Milgram

In 1961 a social psychologist, Dr. Milgram, conducted a study on people's obedience to authority and how far someone will go inflicting damage/pain on another person just because an authority told them to do so. He was studying things like how Hitler was able to led and direct Germans do carry out his plan without much dissent (much of it was fear, but Milgram thought and obedience to authority was the rest).

He had 40 people in the study, these 40 had to teach a list of word-pairs (yellow flower, strong coffee, etc) to a "learner" (actually an actor) and then later on test the learner's memory. If the learner got a question wrong, the teacher had to administer an electric shock (starting at 15 volts and going to a lethal 450 volts) because the authority had told them the experiment required them to do so.

Of the 40 participants, 26 went all the way to giving the fatal 450 volt shock (the learner wasn't actually hooked up to the electric shock machine - but the teacher thought they were), 14 quit before that point.

Today I discussed Milgram and dedicated the day's lesson to his study on obedience. I told my students it was a memory study and lied to them just like Milgram lied to his participants. In the process, without them realizing they were blindly following an authority figure, I got them to change seats, move all their backpacks to the back of the room, write nonsense words on an index card, and I even got about 5 in each class to go to their lockers and get their World Languages textbook - all without anyone questioning or challenging my directions.

After I revealed the true nature of the lesson, most kids couldn't believe it, one kid said, "wait, uhhh, umm, wait, so, uhh, you just like uhh messed with our heads. my mind is like blown." Very eloquent.

I did make a point to explain that in no way, shape or form am I advising my students to disrespect and ignore authority. I told them they had to listen to their teachers and parents, follow orders from the police, and generally avoid any form of anarchist revolution.

But overall, fun day.