PRIVATE SCHOOLS - PRODUCING AUSTRALIA'S FINEST
              
Some people are under the impression that sending your kids to a private
school is better than going to a state school.  I myself went to various
state schools from Year 1 to Year 10, and then went to a private school for
years 11 and 12 (I actually went to boarding school, because my parents were
living overseas).  The school was Brisbane Boys' College, in Toowong, 
Brisbane, Australia.

Anyway, in my opinion, private schools are incomparable to state schools.
I have never seen anything like what I saw in a private school.  The
brutality of kids on kids and teachers on kids is totally unbelievable.
I can only assume that the training is there in case you totally fail your
education (which they encourage every inch of the way, with their massive
emphasis on sport, and victimization of "nerds" (anyone with a positive IQ)),
and you need to fall back on an alternative career, either as a criminal 
or a priest.

Here are some of the stories, a by no means complete list.

One teacher had a pair of feet painted on the ground of his Technical
Drawing class.  Anyone who fell out of grace with him had to stand on the
two feet, bend over, whilst he went into the next room, and then came
RUNNING in to cane the offender.  Apparently hearing his footsteps are the
most frightening thing in the world.  I have seen the results of his
handiwork, a Year 9 kid with big fat black blisters (6 of them) across his
bum.  It was quite sick really.  Instead of complaining about how sick
Hitler was, we should look no further than our own private schools.

Then there was the Kafker Caper, named after someone who was in charge of
the Salvation Army in 1984.  The spelling of Kafker is most 
likely incorrect, by the way.  Anyway, the headmaster being a fine 
upstanding Christian man, felt compelled to be seen doing such fine Christian
things (or more to the point, force all the boarders to do fine Christian
things for him).  One such fine upstanding thing was to force all the
boarders to collect money for the Salvation Army once a year.  As you can
imagine, almost all the boarders were absolutely thrilled to be forced to
beg one Saturday (it might have been Sunday, I can't remember).

Anyway, for many years, at least 5, more likely much more, the boarders had
a scheme to make money for themselves.  After all, there's no need to make
a complete waste of the whole day.  The teachers genuinely didn't know
about it, but 100% of the boarders did, and say 30% of the day-school boys
did as well.  What it involved was that you went and asked for donations, 
and when you got one, you asked them if they wanted a receipt.  If they
said yes, you filled out the receipt, and the Salvos got the money.  If they
said no, you pocketed the money.  

People were quite honest about this practice, and if you asked someone how
much they got, they would reply "Officially $40, unofficially $60".  In
fact, they would boast about how much they had made.  I don't want to get
the students who gave the game away into any trouble, but the practice 
came to a halt in 1984 when finally someone important was told by one of 
the thieves how much they had made, and this important person told another 
important person "this is a bit too much don't you think", and finally 
the officialdom had to be informed.  It wasn't really a matter of anyone 
being a dobber, more duty-bound.

The scheme collapsed on the last year I was at school, so I don't know
what happened after that.  It was supposed to have been non-compulsory
after that, which I imagine means either you go and beg for money, or you
pick up litter.  If this is true, I can imagine people thinking that if
they have to waste the day, they may as well make something out of it.

So how many thieves were there?  I'd estimate about 1/2 of the boarders
were involved.  In the last year, they were made to own up, return the
money, and were gated (not allowed to go on leave).  Next time a private
school kid comes begging for money, don't encourage slave labour, and
don't encourage a criminal - don't give the bastards any money!

Mealtimes were always fun at boarding school.  Everything had a set time,
which must be rigidly obeyed (any deviation, like everything else, being
a caneable offence).  Dinner started at 7pm, finished at 7.25pm so that
you could be forced to go to church for 5 minutes.  I think those were
the times, but the only sure thing is that there was 25 minutes to get 120
people served dinner.  The last people to be served (you all had to file
through to get the meal), had anywhere between 2 and 10 minutes to get the
food down their throat, in time for the latest dose of propaganda.

Another funny rule was that you had to wake up at 6.45AM on the dot.  One
teacher, who always thought he should have been allowed into the military,
but found this to be the next best thing, used to give detention to anyone
asleep at 6.45AM.  Nevermind the showers were full for about 30 minutes
(of which there was 3 minutes of hot water, as the headmaster thought that
cold showers in winter were character-building).  Nope, you were just meant
to spend 30 minutes awake, admiring the scenery?  Which brings me to my
next story, although this one I didn't witness personally.

One teacher, who was sacked before I got there, decided to make up a rule
that when you went to the showers, you had to carry the towel over your
shoulder, instead of wrapping it around your waist.  He used to stand on
the stairs and watch all the boys, to make sure they obeyed his rule!

Other things you learnt at private school, were clapping (every time one
of the teachers friends managed to fart without falling over, it was time
to show your appreciation), being forced to go to picnics to honour various
teachers' friends, to show them how much you cared (and getting to clap them
as well), being forced to go to church 6 days a week, except on Saturday,
when you were forced to go to the football instead.  That was one of those
times where you got the oppurtunity to clap your fellow classmates, every
time they managed to fart without falling over, whilst playing a game that
involved cutting yourself faster than your opponents, to prove you were a
real man, according to various rules which I never did find out.

The two greatest milestones in my life, were 
1) Being released from BBC so that my human rights were not constantly
violated.
2) Turning 18 so that if they were ever violated again, I would have some
recourse.

There were plenty of examples of kid on kid atrocities as well, e.g. one
guy who no-one (including me!) didn't like, was dragged out of his bed one
winter night, tied up to the washing line with masking tape (unbreakable
stuff), and had cold water thrown on him by the people upstairs.  This guy
was only wearing summer pyjamas too, for some reason.  By the way, half of
this guys troubles were that he had a strong British accent.  A lot of
ethnic communities are continually moaning in the press about racism towards
them by Australians.  I never hear the British moaning though.  I personally
have a different opinion as to who the whingers in our society are, and who
the really racist people are, but that's another story.

Anyway, the pom eventually got expelled for being drunk, so that was the end
of atrocities against him from that school.  My advice to anyone who goes to
a private school is:
1) leave
2) if any kids give you any trouble, smash their face in, it will cause you
   less pain in the long run.
3) decide that rugby is more important than getting an education, either
   that or reread 1).   
   
I have heard more disgusting things than this from someone who went to a
Catholic boarding school, things that make your blood run cold, in an
environment where omitting JMJ from the bottom of anything you write was
a caneable offence.  JMJ = Jesus Mary Joseph, so he told me.  And you
thought the British of centuries ago had the exclusive rights to this
sort of thing - ha!