The wave by Morton Rhue – Penguin publisher

The wave was written by Morton Rhue and was first published in 1981. It is based on a true incident that occurred in a high school history class in Palo alto, California, in 1969.

Ben Ross, history teacher, has been teaching at Gordon High for the past two years. He’s quite a popular teacher but his methods tend to divide people’s opinion. Ben’s students spoke of his intensity, the way he got so interested and involved in a topic that they couldn’t help but be interested also. Ross´s fellow faculty members were somewhat more divided in their feelings about him. Some of them were impressed with his energy and dedication and creativity. It was said that he brought a new outlook to his classes, that whenever possible, he tried to teach his students the practical, relevant aspects of history. But other members of staff were more sceptical about Ben. Some said he was just young, naïve, and over-zealous, that after a few years he would calm down and start conducting classes the “right” way- lots of reading, weekly quizzes, classroom lectures. This is a brief description of Ben’s personality, but it tells a lot about his way of teaching.

One day, during an history lesson, while he was explaining what took place in Germany between 1939 and 1945, Ben Ross decided to show his students a movie about the work of a man named Adolf Hitler. Before showing the movie, he explained who this man was, what he knew about his social and political background, and how did he become the leader of the Nazy Party. Students “could see the gaz chamber now, and the piles of bodies laid out like stove wood. The humans’ skeletons still alive had the gruesome task of stacking the dead under the watching eyes of the Nazi soldiers.” After the projection, many of the students were upset. They all looked stunned and started questioning their teacher: “Where all the Germans Nazis?”, “How could you slaughter ten million people without somebody noticing ?”, “How could they do that ?”, “How could they even say that ?”…

From that point, Ben Ross was intrigued by the questions the kids in his history class had asked him after the film. It made him wonder. He was wondering why he hadn’t been able to give the students adequate answers to their questions. Was the behaviour of the majority of Germans during the Nazi regime really so inexplicable?

After reading through a number of books and making a list of questions he could barely find the real answers, Ben Ross came up with a plan. A lesson plan: try an experiment. Just try to give his students a sampling, a taste of what life in Nazi Germany might have been like.

From that point, he started changing his teaching style. First step was to write in large letters across the blackboard : STRENGTH THROUGH DISCIPLINE…But then, what would come next ?

I chose that book without reading what is says on the back cover. I was very much intrigued by the title and the picture of the giant hand holding a bunch of students, all dressed in normal black school uniform without being able to see what their faces would be like. Once I opened it, I couldn’t stop reading it. There are seventeen chapter and an afterword note by the end saying that in addition to the novel, The Wave has been made into one-hour television show for ABC by Virginia L. Carter.

The point of the teacher was to teach his students a lesson without just delivering or remembering facts and data’s but by going through all experience of being manipulated by a leader. That involves put on a uniform, having a name and a symbol for the community, giving the salute, give mottoes…It was a very risky experience, but you can see as you read along the story that it’s slowly going too far.

However, the point of the teacher was to make his students responsible for their own actions rather than blindly follow a leader. What was interesting is that the teacher says it’s been a painful lesson for him too. He became more of a leader than he intended to be. He did not expect the wave to be out of control at some point.

This is the purpose of the book: to show how powerful forces of group pressures can persuade people to join such movements and give up their individual rights in the process. In my opinion this book should be read by anyone who wants to know more history, so they understand how important and crucial it is to think independently.