Lesson Plan (2010)

Jo Ann Wood: Self

Quotes 

• Jo Ann Wood : When I first met Ron Jones I thought, "God he is so young, he's like one of us!"

• Philip Carr Neel : Ron would come to work in just a white shirt and oftentimes without a tie, and roll up his sleeves.

  Joel Amkraut : He was doing innovative things at the time too. He was bringing guests to the class, very interesting, controversial guests: he brought in a communist, he brought in a Klansman, he brought in a member of the American Nazi Party to talk about white supremacy.

  Alyssa Hess : All the way through he was presenting different sides of every question. I remember when we were studied about Vietnam, he made us write 10 arguments for, 10 arguments against,

  Steve Coniglio : He didn't try to be above you, I'd say that Ron Jones had a capacity to teach WITH you.

  Russel Mulock : When he said he did simulations, I realized that's a lot of what he lived for, he liked creating the experience of being there.

  Alyssa Hess : You know, I feel like he was trying to look at the whole picture, always, and try to get us to look at the whole picture, always, with a lot of heart and a lot of passion.

  Jo Ann Wood : It was always exciting, one day you'd go in and the desks would be in a row, and then the next they'd come in and be all spread all over the room.

• Sherry Tousley : I am a big question asker and lo and behold that's what I did, I stood up by my desk and said 'Mr. Jones, why can't we just say what we think? Why can't we just express our opinions of what we think about the Third Wave?' And at that point, he said, 'You to the library for the rest of the semester'.

  Russel Mulock : Things that I do remember happened in my classroom was somebody indeed was sent to the library, that at more than one time, people were banished from the class.

  Philip Carr Neel : You were a hundred percent or you were not, and so if you even had a doubt about something he would say and you mention that, he would send you out.

  Jo Ann Wood : People would just disappear, and that nobody was allowed to even talk about it made it even more mysterious.

  Wendy Brodie : And it's not like you saw them after class or after school and say 'hey what's this all about?'

  Sherry Tousley : So, I went off to the library feeling most dejected and outcast, and really very intimidated, I think I felt like crying. Naively, I had believed him that he had in fact told all the faculty that to collect our names and kick us out, so was fearful to tell the librarian why I was there, but she was really on me. She wanted to 'What are you doing here? You need to be in class'. So I remember just taking a really deep breath and thinking 'Well, I've got to tell her and okay, maybe she turns my name in and I'm already out, I already have the out, so what else can they do?' but it was still very intimidating to me, very much so to tell her. But I did describe to her the nature of the movement as I had come to understand it those first few days, and her response was one of great alarm. She shared with me that she had been born and raised in Nazi Germany and that this was the climate of her upbringing, and she said 'This is so like that, and you can't take this sitting down, you have to do something'. And I knew that I did have to do something, but I just hadn't been able to figure out what on earth that would be; and part of my dilemma in trying to figure it out is try to think what I could do that would have any impact, that I could do in secret. That evening I went home and told my parents about this and I have to give them credit because they said 'Well, what would you like to do?', and the thing that came to my mind immediately was to make posters. About 8:30 in the evening, my father would drive me over to the high school campus, this was a very warm climate in Palo Alto so all the hallways were outdoors, and I could just go and put up posters and so for that first night I just felt like 'Yes, I'm doing something'. When I arrived at school the next morning between first and second hours I thought 'I'm just going to take a quick spin around the school and just admire my handiwork and just see my posters'. Much to my astonishment, there was not a single poster up. So I saw that within an hour of school starting, someone had been in charge of sweeping the school to make sure there was nothing negative about the Third Wave anywhere, and they'd torn down every poster.

  Ron Jones : I don't remember asking a student to take down posters, per se.

  Sherry Tousley : The next night I went home after school and repeated my poster making obsession behavior and took a ladder to the school the next day. Each evening that became the practice, to lug a ladder to the school so I would get the posters up just as high as I could, and even then many of the posters still came down. I guess people would jump up and grab them, but there were some that stayed up, which was my secret and sort of silent triumph.