Lesson Plan (2010)

Mark Hancock: Self - Interviewee

Quotes 

• Mark Hancock : I've seen websites where they want to take the students and test them all to see if they're normal. And I've seen websites that think we, that bought the fictional version think we were all truly nasty kids, which we were not, and I really don't want to give those people anything to work with. I like a little bit of privacy. I think it's an important story, I think it was a fascinating experience, and it's been a long time since I've been able to talk about it with any of my friends who were in the class. Last time I was at Cubberly was probably 25 years ago, maybe 30. I've been sharing this story with people for almost 40 years.

• Wendy Brodie : I remember clearly from him and the classmates, that if we followed with was asked of us, we'd all get A's.

  Mark Hancock : You need good grades to get into college, and you actually needed specific classes, so you needed to pass this class.

  Alyssa Hess : He said 'Those who go along with the experiment will get an A, and those who don't... ' and I seem to remember pretty clearly he didn't fill in the blank. But it was sort of an implied threat, like something bad would happen.

• Mark Hancock : He said if we were active party members, we would get an A, if we were passive party members, we would get a C, if we tried a revolution and failed, we would get an F, but if our revolution succeeded, we would get an A.

• Mark Hancock : Another rule was to not gather in groups larger than two, both in class and out of class, and off campus, even at home.

  Wendy Brodie : I don't think we were to talk too much other than if you have a trusted friend maybe bring them in.

• Philip Carr Neel : And then Mr. Jones had us sit at attention to wait for the party leader and in the front of the room was a television set, you know, probably a 19 inch screen, and he said 'The party leader is going to come on any minute now', and he left the room with it on, it was just snow.

  Steve Coniglio : His bodyguards went out of the room, the reporters went out of the room, and there were all of these people looking at snow on a TV screen, and it was 12 o' clock.

  Mark Hancock : And you're looking around and suddenly, Jones isn't there, and you're beginning to freak out: no guards, no Jones, static on the tube.

  Steve Coniglio : I looked around and all I could see were gray faces, and everybody zombie-like, staring at the screen, waiting for something to happen.

  Mark Hancock : It was like a pressure cooker, and you, we just felt that something was wrong, the TV wasn't working, the teacher wasn't here, the guards were gone, and basically the students were sitting in here alone.

  Steve Coniglio : Everybody looked like they were dead, I just... and... my mind flipped... my mind flipped to... to like... the Jews in the concentration camp, being told they're going to a room to take a shower, doors shutting and then the pellets being dropped from the pipes up above. And I... I... I thought we were trapped. I went into a panic, I stood up and I said 'I'm getting the hell out of here!'

  Mark Hancock : We basically panicked, in my case it was 'Something is very wrong here, I gotta get out of here!'

  Russel Mulock : I remember Steve Coniglio and I, we just ran out.

  Steve Coniglio : And we raced toward the doors, I fully expected it to be locked.

  Mark Hancock : And so I headed out that back door as fast as I could in a panic.

  Steve Coniglio : I tore out of there, I ran down the stairs.

  Wendy Brodie : You've got one foot in the door, one foot out the door, and then all the lights came on.

  Philip Carr Neel : And it was Mr. Jones standing in the back of the room, he'd turned on the lights. And he slowly walked forward to the front of the room, and he looked shaken.

  Ron Jones : I remember this sickening silence in the room, it was almost like a sweating room, it just got hotter and hotter as this particular leader did not appear. And then to release that tension I had the students whisper some of our edicts like 'Strength through discipline, strength through community, strength through action'. And I remember them getting louder, sitting at attention with their feet flat against the floor, "Strength through discipline, strength through community, BAM badda badda, BAM badda badda". And then I remember this thing flickering as these students waited for this leader to appear, and there was nothing, just this static.

  Philip Carr Neel : Somebody yelled out 'There is no party leader'!

  Ron Jones : At that point I snapped on this visual and it was Hitler, and it was the Holocaust and it was bodies and hollowed eyes, and the horror that we had fallen victim to.

  Philip Carr Neel : And he sat in the chair and just said 'What I have witnessed for the last week and a half', or week, whatever it was, 'What I have witnessed has really sickened me'.

  Ron Jones : Because we are no better or worse than the Germans, we are just like them.