Talk:The Third Wave (experiment)

message: I've read the novel of this, but don't know what really happened and what was fiction, but somebody who is familiar with the actual experiment should fill in more details of how far it went - in the novel, for example, it turned really nasty at the end (like the SS or the Hitler youth sort of mentality), and I was wondering if more could be added about the real event. Saccerzd 18:56, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Expansion 

message: I think the Palo Alto Times may have had additional articles about this event, but since the paper no longer exists (and I don't live locally there anyway), I'm not sure if archives exist or where they might be.  (Maybe the Stanford library or the Palo Alto Historical Association or the Palo Alto Library).  This might be a possibility for future research.  The Times used to have a high-times section on Thursday nights that might be a starting point, although this event could have found its way into other local news.  Ron Jones and the controversy regarding his termination/resignation in 1969 are also mentioned in "Hassling", by Sylvia Berry Williams;Publisher: Little Brown & Co. (1970), as well as in numerous editions of the Cubberley Catamount.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.123.103.204 (talk) 03:06, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Additional Possible Sources of Contemporary Data 

message: The movie adaptions are described twice. Vaste (talk) 17:56, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  list of movies 

message: Hello,
This year, some French students (from Grenoble) worked on this experiment during a lecture on zététique. In addition to bring new thoughts (in French, but I can help to translate if needed), there is the transcription of emails they exchanged with two former students of Ron Jones (in English). This might help to contribute to this page.
http://cortecs.org/a-la-une/best-of-des-meilleurs-dossiers-z-du-semestre-22-mai-2016/attachment/cortex_zadi_22-10_la_vague_clerec_conjard_masso_uliana_vattier/
Clement.analogue (talk) 12:32, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Numerous sources are listed here: http://www.thewavehome.com/chronology.htm. Mathglot (talk) 22:51, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Additional source 

message: I'm not sure I have a better term to describe what went on in Jones's classroom in a single word, but 'Experiment' seems like the wrong one.  My guess is that it took on that name much later, by analogy with the famous Stanford Prison Experiment which was an actual psychology experiment conducted in 1971, and which may even have been influenced by the Third Wave classroom events which occurred just a few miles away four years earlier.
When I think of high school experiments, I think about teacher-planned scientific experiments in physics, biology, or chemistry that have hypotheses to prove, and a particular, desired outcome known in advance and used as a teaching method.
The Third Wave was certainly nothing like that.  Neither is it a dramatization, like a play or sketch with rehearsed lines, or even ad libbed lines within a fixed format.  Rather, even Jones seemed not to know where it was going at any particular moment, but rather (to continue his metaphor) he surfed along the surface of the wave, to see how it was evolving and to attempt to stay on top of it from moment to moment as it did.  It's a bit like a workshop, although even that seems too structured and pre-planned a format for the unplanned and evolving nature of what actually occurred.
I'm not so concerned about the parenthetical (experiment) in the article title, but rather about calling it an "experiment" in the text of the article, since it isn't one.  But I'm not sure what word would be better, and I'd welcome suggestions to improve this.  Mathglot (talk) 02:05, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Jones tested a hypothesis on his captive audience. He induced behaviour and introduced ideas to see what would happen. That is, by any definition, an experiment. Granted, high school experiments should be properly planned and regulated, but the execution of the work doesn't change the definition. Fiddlersmouth (talk) 03:28, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not an experiment 

message: In Chronology > Third Day
"All of the students showed drastic improvement in their academic skills and tremendous motivation."
What's the evidence for this? After only 3 days how would anyone measure an improvement in overall academic skills? This seems to be an unsupported - and extremely unlikely -  claim. If the teacher running the Third Wave phenomenon (it sems inaccurate to call it an experiment) saw improved scores on a quiz or something similar it would be evidence that would support a more modest claim of improvement.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:184:C302:4E88:4A4:8CFF:663:F16E (talk) 18:34, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, and if this was only 1 history class, surely the teacher did not see them more than AT MOST 4 hours each day? Vegard (talk) 23:58, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hyperbole 

message: The wikipage (section Chronology -> Fourth day) implies the event started on Monday and ended on Friday (the fourth day is said to have been Thursday). The page also states that it happened during the first week of April 1967 (section Background to the Third Wave experiment). That would mean that the experiment was held from 1967-04-03 to 1967-04-07.
However, one of the sources, Cubberley Catamount issue published on Friday 1967-04-07, states on page 5 (PDF page 11) bottom right, that the experiment actually concluded Wednesday: "The Great Third Wave crashed to a final conclusion Wednesday with the loyal ones sitting in the dark, listening to the "Fuehrer"--static from a TV set!"--Superbee29 (talk) 18:21, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inconsistent time 

message: In the carry over paragraph and later in this article (2 links):
http://www.cubberleycatamount.com/Content/69-70/Catamount%20Pages/V14No10%2019700304/Page1.pdf
http://www.cubberleycatamount.com/Content/69-70/Catamount%20Pages/V14No10%2019700304/Page5.pdf
it clearly indicates Jones' was sympathetic to the Black Panthers and gave them material support. Shouldn't this be mentioned in the article (and his personal Wiki page), since most of the information about the experiment are observations and interpretations by himself?
:If Jones supported the (Militaristic Armed Activist) Black Panther movement, and created and published about an experiment trying to prove to (White?) Society they should not start an organisation with similar characteristics, than that makes me wonder about his real motifs. Are there any scholarly studies on this subject? Because this article is cripple without that insight into his character, beliefs and motives.77.60.121.89 (talk) 08:46, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: In this article, Jones implies he's a member of the Students for a Democratic Society. Again, shouldn't this indicate a possible bias, in a desire to show everyone is a potential Nazi and thus encourage his students (and later, readers, and watchers of the TV show, film, and musical, wherever performed), to swing to the Left wing to avoid becoming Nazis? http://www.cubberleycatamount.com/Content/67-68/Catamount%20Pages/V12No6/671208.pdf Phantom in ca (talk) 04:46, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ron Jones bias -- SDS member and Black Panther supporter 

message: The funny thing is- there was a radical Maoist movement in the area called ‘Venceremos’ that exhibited many of these same traits, sneering at freedom as a ‘bourgeois conception’.Did Jones ever remark on this? No record of it. 2A00:23C5:E097:5D00:C1C5:69D:52B0:6E70 (talk) 22:46, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Bias

message: The Authoritarian Personality had a huge influence after its publication. Did Jones know about it? read it? want to test it to see if or to demonstrate that, under the right conditions, most/all people will become fascists? 
If anyone knows of such a connection, please add it to the article.
Phantom in ca (talk) 20:20, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Authoritarian Personality: motivation/purpose of the experiment? 

message: What I miss in this entire article are two aspects:
- How did parents and society respond to early after the experiment. For instance: Did they consider it ethical to conduct an experiment like this on children. Did parents withdraw their children from school;
- What happened afterwards with the children that fell in the trap of this experiment. Did they have to leave school, or have to move because of how others "ethically" responded to them afterwards. 
This article is incomplete, and in my opinion invalid, without a description the aftermath, of the direct, mid- and long-term consequences, of this experiment on those children and local society.77.60.121.89 (talk) 08:06, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Those are good points and the article would be better with that information. Have you found any reliable sources that actually address those aspects? If so, please post them here. Schazjmd (talk) 15:07, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Follow Up