Straight out of Bertrand Russell's playbook, the teacher starts to mould the children into thinking collectively: "We believe..." and, when asked who won the war, "You and I and everyone- We all won." Those who don't accept the new order are engaging in "wrong" thoughts... they must be fixed. There's no room for dissent here, either physical or philosophical. We also learn that the children- like the teachers- will all be issued uniforms, underlining the conformity of thought with conformity of dress. Most kids, wanting to fit in with their peers, will be hesitant to speak or act in a way which will make them stand out and appear to be backwards and ignorant.
The new teacher employs a method in undermining the children's former teaching which is as old as time itself, used by the serpent in the Garden of Eden- "And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?... Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."
Teacher doesn't directly attack the children's beliefs or former teachings; rather, she asks sly questions designed to sow seeds of doubt in their minds about these things. When the children marvel at her knowing all their names, she tells them she studied up on all of them: A good teacher should know all of her students' names, shouldn't she? This makes them remember how their old teacher would sometimes get confused and mix up their names... if she was a teacher who truly cared, she wouldn't have forgotten any names, would she? Teacher plants the thought in the kids heads that she cares more about them than their former instructor. Likewise, when Johnny- whose father has been imprisoned by the conquering power- angrily says that his father couldn't have wrong thoughts, the teacher doesn't attack him directly, instead stressing that Johnny's father had "wrong" thoughts, not "bad" ones. Johnny's father isn't evil, she implies, just misguided, with "old fashioned" ideas. Not like the new regime's progressive ones. She then slips in another question carefully designed to denigrate the children's parents by stealth: she asks Johnny if he remembers times when he asked his father something, and was told that he was too busy, or it would have to wait until later: "That's a bad thought, not to give you time when it's important, isn't it?" This question has a twofold purpose: one is to imply that she, their teacher, cares more about them than their parents because she listens to them and doesn't put them off or act like their questions aren't important. It's vital for the State, if it wants to gain control of young minds, to alienate them from their families, make them feel like the government is their true caring and benevolent parent. The second purpose is to redefine the very meaning of words- a "bad thought" is not giving a child the time and attention they want, when they want it. This panders to a child's innate selfishness, as they often view the world as revolving around their concerns, and also implies that they are the victims of bad parenting, encouraging them to feel aggrieved and resentful about being put off.
Another question which the teacher asks pertains to the Pledge of Allegiance which, as we know, is what inspired Clavell to write The Children's Story in the first place. As with her other questions, this one is designed to undermine the children's beliefs in some way- in this case, their sense of pride in their country. I'll go into this in Part III of this review.