Five Steps to Tyranny

In preparing for this project, we became aware of a British documentary, "Five Steps to Tyranny," which outlined how each one of us is capable of creating a tyrannical regime in five easy steps.  Although the video presented its information in terms of global politics, it was our plan to take each of the steps and break them down to a more localized level, specifically bullying in the school.

In addition, after speaking with Ms. Thomson, the teacher in Scotland, we learned that her students were also familiar with the video since it is a part of their Stand Up Speak Up program.

The video is at once powerful and disturbing, with a focus on global atrocities, as well as footage of actual experiments to illustrate each of the steps, such as Jane Elliot's classic "Brown Eyed, Green Eyed" lesson with her third grade class.


On each of the workshop days, the structure was the same.  Students were at first given a handout, and asked to respond to questions.  Although they were asked to write their names on the answer sheet, they were reminded that no one, other than the team leader (K. Loud), would actually know what they had written.  Each sheet was connected to the step of the day.


Following each video presentation, there was time for discussion and questions and answers.  The goal of each lesson was to bring the global idea of tyranny to a much more localized level of bullying and intolerance in the high school, as well as an examination of the role of the bystander as illustrated in the short story "She Shall Not Be Moved."