The 'Wave' of Poverty Flows Through Schools

By George Stranahan

The “wave” is an example of a flowing, sequential rhythm achieved in a packed stadium when successive groups of spectators briefly stand and raise their arms. Immediately after stretching to full height, the spectators return to their usual seated positions. The result is a wave of rising spectators that surges through the crowd, even though individual spectators never move away from their seats. The wave begins when a vertical line of people, say along an aisle, from top row to bottom stands up and then immediately sits down. The persons just to one side or another rise as soon as their neighbor sits down. The only command or rule that can be said to be the cause of a wave: Stand up when your neighbor sits down, and then immediately sit down yourself.

I’ve seen it on YouTube. Eighty thousand humans in an emergent self-organized motion traveling, I estimate, at greater than 40 miles an hour. In other species, we see similar phenomena: army ants, a bee swarm, flocks of birds or fishes, the “V formation” flight of geese … But the people in the wave first and foremost come together because of their shared excitement about the struggle of the game before them, the victory and the defeat, and our modern equivalent of gladiators. They didn’t come to make a wave; there is no self-interest in making a wave. There is no cause for this event; it simply...