Ron Jones And The Third Wave Experiment

In 1967 Ron Jones was a history teacher at Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, California. He was a young teacher, only twenty-five at the time, and was well liked by his students. They described his as “handsome, charismatic, enthusiastic, and very supportive of his students.” (Hancock). He encouraged his students to learn in different ways, and he used experiments often to teach. While learning about the world's conditions and events leading up to World War II in Jones’ class Contemporary World, a student asked how could the German people easily follow the Nazis. Instead of giving the student a simple or short answer, Jones decided to teach through experiential learning and created a fascist group called the Third Wave out of his students (DeYoung).
Jones believed that if his students experienced a similar situation much like students in Germany did when they became part of Hitler’s youth, then they would understand why people followed the Nazis (DeYoung). The Third Wave experiment lasted only a week and started from just one class of thirty to about two hundred students (Lesson Plan). Over this single week, Jones
Even faculty members begin to follow The Wave, including the principle, the cook, and school librarian("The Third Wave, 1967"). The whole school seemed to become obsessed with the group, and Jones was able to convince the students that the group became nationwide and there would be an appearance of a group leader on the television (DeYoung). Jones held a member only meeting in the school’s auditorium, where member were told they would watch the group’s leader make an announcement that they were creating a Third Wave Youth Program. Instead, Jones turned on a TV to a blank white screen and left it on that for several minutes. Realising that they were tricked the student were enraged ("The Third Wave,