The classroom guards, symbolic armbands and secret salutes carried out by members of an elite student movement at Cubberley High School in Palo Alto may have ended decades ago, but that brief, ominous week in April 1967 when a history lesson took an unexpected turn continues to have worldwide impact on the eve of its 50th anniversary.
The Third Wave began as an experiment in the classroom of first-year history teacher Ron Jones to simulate fascism in World War II and demonstrate to skeptical students how the Nazi Party rose to power. Over five days, the movement took on a life of its own as it spread from the 30 sophomores in Jones’ homeroom class to more than 200 students from all three high schools in the Palo Alto school district eager to pledge allegiance to a social movement that promised acceptance and reward to those who obediently followed its rigid rules.
“It started out as a fun game with the most popular teacher at school,” said Mark Hancock, one of the students in Jones’ Contemporary World History homeroom class. “He told us, ‘If you’re an active participant, I’ll give you an A; if you just go along with it, I’ll give you a C; if you try a revolution, I’ll give you an F, but if your revolution succeeds, I’ll give you an A.’
“I was a mischievous 15-year-old, and I remember right away, I wanted to be one of those revolutionaries who got an A. … But it went well beyond (grades) pretty quickly, and at the end, I was scared to death.”
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