Film Documents Holocaust Motivation Experiment

Speaker Mark Hancock discusses his role in the Third Wave experiment.  (Photo by John Hamilton)

On November 13, the UCBA History Club, along with the UCBA Behavioral Science Department, and The Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education, sponsored a screening of the documentary film “The Lesson Plan,” about a social experiment performed at Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, California in April 1967. 

After the showing there was a brief conversation with Mark Hancock, who was a student at Cubberley.  Hancock talked about his first hand experience with the event. 

The experiment was known as “The Third Wave,” which was conducted by educator Ron Jones on three of classes at Cubberley High School.  Jones wanted to understand how the German people could so easily follow Hitler during World War II without doing much to stop him. 

In the experiment Jones made the students dress a certain way and follow a new set of rules.  The students obliged without question due to their trust of him. 

Jones then held an assembly where he announced that the new leader would be revealed on a television set.  After minutes of waiting, it was revealed that Adolf Hitler was their leader.  It was then the students realized how the Germans fell under his grip.

During the session at UCBA, Hancock explained how many of them felt uncomfortable but given the times they were in they trusted their teacher. 

“Vietnam was right around the corner for us,” Hancock stated, “and [President Lyndon] Johnson was supposed to lead us away from the war, but he didn’t.  So many of us were looking for a new leader.” 

Hancock also said that the experience left many of the participating students in shock and disbelief that they had fallen into blindly following without question. 

“I wanted to speak up and do something,” he explained, “but I did too little too late.”