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3.48 AVERAGE
3.48 AVERAGE
I read this book and then I had watched the movie. The book was interesting but it was written to be more interesting by dramatizing the events in a slight way. I really didn't like that it was dramatized I did wish that the book stuck closer to the real life events. I do still recomend this book if you like books that talk about World War 2.
challenging
informative
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
The famous experiment with high school kids demonstrating how easy it was and is to lose yourself to fascism is dramatized in Strausser’s adaptation. Children's and teen literature tend to move/jump in quickly and also be shorter in length. The Wave is 130 pages and it demonstrates, again, the steep and disturbingly willing decline into fascism one can fall for if it’s packaged correctly.
A student says that the Germans were evil, blind, or stupid to fall for Hitler’s regime. Some time later, the teacher forms a group revolving vague ideas of community strength and discipline, assigns monitors to keep tabs on other members, discourages dissent, free thinking, and questions, and even creates a salute. The “Third Wave” regime spreads and the effects are positive in some places and negative in others. Even the (fictive portrayal of the) teacher, knowing the nazi twist he was trying to pull, gets swept up in how much improved the students seem, how respectful, punctual, prideful, and unified. There are lurking thoughts here and there about how not right this all seems. People are being pressured to align with the group and shortly after, violence breaks out. The students feel vindicated in anything being part of a powerful collective with common goals; then their bubble is burst. In less than a week, not only did the students get their question answered, they lived it. The real-life students these portrayals are based on still remember that week in detail decades later and can still readily perform the salute. Although shut down by the parents and school board, this should be a necessary exercise every so often under guidelines and regulations. Since that’s never going to happen, this book should be taught instead. Although, maybe the message needs to be a bit more heavy-handed.
The teacher at some points introspects about how surprised he is that the Wave caught on and that he laments its eventual end in part because the students will no longer be punctual and disciplined when the experiment ends. I can’t decide whether he lost sight of the point or had never grasped it to begin with. He could have used these things as part of the lesson. Of course suppression would spread as the trend fanned out across the school-- fascism is catching and being part of the in-group is intoxicating! Make that a chapter in the final assembly. And as the students descend into lackadaisicalness, the lesson there could have been that not all public-facing aspects of the Third Reich were deplorable. They espoused old-fashioned values; the domestic woman and the hard-working man who can make the nation great by devoting themselves to it. The students throwing themselves into the Wave had to do so by pledging discipline and obedience to their teachers. The teachers could have embraced their role as authoritarians and pointed out in the end how easy it is to hide behind “a teacher/officer told me to do it” instead of taking responsibility when someone is hurt. Mr Ross could have put in a stipulation: “if there is a successful revolution, the whole class will get an A”, and revolution or not, used the subsequent classes to teach his classes about successful revolutions throughout history (though I understand this might have tainted his ‘subjects’; giving them the knowledge that complete dissent is a goal, a path to an A, and a good thing/perhaps what the teacher wants). Further, I think it’s a little bit of a cop-out that Ross whips out that video of Hitler and declares “He is your leader!” If I were the teacher in that scenario, I would have continued the ruse, “It is spreading across the nation!” doing the Wave salute while Hitler waved his Roman one behind me and waited for dissent to come. Even if no one loudly opposed, if just one student gets up and goes for the door, THAT’S the moment I would end the experiment. Or better yet, I wouldn’t conduct such an experiment on children. This feels like a college-aged exercise if it should even be replicated at all. Studied and understood? Absolutely. Although some of the conversations feel a bit rudimentary in their reasoning, I can appreciate that the target audience is middle graders, and that this isn’t the actual account of the real experiment that happened in the 80s. Boy would I love to pick that teacher’s brains; I bet he has interviews I could watch! Anyway, I’d say this book does what it sets out to do: make kids think.
Here are some more folks thinking about this book/experiment that are worth a watch.
This High School Turned Into a Fascist Regime in 5 Days
https://youtu.be/-KuztwCLaeE?si=FUc0m4BkRfqGEElS
The Wave: A School Experiment Gone Wrong
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ-wPUBattg&ab_channel=CheyenneLin
A student says that the Germans were evil, blind, or stupid to fall for Hitler’s regime. Some time later, the teacher forms a group revolving vague ideas of community strength and discipline, assigns monitors to keep tabs on other members, discourages dissent, free thinking, and questions, and even creates a salute. The “Third Wave” regime spreads and the effects are positive in some places and negative in others. Even the (fictive portrayal of the) teacher, knowing the nazi twist he was trying to pull, gets swept up in how much improved the students seem, how respectful, punctual, prideful, and unified. There are lurking thoughts here and there about how not right this all seems. People are being pressured to align with the group and shortly after, violence breaks out. The students feel vindicated in anything being part of a powerful collective with common goals; then their bubble is burst. In less than a week, not only did the students get their question answered, they lived it. The real-life students these portrayals are based on still remember that week in detail decades later and can still readily perform the salute. Although shut down by the parents and school board, this should be a necessary exercise every so often under guidelines and regulations. Since that’s never going to happen, this book should be taught instead. Although, maybe the message needs to be a bit more heavy-handed.
The teacher at some points introspects about how surprised he is that the Wave caught on and that he laments its eventual end in part because the students will no longer be punctual and disciplined when the experiment ends. I can’t decide whether he lost sight of the point or had never grasped it to begin with. He could have used these things as part of the lesson. Of course suppression would spread as the trend fanned out across the school-- fascism is catching and being part of the in-group is intoxicating! Make that a chapter in the final assembly. And as the students descend into lackadaisicalness, the lesson there could have been that not all public-facing aspects of the Third Reich were deplorable. They espoused old-fashioned values; the domestic woman and the hard-working man who can make the nation great by devoting themselves to it. The students throwing themselves into the Wave had to do so by pledging discipline and obedience to their teachers. The teachers could have embraced their role as authoritarians and pointed out in the end how easy it is to hide behind “a teacher/officer told me to do it” instead of taking responsibility when someone is hurt. Mr Ross could have put in a stipulation: “if there is a successful revolution, the whole class will get an A”, and revolution or not, used the subsequent classes to teach his classes about successful revolutions throughout history (though I understand this might have tainted his ‘subjects’; giving them the knowledge that complete dissent is a goal, a path to an A, and a good thing/perhaps what the teacher wants). Further, I think it’s a little bit of a cop-out that Ross whips out that video of Hitler and declares “He is your leader!” If I were the teacher in that scenario, I would have continued the ruse, “It is spreading across the nation!” doing the Wave salute while Hitler waved his Roman one behind me and waited for dissent to come. Even if no one loudly opposed, if just one student gets up and goes for the door, THAT’S the moment I would end the experiment. Or better yet, I wouldn’t conduct such an experiment on children. This feels like a college-aged exercise if it should even be replicated at all. Studied and understood? Absolutely. Although some of the conversations feel a bit rudimentary in their reasoning, I can appreciate that the target audience is middle graders, and that this isn’t the actual account of the real experiment that happened in the 80s. Boy would I love to pick that teacher’s brains; I bet he has interviews I could watch! Anyway, I’d say this book does what it sets out to do: make kids think.
Here are some more folks thinking about this book/experiment that are worth a watch.
This High School Turned Into a Fascist Regime in 5 Days
https://youtu.be/-KuztwCLaeE?si=FUc0m4BkRfqGEElS
The Wave: A School Experiment Gone Wrong
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ-wPUBattg&ab_channel=CheyenneLin
This novel really caught me, I was not able to put it away until it was finished and I'm definitely going to read it again in the next couple of weeks, because it does need time to process... the story was almost scary to read and to see how easy it is to manipulate people and change them almost completely through small changes, how humans would almost do anything to belong to a group and how easily we ourselves would probably be manipulated without realising.
The fact, that this book is based on true events only makes it scarier.
but I would definitely recommend everyone to read this book.
The fact, that this book is based on true events only makes it scarier.
but I would definitely recommend everyone to read this book.
challenging
informative
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Suicide, Colonisation
Moderate: Violence, Antisemitism
Minor: Genocide, Hate crime, Racism, War
Commento a caldo.
Aspettative largamente deluse.
Un romanzo brevissimo che cerca di mandare un messaggio forte ma che fallisce nello stile, così blando che manca quasi totalmente di pathos, e nella gestione dei personaggi, poco più che dei cartonati. Per non parlare delle vicende, spesso appena accennate.
Il professore è un incosciente ed è imperdonabile che un insegnante di storia non si accorga di quali possano essere le conseguenze di un esperimento sociale di questo tipo, ma capisco che le cose debbano andare così affinché passi il messaggio.
La scena dell'auditorium mi è parsa, oltre che prevedibile, affettata tanto quanto le vicende precedenti. Mi sarei aspettata da Robert una reazione diversa, più violenta.
Aspettative largamente deluse.
Un romanzo brevissimo che cerca di mandare un messaggio forte ma che fallisce nello stile, così blando che manca quasi totalmente di pathos, e nella gestione dei personaggi, poco più che dei cartonati. Per non parlare delle vicende, spesso appena accennate.
Il professore è un incosciente ed è imperdonabile che un insegnante di storia non si accorga di quali possano essere le conseguenze di un esperimento sociale di questo tipo, ma capisco che le cose debbano andare così affinché passi il messaggio.
La scena dell'auditorium mi è parsa, oltre che prevedibile, affettata tanto quanto le vicende precedenti. Mi sarei aspettata da Robert una reazione diversa, più violenta.
définitivement plus intéressant que le cours sur les théories de clausewitz
informative
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
informative
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes