However, you wrote, "Our class came up with the motto the "the third wave" and the salute" What else was inaccurate in Ron's account? We would have put on the uniform. You would hear a crash of cafeteria food only to have it followed by two classmates saluting each other. Emotions were mixed and anticipation ran riot, especially since Jones had warned all those who didnt show up that they would fail their history class. The wave has good effects on the students. In ghostly images the history of the Third Reich paraded into the room. They aren't bright, they can't make the athletic teams, and don't strike out for attention. Thanks, Eugene He always ate lunch alone. Motivations having been identified, it becomes easier to explain why tyrannical regimes can come to fruition and power. This page was last edited on 15 February 2023, at 16:27. It's taken three years. Jones was fired from teaching after a year-long discussion, but his work continues to be recognised and appreciated all over the world. [9] The students proceeded to conduct trials for those thought to be not loyal enough to the movement, with punishment consisting of banishment to the school library. Yes, I had been pushing information at them in an extremely controlled setting but the fact that they found it comfortable and acceptable was startling. The Third Wave was disrupting normal learning. I talked about pride. The tension and anticipation was beyond belief. Students were issued a member card. This last lesson is perhaps the one of greatest importance. I switched the television set on. I now can appreciate why the astronomer turns relentlessly to the telescope. On the third day, Jones began to worry that things were going too far. The maneuver took five seconds. This posture started with feet flat on the floor, hands placed flat across the small of the back to force a straight alignment of the spine. You have been used. In 1967, a high school history class in California became the lab rats of an experiment to study the rise of Nazism. I marked three of the cards with a red X and informed the recipients that they had a special assignment to report any students not complying to class rules. Only a small minority of students saw through the faade, they were named the breakers who tore down Third Wave posters and replaced them with counter slogans. The Third Wave experiment brought to light our creepy reverence for authority, shedding harrowing Milgram-esque insight into how easily we assuage moral conflict and diffuse responsibility when we . We just stood there exchanging smiles when without a conscious command I raised my hand in curved position. While debating whether to stop or go on with the experiment I talked on and on about community. They had indeed fallen for the trap. I feel entirely compelled to say that any one that takes this as an offensive measure is possibly hiding something them self. Was this display of obedience a momentary game we were all playing, or was it something else. It's a bit of both isn't it? 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. It affected everyone. They even seemed to be asking better questions and treating each other with more compassion. These American students did not believe that they would have been so easily tricked, and their teacher set out to prove them wrong. The priority over strict ethical considerations is an interesting and important one since subjects act much differently when they are conscious of being observed. Thanks to ethical codes and institutional review boards, most of these experiments could never be performed today. did not have this sense of ambivalence of what the hell we are doing here that promotes reflection and inquiry. As Jones (1979, pp. Manipulated. I was now standing next to the television directly facing the room full of people. The group seemed to be composed of students from many persuasions. But he's best known for the Third Wave experiment, in which he simulated a fascist movement without telling his class what it really was. The exchange of physical hardships for superior mental and physical facilities. first to the despondent student and then back to the television. Lesson Plan: Directed by David Jeffery, Philip Carr Neel. That is the real meaning behind the banality of evil: when people find rational excuses for atrocities. Was all my belief in Carl Rogers to shrivel and die? Across the country teachers like myself have been recruiting and training a youth brigade capable of showing the nation a better society through discipline, community. pride, and action. 2008 German film The Wave, based on these events, A first-hand account from the Chicago Teachers Union strike, from education worker Agnieszka Karoluk. Following minutes of progressive drill assignments the class could move from standing positions outside the room to attention sitting positions at their desks without making a sound. Conditions that produce tyranny could be the presence of an apparently legitimate authority, a certain motivational interest, and/or threats and manipulation. The book (written to illustrate the experiment) The Wave forms part of the essential readings for German college students to this day. These ones feel that a power is born in the class and that the class forms a group, not only a students' class. Answers *tarted to stretch out as students usually hesitant to speak found support for their effort. In concluding this conversation I envisioned similar conversations throughout history in which the clergy accepted and apologized for untenable conditions. The question here is not why but how the German people came to support the Nazi regime. Oh I was benevolent. in fact I instructed the class in a sitting posture. If I stopped the experiment a great number of students would be left hanging. 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. Would it not, then, have been more morally deplorable for a history tutor to accept the fact that his students were living in blissful ignorance? That's what I did. Being a follower. Students seemed intent on the assignment and displayed Accurate recitation of facts and concepts. I found one inaccuracy in his account based on what you wrote. It was easy. . Oh, you think to yourself that you were just going along for the fun. Within days, they had a motto, flag, salute, and began to view themselves as an exclusive, elite group. I felt very alone and a little scared. Powerful. 6. They watched the activities and participated in a mechanical fashion. I was exhausted and worried. 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. Third Wave Experiment. You can't admit to being manipulated. He said that he invented the term "The Third Wave" and the salute for it. I was shocked! Hey Felton, many thanks for your comments! Following my description of community I once again told the class that community like discipline must be experienced if it is to be understood. It was also the genesis of a secret that I and two hundred students would sadly share for the rest of our lives. Jones emphasized this main point of the movement . How could this be? How an athlete feels having worked hard and regularly to be successful at a sport. In objective terms I began to describe the past events. ", With that I switched on a rear screen projector. The Third Wave was still alive. The pleasure of doing something right and being rewarded. Scratch the surface and it appears. At eleven thirty students began to ant their way into the room; at first a few scouting the way and then more. I was tearing apart. I lectured about the beauty of discipline. Milgram's original "shock box" displayed at the Ontario Science Centre. Nothing. There was a mental tug of war between the people in the room and the television. Ron Jones has embellished the story considerably since being kicked out of Cubberley High School way back when. Something in all of us. One-third of participants refused to do it, while another two-thirds complied, with a great deal of trauma done to them-and the rats. When and how will this end? Hand curved in a similar fashion I return the gesture. In speed drills the class learned to move from standing position to attention sitting in fifteen seconds. To accepting the Third Wave as a way of life. community, pride and action. The advertisement proclaimed in big red, white and blue letters, "The Third Wave is coming." 1967 Original "Third Wave" Class, Palo Alto, California. We learned what it felt like to create a disciplined social environment. I glanced over my shoulder. A strange calm is in effect when a room full of people sit in quite observation and anticipation. The trial was over. Class expanded from its initial 30 students to a total of 43. More than 200 high school students took part and they had their own custom-made membership cards. 509-10) told his students in the . Knowing that one is being monitored changes ones behaviour significantly. We have seen that fascism is not just something those other people did. The rewards they were accustomed to winning just didn't exist in the experiment. He gave them lessons in how to sit correctly, which they also obeyed with little persuasion after being told that sitting properly allowed more oxygen into the lungs, helping them to think more clearly and thus improve their grades. No psychological effects were reported, and his students even respected and revered him yet more for his unusual lessonhence the documentary was made by two former classmates. He smiled (I don't think I had ever seen him smile) and announced, "Mr. Jones I'm your bodyguard. They included . They were also acknowledged for doing this in a crisp and attentive manner. At that time, the Nazi regime was being widely studied, and the world asked itself how such atrocities could have occurred in so-called civilised states. After a few minutes of waiting, Jones announced that they had been a part of an experiment in fascism and that they all had willingly created a sense of superiority, much as German citizens had done in the period of Nazi Germany. The Third Wave is a true story about a high-school experiment in fascism that spiraled out of control. Jones was himself alarmed by how far his students took the movement to heart and how they orchestrated a group of guardians and SS style spies to worm out the traitors to the movement. It was as if the climax of shouting souls had pushed everything out of' the room. 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. It concerned a bewilderment at the German populace claiming ignorance and non-involvement in the Nazi movement. (2019, Dec 05). Situations in which students were pitted against each other In everything from gym to reading. Steve turns and gives a quiet salute. Here are ten bizarre psychology experiments that totally crossed the line. This article is about the social experiment. Strength through understanding Jones instructed the students on how to initiate new members. A German documentary entitled The Invisible Line (Die Geschichte der Welle) debuted on television on December 19, 2019. . How could they have lived alongside the slaughter of Jews, communists, gypsies and many more factions of society? they asked. You won't admit to participating in this madness. The discipline. "Sit down." While Jones taught his students about Nazi Germany during his senior level Contemporary World History class, Jones found it . ", The clincher came quite by accident. "There can't you breath more easily? On Monday, I introduced my sophomore history students to one of the experiences that characterized Nazi Germany. It was rewarding to see their satisfaction and excitement to do more. The act of apology. Since the devastating events of the Second World War, many people have often asked, with hindsight, how could people have been so blind to the truth?. Several friends of mine posing as reporters and photographers began to interact with the crowd taking pictures and jotting frantic descriptive notes. The Third Wave disaster. Edit: here is a video and post of Sherry Tousley describing the assembly in the gym on the last day among other things. The dedicated patience of a scientist in pursuit of an Idea. A new purpose. In the study, an . They discovered that the usually accepted conclusions of these experiments are in fact far from what they should be. Anticipation turned to anxiety and then to frustration. I waited for several minutes to let everyone catch up. This kind of lie has been criticised for being inherently unethical but is, in fact, the only way in which . What does he do now (or after he was fired)? There have been a number of famous psychology experiments that are considered controversial, inhumane, unethical, and even downright cruelhere are five examples. I was in pretty bad shape myself. quite the contrary. It caused a lot of problems at the school because students were not prepared properly to understand what was being taught. "Before turning on the national press conference, which begins in five minutes, I want to demonstrate to the press the extent of our training." This unethical experiment is one of many reasons review boards were created and have made drastic changes in policy over experiments done on humans. Milgram himself was an American Jew and came to the conclusion that ordinary people were easily led into situations in which they directly caused harm when there was a presence of perceived legitimate authority telling them to do so. "Through the experience of the past week we have all tasted what it was like to live and act in Nazi Germany. To make the salute you brought your right hand up toward the right shoulder in a curled position. A new member had only to be recommended by an existing member and issued a card by me. Jones." The feeling of never acting, never being a part of something, never supporting each other. Students must be sitting in class at the attention position before the late bell; all students Must carry pencils and paper for note taking; when asking or answering questions a student must stand at the side of their desk; the first word given in answering or asking a question is "Mr. I enjoyed the unified action demonstrated by the students. On Tuesday, the second day of the exercise, I entered the classroom to find everyone sitting in silence at the attention position. The first congress of the Red Trade Union International at Moscow, 1921. In an embarrassed hug we greet. Not knowing when and if you'd ever see each other again. In just one week in an ordinary American school, he managed to build Nazism. [9] Subsequent articles by other authors followed, some featuring interviews with Jones and the students involved. In this the third day of activity there were forty-three students in the class. Then add two more until finally the whole class was standing and reciting. It was a wild gamble. I discussed the beauty of taking full responsibility for ones action. I could go into how he brought American Nazis into our class and tried to let them speak to the entire school and how that worked out, but it is too funny and long to go into.Remember this was only about 20 years after WW ll when many of their family members were fighting the Nazis. They had committed themselves in front of their peers to radical behavior. Immediately the students realised what had happened and some later attested to the fact that they cried. A blank field of white. I shared this silence with two hundred students. [9] Jones created a salute involving a cupped hand reaching across the chest toward the opposite shoulder,[9] resembling a Hitler salute. If we can change the way that school is run, we can change the way that factories, stores, universities and all the other institutions are run. Many students outside the class asked if they could join. Then it was time to part. And they seemed to want more. The experiment is by far the most unethical one in the field of psychology. [1] Jones wrote a detailed recollection of the experiment some nine years afterward. The room sweat and smelt like a locker room. The subjects were told that they were taking part in a rare experiment studying education. "We can do it!" Some couldnt even move from the shock. You said that Ron was lying. At least he was equal to everyone. He was correct. The march of super race. It was one of the most interesting classes I have ever had. It's a secret I shall share with you.". In the beginning, the students treated the new regime as a game but became more serious once their teacher told them their marks were at stake. I particularly remember Robert. 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. Now the students do their homework to be able to answer Ben Ross questions. Was The Wave Experiment by Ben Ross Succesful. Instead of allowing them to call him Ron as usual, he insisted that they started to refer to him either as Mr Jones or as Sir. To conclude the session on direct action, I instructed students in a simple procedure for initiating new members. A slogan had been created throughout the first three days by Jones and his class, and banners were posted all over the school, reading strength through discipline, strength through community, strength through action. We just stood there exchanging smiles when without a conscious command I raised hand. 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