'When Milo starts school at the Secondary Training Institute for Lifelong Employment he quickly discovers that the oppressive head teacher Dr Pummelcrush is on a mission to crush the students' capacity for free thought. Then Milo meets Ursula, an old art teacher and a philosopher. Using the philosophical technique of Socratic dialogues, she teaches Milo to ask had questions and use analytical thinking to undermine Pummelcrush's evil scheme of turning the students into perfect mindless employees of the STIFLE Corporation.