The (Third) Wave

If I had to pick one single thing that had the most dramatic and long-lasting effect on me (other than very personal stuff like losing my husband or mom or brother, falling in love, etc.) it would probably be seeing The (Third) Wave in school.


The (Third) Wave was an experiment by a high school teacher, Ron Jones, in Palo Alto, CA in 1967.  Years after it all happened, Mr. Jones wrote of his experiment in a short story called The Third Wave, published nationally in 1976 as Take as Directed in an alternative publication called the Whole Earth Review.  From there, the story was embraced worldwide, reprinted in its original form and used as the basis for various dramatizations, including Todd Strasser's novel pictured on the left. 


*In 1981, Norman Lear made a television adaptation of Jones' original story simply called The Wave.  The movie is described by the publishers as follows:


"A thought-provoking dramatization of an actual classroom experiment on individualism vs. conformity in which a high school teacher formed his own "Reich" (called "The Wave") to show why the German people could so willingly embrace Nazism. This unflinching yet sensitive 1981 Emmy Award-winner raises critical questions: When does dedication to a group cross the line from loyalty to fanaticism? Does power corrupt? What is the nature of propaganda and mass persuasion? Can something like the Nazi Holocaust happen again? Grades 7-12. Color. 46 minutes."

The Wave won the 1981 Emmy for Outstanding Children's Program and the 1981 Peabody Award.

Before seeing this movie/documentary/adaptation, you probably couldn't have convinced me it could happen again - in any shape or form. Especially in the U.S.  I was shocked and deeply affected. My entire perspective changed that day - it was as if I'd been looking at the world through a knothole in a fence, thinking I was seeing the whole thing and suddenly, I was lifted up so I could see over the fence - take in the entire view.  It was earth-shattering in my tiny little world.

Unfortunately, since then I find myself reminded of that film often. Maybe it isn't on that same scale, but it's there in all its ugliness. This is going to sound completely random and silly, but it's one of the reasons I watch Big Brother. I am convinced that people really ARE "like that." Big Brother is like a microcosm of society.  It's sped up and filmed (creative editing aside) so that it's much more apparent how humans can be. It's magnified and therefore easily recognizable. Or so you'd think.  And yet people STILL will say "people aren't really like that," "these people are not normal," "I would never behave like that!"  Yeah, right.

Obviously, with so much Pollyanna still left in me, I can also see the good in people, but the ugliness should never be ignored. I think that's why I watch Big Brother still - to remind myself. So that I am NEVER again a part of that type of behavior - even on a small scale.  I say "again" because it HAS happened, as ashamed as I am to admit it. I've been guilty of "piling on" - or at the very least NOT speaking up when I saw others piling on. One person in your group decides they don't like someone, usually The Narcissist, so that someone becomes The Target. From that moment on, no matter what The Target does, it's ridiculed, twisted, taken out of context. I've seen it happen. Frequently.

As long as there are still "mean girls," narcissists, sociopaths and people who just can't or won't think for themselves, this type of behavior will always exist.  Usually it's on a small scale, but to the target, it's always major. Unless you really watch for it, the individual components may seem benign, but I guarantee it won't seem benign if/when it happens to you.

I'm attaching the YouTube videos if any of you would like to see it again.

Part One

Part Two

*taken from www.thewave.tk

Teachers, Herding Cats and the Pear Tree

"If you can read this, thank a teacher." ~unknown
"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops."  ~Henry Brooks Adams


We've all heard these, and many more. And seen the bumper stickers. But how often do we really stop and think about it anymore?


I don't have children, so I can only relate with my four-legged "kids." But if you ever tried to teach them something, you quickly realized that it's not as easy as it looks!


When I think back on all the great teachers I had in my life, I realize how blessed I was. I have friends with children in school and hear about the problems they are having today.  I'd like to think that it wasn't always as HARD to be a teacher as it seems to be now, but because I had a child's perspective at the time, I can't really say.  I am pretty sure red tape and odd legislation and "office politics" were always there to some degree.


Now, I'm no genius (well I don't feel like one and since my IQ is high, I think I don't put as much stock in IQ scores as some do. Regardless of what the scores say, I KNOW how ignorant I can be! Anyone can be born with a "big bucket" and not enough EQ to ever put anything in it) but I do think my teachers did a fantastic job.  I don't specifically remember how spastic we all probably were at each age, but I'd bet it was akin to trying to herd cats.


While I can't really blame my lame fourth grade math teacher (who liked to eat raw onions in class and look up little girls dresses) for my inability to add 2 and 2 and always come up with four, I certainly CAN attribute my love of reading, spelling, grammar, language arts, etc. to the great teachers in my past.  Though that math teacher probably, inadvertently, started me on my lifelong love of communication using analogies.  His father was my social studies and handwriting teacher and was the most lovely man!  After watching The Bad Seed I realized the whole "skips a generation" thing might just apply.  My first analogy. 


It all started with my first grade teacher, Miss H.  I can't really count my kindergarten teacher, though I am sure there was a life lesson somewhere in there. Don't eat paste? She was the wife of the school superintendent and frequently came to class, um, tipsy? But Miss H somehow found the exact combination to my brain and instilled in me a love of reading and literature that remains strong to this day. Too bad she couldn't have implanted some sort of "fantastic writer" gene while she was in there tinkering around. By fifth grade, I was devouring anything written in English I could find.  And along came Mr. W. He was an energy ball, madly in love with literature - practically bounced off the walls, he did! The excitement was contagious and he taught me that no matter how "difficult" some things seemed to read and understand, they really didn't have to be intimidating.  He had the most unique way of cutting right to the heart of things. He took Ye Olde William Shakespeare and broke it down to a phrase I will NEVER forget.  He would be involved in the most serious, dramatic reading of Romeo and Juliet - a performance that would bring you to tears..."wherefore art thou, Romeo?" Seriously, I'd nearly be in tears. Then suddenly, in a totally different voice, he'd make a bullhorn with his hands and shout "I'm over here in a pear tree!!!"  At which point, (after we all quit laughing hysterically) he would explain how to work out the difference in language and figure out that "wherefore art thou" didn't REALLY mean "where are you."  


Then Miss H and Mr. W married EACH OTHER!  I was totally freaked out by that.  Not sure if I just hadn't realized that teachers had personal lives outside school or not, but that did it.  I mean really!  It was right up there with walking in or your parents or something!


As the years passed, more fantastic teachers would build on what we'd already learned. How they put up with some of us, I'll never know.  (Not ME, of course. I was a DREAM student. *giggle*) But whatever recognition they might receive could never really be enough.  


So Mr. and Mrs. Wilcher, Ms. Held, Mr. Waters, Mrs. Kramer, among many others, THANK YOU!!  Thank you for putting up with pittance when you deserved a mint and for "herding cats" without killing us.  Thank you for caring.

Franklin School

Me and Mrs. Kramer - all grown up.

Memories

Memories are funny creatures. They slip up on you unexpectedly through a song or a scent, tickling that special someplace in your brain or heart.  Sometimes you react with a smile and sometimes with a lone tear trickling down your cheek.

Memories can't always be forced.  Oddly, the things you try to recall hover just out of your mental grasp.  That's not always a bad thing, though.  Sometimes I wonder if our brains protect us from certain things. There are pleasant memories that are always good to recall, not so pleasant ones that serve us well and then there are the unpleasant memories that serve no purpose in our current lives.  For instance, I was just spending some time on Facebook. It's not a place I spend a lot of time, but it's not nearly as ominous as I thought initially. While I was there, I started looking at friends and friends of friends and "friend recommendations."  Some of the people, I recognized from over 25 years ago. Tell City, Indiana. Newman Elementary, Tell City High School, Tell City Pretzel. (Oh how I wish I had a Tell City Pretzel right now!)  Memories started flooding back - of people and places, sights and sounds and smells and songs. Dragging Main and Carriage Inn Pizza.

As I perused the list of people with whom I obviously went to school, I remembered some of them vividly and some were so vague that only the name was familiar. I sent a few "friend requests" to ones I remembered well and hesitated at a few. What I realized was that I couldn't quite remember, of the ones who were barely familiar, who were the "mean girls," the boys who picked on me and the bullies. Isn't it great that we remember the good things more clearly than we remember the bad?  What curiously wonderful brains we have!

Yes, memories are funny creatures.

I still remember the smell of the freshly mown grass from that day.

Flood Wall, Tell City, IN

Perry County Courthouse, Tell City, IN

Random tree in Tell City - I was just happy it wasn't a palm tree!

Franklin School, Tell City, IN

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Holidays

Photo from chicagofree.info

When I was a kid, I thought holidays should be like in the movies or on TV.  They never were. So I decided when I grew up, I would MAKE them like the movies and TV.  I bet you can all guess how well THAT worked out. What I didn't take into consideration was that movies and TV aren't real life. A lesson it would do well for all children to learn at an early age.

I didn't go to a barbeque today to celebrate the 4th, but I have come to realize that you make your own happiness, whether it be on a holiday like today, or a big one like Christmas.

What did my happiness consist of today?  Well, I spent time with my loved ones and my fabulously entertaining and loving dogs, Murphy and Twinkie and that always makes for a great day. Also, oddly, I've come to look forward to the Twilight Zone marathons the SyFy channel shows on "minor" holidays. I just love those old episodes and there's at least one episode every holiday that I find I haven't seen.  Some I've seen 20 times and I still love them.  Rod Serling was a GENIUS!

My favorite this year?

The Invaders (1961) as usual.  It's always one of my favorites because Agnes Moorehead's performance is stellar. She utters not one word in the entire episode and yet each action, facial expression and gesture speaks volumes - tells every bit of the story that needs telling. In my opinion, she is one of the most underrated performers of the 20th century. I'm ever so slightly sad that most people only remember her as Endora, Samantha's mother on Bewitched. Not that she wasn't good in that show, she was. And it was one of my favorite shows growing up! But you only need watch The Big Street (1942) or The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) or Johnny Belinda (1948) to discover her tremendous talent.

Other Twilight Zone favorites include:  Time Enough at Last (1959) with Burgess Merideth, A Matter of Minutes, which was part of The New Twilight Zone in 1986 (which they RARELY show) and A Kind of Stop Watch (1963.)

And those that teach us important lessons:  The Monsters are Due on Maple Street (1960) with Claude Akins , People Are Alike All Over (1960) with Roddy McDowell, The Eye of the Beholder (1960) with Donna Douglas and I Am the Night - Color Me Black (1964) with George Lindsey.

So I've had a very relaxing, enjoyable Independence Day.

Thanks Rod, whatever dimension you're in now.

*insert Twilight Zone theme music here*