The kids in Mr. Jones’s class were always having fun.

It’s not that the sophomore World History course was easy or that Mr. Jones was not a disciplinarian, no. It’s just that for most high school classes, you walk out and pretty much forget about that subject until you have to go back to class the next day. But that wasn’t the case with this particular class. Mr. Jones made the subject interesting. The kids would talk about what they had discussed that day at lunch, during recess, after school, and on weekends. Mr. Jones was one of those teachers whose lessons stayed with his students years after they left his classroom.

In 1967, Ron Jones was facing a challenge. His kids were having a hard time relating to his lessons. Now, remember that the 1960s was a decade where American young people were questioning, well, pretty much every convention in that society. Choices about clothing, hair styles, music, sexuality, and gender roles as well as racial relations were called into question. The anti-war movement, which many saw as an anti-establishment movement, was growing as the decade wore on an more Americans and Vietnamese were being killed and wounded. So, Mr. Jones had a hard sell to convince his pupils that history was important.

One day, at the beginning of class, Mr. Jones wrote on the chalkboard, in big letters, STRENGTH THROUGH DISCIPLINE. He then ordered the students to sit at attention when they took their seats until he gave them permission to sit at ease. When asking questions, the students were required to stand and to preface each question with, “Mr. Jones, sir,” before composing a short question. Rather than bristle under these new rules, the kids loved it. It was like a game, one said later, and it was different and new to them. Day two of the new order, Jones wrote STRENGTH THROUGH COMMUNITY, began lecturing on the dangers of individualism, and said that he wanted the students to become part of what he claimed was a national youth movement called The Third Wave. He said that kids all across the nation were getting exited about the new movement, and that they found peace and happiness by rejecting personal goals and achievements for the sake of the greater good. The students, who first thought of the new rules as a lark, began to quietly and respectfully listen to what Mr. Jones was saying. You could see that they were soaking it in, Jones reported later.

Day three saw a new slogan on the board: STRENGTH THROUGH ACTION. Jones passed out membership cards, thereby making the group somewhat “exclusive.” He told three of the students to secretly report to him when fellow students weren’t following the rules. Surprisingly, over twenty students made secret reports of rule breaking to Jones. Also, he heard that some of the students at the school who weren’t in the class were interested in joining the movement, and he agreed that these other students could join but had to pass specific tests to insure that they, too, would follow the rules. What had started as a class of 30 soon grew to over 200 students in the school who joined the New Wave movement.

Mr. Jones was facing some pushback. Some students who weren’t part of the New Wave complained that they weren’t allowed to join. Parents of kids in the class had called the school expressing concern because their children were quoting Jones to them, quoting the three slogans, and had changed their behavior at home. They were more involved in the family the past few days, they reported, and were concerned that Jones had started some sort of a cult. The students were actually eager to go to school, they said. One student, a large kid on the football team, volunteered to act as a bodyguard for Jones in case there was any trouble. It was all getting out of hand.

So, Jones called an assembly of all the New Wave members. He said that a national announcement would be made on Television that day, and that they would be able to watch it live on a TV set up in the auditorium. Student guards were placed at each entrance to insure that only card-carrying members of the New Wave would be admitted. At the beginning of the assembly, some of the New Wave students started chanting the three slogans over and over. Finally, when it was time for the broadcast, Jones turned on the TV to show…a blank screen.

Then, as the students watched eagerly, Jones started a film on the large screen behind the TV. It was a Nazi propaganda film. That’s when Jones announced that the students had been involved in an experiment. He apologized if anyone was hurt or if the experiment had caused harsh feelings between friends or family.

But he had taught a lesson his students would never forget: It’s oh so easy for a society so slip into fascism.