I can certainly see how the sense of belonging would be nice for everyone, and the discipline would be helpful to a teacher. Astonishing that it all happened in less than a week -- and that three years later a student happily gave the hand signal, even after having been graphically shown it was all a dupe.

Overall it was mostly creepy to me, but then I've always been the outsider who couldn't/wouldn't fit into the group, like the three girls the teacher mentioned. I wish we could have read about what they thought; reading of the teacher's moral struggling was quite fascinating.

I wonder if it was true?