and have made drastic changes in policy over experiments done on humans. Must be a former student. While he taught his students about Nazi Germany during his "Contemporary World History . We practiced this new attention position over and over. Our class came up with the motto the "the third wave" and the salute, but it stayed in our class and was not carried out into the school. The deed was concluded. Over the course of five days (or nine, according to student Sherry Toulsey), Jones, a member of the SDS,[6] Cubberley United Student Movement sponsor[7] and Black Panthers supporter[8] conducted a series of exercises in his classroom emphasizing discipline and community, intended to model certain characteristics of the Nazi movement. So, he decided to demonstrate this . In this room. The Third Wave. Since we had a salute I made it a rule to salute all class members outside the classroom. I told the assembly that a full explanation would take quite a while. The rewards they were accustomed to winning just didn't exist in the experiment. Students were cutting class to participate and the school counselors were beginning to question every student in the class. Jones began subtly to demonstrate how the population of Nazi Germany were manipulated into submission; it was a history lesson. It isnt an exact science and cannot, despite what many Anglo-American philosophers say, be reduced to physics. "Mr. Jones, for the first time I'm learning lots of things." Tyranny evidently takes hold easier and with much more force than we can imagine, since these students were of course not threatened with their lives, unlike the German people under Nazi rule. Why hadn't I thought of this technique before. Rather than a televised address of their leader, the students were presented with an empty channel. Where was this experiment leading? I began to think that the students might do anything I assigned. While the class sat in stern silence I began to talk lecture sermonize about the value of community. He convinced the students to attend a rally where he claimed that the classroom project was part of a nationwide movement, and that the announcement of a Third Wave presidential candidate would be televised. New people were speaking. Feel strong and in control of destiny. I notice that he never mentioned our class because we were smart enough to know that it was all about showing us different political systems. Retrieved from https . Class expanded from its initial 30 students to a total of 43. Jones, please?" I expected a flood of questions, but instead got intense quietness. The advertiser identified his product as the Third Wave. The students obeyed. In response to these attestations, we must first highlight the fact that these students werent infants, they were between 15 and 16 years of age. "Listen closely, I have something important to tell you." Others cried openly and then brushed away tears to carry on. This rally is for members only.". All day long he opened and closed doors for me. I was exhausted and worried. If Ron Jones was in fact terminated from the school, it is clearly because humanity is afraid to let go and see what is possible. I'm afraid something will happen to you. To be number one. Something in all of us. The experiment continued. Where is it? The first day, the students acted almost as if it were a game and obeyed the commands of their teacher who they already trusted and respected. In high school, for example, ones grades are very important, especially for students who feel a need to please their parents; in Nazi Germany, the motivation to follow orders came from the power of the party, their threats, and the fact that the people were starvingfollowing orders was simply common sense unless anyone was willing to risk their lives. It was a silent signal of recognition. Finally, for them, it became real, a movement they felt part ofwhile the rest of the United States was immersed in a pro/anti-Vietnam war dispute, these students felt like the Third Wave movement would give them a platform for change. "Strength Through Community." This video is about the third wave experiment. To grab quick solution. That you could extricate yourself at any moment. Situations in which students were pitted against each other In everything from gym to reading. "Can we bring friends?" we each have witnessed something over the past week. This kind of lie has been criticised for being inherently unethical but is, in fact, the only way in which . Well at last it can be talked about. I found one inaccuracy in his account based on what you wrote. Other students started joining in and the class now had 43 students involved rather than the usual 30. And profound revelation. These three young women were by far the most intelligent students in the class. In our own personal habits and way of life. He was polite and condescending. We spent hours later talking about what he felt and did, but from that moment on Thursday morning I was more concerned with what might be happening at school. Thirteen students had cut class to be a part of the experiment. No one moved. In the split second of my race back in time Steve sensed my questioning and backed up. On Tuesday, the second day of the exercise, I entered the classroom to find everyone sitting in silence at the attention position. Mr. Jones used his own students to test out his theory, that the desire for order and discipline was the key to manipulating a body of people to act a certain way. The trials. As the class period was ending and without forethought I created a class salute. I can tell you and anyone else about the Third Wave. Many students outside the class asked if they could join. His students where attached to the order. I wondered if this doesn't happen to lots of people. Moving toward the door and the world outside. He calls me Mr. Jones. Strength through understanding I am having a hard time believing this. Every word seemed to be taken and absorbed. After 5 days students were informed it was an experiment on how NAZIsm spread. I whispered to him to watch closely and pay attention to the next few minutes. Jones told his students of the true nature of the movement as an experiment in fascism, and presented to them a short film discussing the actions of Nazi Germany.[9]. Returning once again to the analyses made by Haslam, we can formulise different conclusions to the Third Wave Experiment which itself relates closely to other experiments and studies being made in the post-war years. Students slowly rose from their Chairs and without words filed into the outdoor light. The exchange of physical hardships for superior mental and physical facilities. Discipline. Proper seating became the most important aspect of learning. "Everyone turned in shock. "There is no leader! Let me show you your future. Students were rewarded for making an effort at answering or asking questions. I demanded that they leave the room. It helped me approach them in a deliberate way. Manipulated. Jones emphasized this main point of the movement . Kids were instructed in posture, began each remark with Mr. and saluted. The Third Wave. Emotionally and psychologically they had exposed themselves. Leler, Robin and Sakuma, Bernice. Each time the response was louder. How can people who were neighbors and maybe even friends of the Jewish citizen say they weren't there when it happened. As for my part in this exercise, I had nothing but questions. We had lots of rules, we had lots of things we had to do," recalls one of Jones's former students in the 2011 documentary Lesson Plan: The Story of the Third Wave. I had to stop for a minute to remember. There must be a program. They discovered that the usually accepted conclusions of these experiments are in fact far from what they should be. The Third Wave disaster. We would have put on the uniform. By Thursday the class had swollen in size to over eighty students. The school cook asked what a Third Wave cookie looked like. "It's your task to design a Third Wave Banner. These ones feel that a power is born in the class and that the class forms a group, not only a students' class. And they seemed to want more. Some of their faces were relaxed with smiles that come from pleasing the teacher. This change in the actual formulation of the concept has, in turn, changed the common misconceptions of the conclusions of experimentations such as those of Jones, Zimbardo and Milgram. It just whined on. The first day, the students acted almost as if it were a game and obeyed the commands of their teacher who they already trusted and respected. Even stranger was the gradual improvement in the quality of answers. It's strange, you most a past student In these chance ways, You catch a few moments of your life. Taken to an extreme we have seen and perhaps felt what these actions will lead to. The tension and anticipation was beyond belief. 2010 Third Wave Documentary Film "Lesson Plan". The air in the room seemed to be drying up. The mystique of thirty individuals doing this strange gyration soon brought more attention to the class and its experiment into the German personality. I was now standing next to the television directly facing the room full of people. In the four years I taught at Cubberley High School no one ever admitted to attending the Third Wave Rally. I took the film from the three cameras in the room and pulled the celluloid into the exposing light. By this, the fourth day of the experiment I was beginning to lose my own arguments. Jones decided to continue the experiment after observing his students' strict adherence to the previous day's rules. He completed the third wave experiment because he was unable to teach his students how the German population in the Holocaust allowed the Jews to be treated the way they were. First I would have two students stand and call back our motto. quite the contrary. He decided to create a fictional social movement as a demonstration of the appeal of fascism. 509-10) told his students in the . A television screen placed at the front of the room showed nothing but snow. This activity we have been doing has been practice for the real thing. The roar of the Nuremberg Rally blasted into vision. Though I formally appointed only three students to report deviate behavior, approximately twenty students came to me with reports about how Allan didn't salute, or Georgine was talking critically about our experiment. Wednesday evening someone had broken into the room and ransacked the place. This page was last edited on 15 February 2023, at 16:27. Ron Jones was a teacher at Cuubberly High School. Conditions that produce tyranny could be the presence of an apparently legitimate authority, a certain motivational interest, and/or threats and manipulation. It can't be destroyed ", In the midst of this crescendo I abruptly changed and lowered my voice to announce the real reason for the Third Wave. We need to rethink the misconstrued conclusions of social experimentation in the 20th century, Reexamining the Third Wave Experiment and the Banality of Evil, Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window), Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window), Transphobic Social-Media Vigilantes Endanger the Black Community, Free-Speech and Hypocrisy: How JK Rowling Silences Her Critics. Several students had independently created a bodyguard division which physically attacked dissenting students and a reporter for the school newspaper. The real gestapo in the school was at work. I confessed my feeling of sickness and remorse. Every fibre strained to perform the deed. The Nazis also hid many of their crimes from their own people, named themselves national socialists (when they were, in fact, not socialist but fascist) and managed to abolish unemployment (food was nevertheless lacking across the country, much like in Stalins Ukraine). Burned ideas. So, he decided to demonstrate this . Not knowing when and if you'd ever see each other again. 1981 Norman Lear ABC-TV Movie "The Wave". In A Nutshell. In focus drills I concentrated attention on the feet being parallel and flat, ankles locked, knees bent at ninety degree angles, hands flat and crossed against the back, spine straight, chin down, head forward. The Third Wave experiment once again indicates that the normal group processes that make social life possible also can lead people to conform to standardsin this case fascismthat most of us would reject. In an embarrassed hug we greet. He will explain all the things that he was able to manipulate the kids into doing which seems like would've taken weeks or months and claim it only took one day. Now the students do their homework to be able to answer Ben Ross questions. From Ron's description it is clear to me that his students (many? Was the desire for discipline and uniformity a natural need? In the martial atmosphere of the class they seemed stunned and pensive. It's your job to read this pamphlet and report its entire content to the class before the period ends. Their faces held looks of disbelief. The Third Wave (experiment) The Third Wave was an experimental social movement created by California high school history teacher Ron Jones in 1967 to explain how the German population could accept the actions of the Nazi regime during the Second World War. Of this technique before placed at the front of the Nuremberg Rally into. 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