I wish it was easy enough to say that one could choose black or white, good or bad, and that would be all. However, life in general is more complex. Humans are messy, confusing, disorganized. I find the question, "Is this man bad?" overly simplistic. I do not believe 'the man's' actions to be good, no matter how much he struggled internally.
It is scary to even consider the fact that we are all so readily available to hurt others at the instruction of a superior. In the documentary on the massacre one of the soldiers mention, 'it was a Nazi sort of thing.' Nazi has become a universal term for cruelty and meanness. This unfailing obedience began long before WWII and it will continue on forever, I believe.
I do not wish to dismiss obedience because all children should be respectful to their elders, especially their parents. However, I think it crucial we teach our children and students to question, and not except every thing at full face value.

Black or white, good or bad and especially the gray areas may not be defined the same for participants as it is for observers. I believe you commented in class that you were interested in the background of Milgram's test subject. I also think this knowledge would shed more light on why he continued with the experiment while struggling with the suffering he assumed he was inflicting. I think we all would agree that "good people are capable of doing horrible things. We only have to look into our own not so distant past and we will find many examples. There is the terrible treatment of African Americans, Native Americans and newly arriving immigrants based usually on shades of skin tone or cultural differences just to mention a few. I totally agree with you about teaching students the importance of raising questions. I subscribe to the philosophy that very few thinks are what they appear to be on face value.

I find it very interesting and a bit ironic that we as future educators are questioning our obedience to authorities when that is a big part of our job as teachers. We, as teachers, will have expectations for our students and rules in the classroom that we expect our students to abide by. And I'm sure that we will have consequences and punishments in place for those children who do not obey the rules we've set in class. In the past, I know my entire education has been based on listening to the teacher, doing what he/she says, and hoping that I will receive their acceptance through a good grade or positive report on my report card. I know that there must be a balance between obedience and disobedience. I understand that there is a difference between disobeying rules that are created to provide safety and order in the classroom and disobeying rules that are created to inflict pain on someone. However, I am just wondering if anyone has any suggestions of how we as educators can truly allow and encourage our students to "disobey" us, while maintaining some sense of order and authority? I think it is important to maintain a balance, but does anyone have any ideas or suggestions of how to do that in the classroom and not come off as hypocritical?

Emily, I agree with you that there has to be some sort of balance when dealing with obedience and disobedience. I also think that it is not a question of disobeying, but helping students think for themselves. Students should never disobey our rules. Surely we as teachers can create rules in the classroom that are only for safety, to maintain order, and to increase the learning process. The "disobedience" I think we are struggling with has nothing to do with disobeying rules, but it deals with having students think for themselves in educational situations. Are we really disobeying when we think differently than someone else? NO! We are just thinking for ourselves. It really is all about balance. If I say something in the classroom that is not true, I would want my students to respectfully tell me that he/she thinks I am not correct. As parents and/or educators, we need to teach our children the difference between blatantly disagreeing with someone to be mean and respectfully giving a different opinion on something. It's all about respect and tact while disagreeing; therefore, a balance. If we can "agree to disagree," then we can open up doors to new conversations and ideas. Only when something puts ourselves or others in danger or is completely wrong, should a student disagree with a teacher. (For example, they should not disagree just because they do not want to be quiet while others are speaking). I believe we should show students the difference and explain to them how to "agree to disagree."

I think some rules in a classroom setting are necessary in order to maintain some sort of order and keep the students safe; however I think these rules should not strip students of the requirement of having to think for themselves. I think that is where we run into the problem of having adults who are incapable of thinking for themselves, or who have the inner conflict of "should I break the rules and possibly spare this person from being shocked to death" or "should I follow the rules and avoid any sort of reprimand". On the other hand I think going without any rules at all in a classroom setting is poor management, and could result in chaos.

I agree with you girls in the fact that there is a fine line between obedience and the "disobedience" that we've been discussing. As future educators, ground rules will be necessary in our individual classrooms, but I also agree that those rules should not inhibit our students from thinking for themselves. There is a very fine line here, because as a teacher, you want to establish a way in which your students will respect you and each other by following and obeying the rules. However, you don't want those rules to be so confining that the children are forced into an obedience where they don't learn to "disobey" when they don't agree with something.

On a side note, I think it is interesting that our people are generally sterotyped as being rebellious and out of hand. However, as the Milgram study suggests, people are still so willing to obey and do what they're told by someone in authority. Very curious.

I agree with all of these takes on the Milgram experiment. Like Lianna said, how can we really decipher if this man is really bad or not? Those gray areas that we have been talking about in class are what makes the question of "is this man bad" extremely hard to answer. I'm the type of person that likes to give everyone the benefit of the doubt before completely judging them. But when I watched this video, I was basically thinking that the man could have easily got up and walked out of the room. I would like to think that's what I would have done. But then when we started discussing the issues in class, it made it was more complicated then what my initial thoughts were.

I find it very interesting also, that we as future educators are questioning leaders and obeying and disobeying. I think that we can all say that we would like to have obedient students in our classroom. But this issue is on a much smaller scale then the Nazi's obeying Hitler, the Charlie Company obeying their orders, or the "teacher" obeying the "experimenter". I'm not sure if it is possible (in response to Emily's question) to teach students how to be somewhat "disobedient" to authority, yet maintain order and authority in a classroom. I'm certainly willing, as a future teacher, to delve further into this question and figure out the best way possible.

It is really hard to say what I would do if I were in this situation. I would love to say, as I think most people would, that I would stop this experiment and not continue on because I was "hurting" someone. But then again, I think I would be like this man was in the video and continue shocking the learner because there is an authority figure in the room with me making sure I continue this experiment. After seeing the video and learning about the Millgram experiment in Psychology class, I just wonder what Millgram was thinking making people do this experiment. In my opinion he ended up hurting the participants because I'm not sure how I would react to thinking I had really injured the "learner" but then find out it was just an experiment and there was no one on the other side of that wall. I would definitely need some psychological help after that.

I agree with most everyone else who has commented on this topic. I would LOVE to say that I knew exactly what I would do in a situation like this, but there's no way to know. I doubt if I would have even agreed to start the experiment once I found out that the person being questioned would be shocked upon every incorrect answer. As discussed in class, a lot of how people act and respond to authority is due to the way they were brought up as children. I was always taught to do what I thought was right, even if it meant going against an authority figure. That has a lot to do with how I handle things and I know that there are some issues that although it would be extremely frightening, I would give my life if it meant standing up for my beliefs. I know that this is different for everyone, and not everyone's passions are the exact same. To say that this man is a bad person is a stretch because he was obviously bothered by this experiment. At the same time, I am not impressed by the way that he handled himself, but who's to say what will happen under any certain circumstance?

I want to touch on what Anna said earlier:

"On a side note, I think it is interesting that our people are generally sterotyped as being rebellious and out of hand. However, as the Milgram study suggests, people are still so willing to obey and do what they're told by someone in authority. Very curious."

I think that this is really interesting as well. However, I think a lot of the stereotyping is directed to our generation, not the generation of the man in the video. He was from a time when the government (and other authority figures) were very formidable and persuasive; whereas, today we are more likely to speak out against authority. It is almost like we have lost respect for authority...interesting...I think someone else spoke about respect as well!

I thought that it was sort of scary that a person would knowingly do bodily harm to a complete stranger in order to please another complete stranger. However, I’m not really sure how I would have responded in the same situation. We as a society are people pleaser. We grow up learning to listen to our elders and the authority figure, so why would question someone who seems to be in charge? Should we as future educators not be hopeful that our students listen to us as well as that man listen to the instructor? No, if we all start to do whatever we are told we become somewhat like a robot. Part of being human is dealing with our inner feelings and conscience, and in the end you have to do what your heart tells you too.