When Gordon High School's history teacher Ben Ross shows his students a film about the concentration camps of the Holocaust, they are outraged and upset. They are also full of contempt for German civilians and adamant that they themselves would never have stood by and watch the atrocities happen. Ross decides to show them just how it was in Nazi Germany and begins a classroom experiment to instil discipline and instant obedience, couched in similar propaganda terms. He calls it The Wave and gives it chants and mottos - '' strength through discipline; strength through community; and strength through action''.