For example, when was the last time you failed to jump up and down on top of the filing cabinet, waving your arms in the air and proclaiming to your classmates your birth right as "Captain Cabbage - Evil Overlord of Southern Mongolia"? It's quite probable you never have, as you were taught as a young child that this sort of behaviour is generally rewarded with a surprising but sudden trip to the local mental facility.

Most lessons in life we learn simply by being alive. These lessons not only include the basic but vital skills of walking and talking, but also how we behave among other people, how we respond to others, and just generally the sorts of actions or nonactions we need to take if we want to be considered as relatively normal members of society.

Imagine a world in which none of these lessons, the sort most of us learn simply by observing our parents as small children, had been learnt. There would be no legal restrictions. Everyone would be running around, merrily looting, killing each other, and maybe even drinking underage! There would be no morals. Most importantly of all, there would be no social inhibitions. People would be free to roam the streets in full Elvis gear, displaying their unique singing talents with "The Brady Bunch Theme Song" to all. No longer would people be afraid to let others know what they thought - the simple question "Do you like my new skirt?" could be hazardous to all concerned.

Fortunately, a world like this is fairly unlikely. Even the most rebellious or thick-headed individual cannot fail to learn these minor lessons in life from childhood. Certain people or groups of people, however seem to feel obliged to occasionally un-learn these basic lessons in order to become popular. When the Beatles appeared in the early 1960's, many members of the older generation were shocked and enraged at the various lessons these musicians had chosen to ignore. Judging by the Beatles' apparent inoffensiveness by today's standards, these were obviously something to do with hair longer than three centimetres being satanic, and music with drums in being the root of all evil. Obviously these particular values are not relevant in today's society, and so it becomes evident that as times change, the lessons we are taught subconsciously as we grow up change also.

Which leads to an interesting point - if longish hair and music with drums in it was considered so demonic thirty or forty years ago, where are the new lessons that have replaced these out-dated ones? It seems that, as time goes back, the number of lessons people are taught by society, increases. For example: In Victorian times, legs in general were considered wholly inappropriate. The word 'limb' was cautiously substituted when reference to the word was absolutely unavoidable. This ban on anything leg-related lead to the careful application of little crocheted skirts to the legs of tables, chairs, baths and pianos, just in case someone might be rendered incoherent by the sight the naked wood.

For many of us, this seems rather stupid.

However, if you had been brought up with these sorts of lessons being taught to you every day, you too would find it perfectly natural to sew up a skirt for your piano, in the same way that if you had been brought up in the 1920's, you too may have strongly disapproved of the Beatles, and we, who have been brought up in the '80's, are now free to disapprove of things like National Radio and Unit Standards.

Although we are not quite at the stage where, for example, wearing socks with sandals is generally accepted by the public, we are, on the whole, a lot better off than our Victorian and Edwardian ancestors, who, it seems, spent most of their lives carefully avoiding embarrassing themselves and others by making clothing for their furniture.

Another easy way to learn a lesson, besides being alive, is through storytelling. Storytelling has been the main medium in lesson-learning ever since language was developed, and is especially evident in fairy tales, legends and fables of the past, but can also be seen in the movies and TV programmes we have today. Take, for example, the popular Disney cartoon, The Little Mermaid. Originally the Little Mermaid, like many of the older fairy tales, started off being rather gruesome. It involved a little mermaid being cruelly tortured and beaten by her evil grandmother, and escaping to land where she couldn't actually do anything because she didn't have any legs. She then proceeds to die rather revoltingly, and her spirit returns to the sea in the form of a large clump of seaweed. Although this first version of the tale is slightly different from the musical Disney adaption, the general moral of "there's no place like home" is followed through.

Even though the moral or theme of certain movies or TV programmes might not be immediately obvious, even the most obscure story can be eventually interpreted as a lesson after thought. In this way, even the most inane sitcom becomes a learning experience and a good argument to use against your parents when trying to get out of doing the dishes.

Although these lessons we learn through TV and stories and useful, they hardly affect us at all compared to the basic lessons we learn by simply being alive as small children and growing up. It may be all very well to learn "Don't bike around the place with your eyes closed" from watching "City of Angels", but this is pretty irrelevant when compared to the hundreds of other, infinitely more useful and relevant to life, you learn by living in any sort of society.

So you see, the best lessons in life, both the lessons in which we learn how to live, and the lessons in which we learn basic life skills, are learnt in incredibly easy ways. These lessons make up the vast majority of rather uninteresting, everyday things that we are all taught and most of us live by. Of course there are the sort of lessons that are learnt the hard way, things like "Do not try to warm your Barbie doll up by jamming her into the toaster" or "Caustic soda is not good for milkshakes", but these are very rarely used in ordinary, day-to-day life. To sum up my argument, I would like to relate to you a little story entitled "Little Brutis Takes a Trip".

Once upon a time there was an extremely annoying little boy called Brutis. Brutis was extremely annoying because he refused to eat anything else but cinnamon doughnuts with raspberry jam and icing sugar and a cherry on the top. His mother tried and tried to get him to eat proper food, but Brutis just wouldn't listen. One day, Brutis noticed a 4000 tonne doughnut sitting on his front steps. Not surprisingly, Brutis rushed out and started devouring this unusual morsel. Just then, a beautiful blue fairy flew down from the sky and told Brutis the true meaning of life, and why people should not only eat doughnuts, but proper food as well like capsicums and leeks. Brutis was very much enlightened by this, and went off to get a brussel sprout from the fridge. Although it may seem that Brutis had learnt the ultimate lesson, he had in fact learnt nothing at all, as while the blue fairy was talking to him the doughnut was slowly melting in the sunlight, and just as the fairy finished talking to Brutis, it collapsed on top of him. Brutis was rather humorously squashed under the 4000-tonne doughnut, and no lesson whatsoever was learnt by anyone.

Most people live by the slightly misguided theory that if you do not do anything wrong, you will not get into any trouble. This theory may be perfectly true, however it is also true that if you never do anything wrong, you will never learn anything. People learn from their mistakes, and without making any, nothing is learnt.

Quite obviously, the only way you are going to properly learn about anything is to persistently make mistakes, and carefully observe the results. To help in this eternal struggle in the quest of wisdom, I will now present a handy step-by-step guide on 'How to Learn Lessons the Hard Way when applied to School Uniforms'.

To learn anything correctly by breaking regulations, you should know exactly how far to go. Never try to completely defy school rules and turn up at school in mufti unless you are a seventh former or it is a mufti day. This is unoriginal and not terribly offensive to anybody, depending on your personal taste in fashion. One way to really get results is to appear in correct uniform, but cunningly mis-wear various items of it. Simply leaving your shirt untucked or pulling your socks up is not an acceptable variation of this style. Instead, try fitting the socks over your head and using the blazer as stockings. This will no doubt provoke any near-by member of the staff to screech at you about school pride and setting a good example for the third formers, before ordering you off to detention.

Stretching the rules is always a good way to irritate the rule makers. Take, for example, our own school's regulation which states that while something as insignificant as scarf colour is strictly limited to blue and gold stripes, students may wear any sort of hair accessories they choose. With imagination, this can be interpreted in many interesting and beneficial ways. Try turning up to class with a large, preferably live object attached to your head. Pet ponies are good for this, as are younger brothers and sisters. If no actual live animals are available for your purposes, try to find something long and flat, like a canoe paddle or extendable ladder, to attach horizontally to your head. This way, every time you turn to glamce over your shoulder, you can be guaranteed to humorously render at least six of your neighbouring classmates unconscious. Even if this brave new fashion statement hinders your movement slightly, it will all be worth it when you come face to face with your form teacher and can truthfully say that you are not breaking school rules of any sort.

Although being yelled at or given a detention might be a good deterrent from rule-breaking for a short time, this sort of thing loses its effect after the fourth or fifth time, and you must keep in mind that the original point of the exercise was not to actually get expelled, but merely to learn from your mistakes.

If you have tried this method for several weeks and it has had no effect on your general knowledge of school uniform, or status as student of MGC, it is suggested that you take rather more drastic action. There are several other more effective, if slightly more painful ways to teach yourself a lesson by not following uniform regulations.

If you persevere, you will find that it is just possible to catch an untucked shirt in between the doors of a bus as it speeds away from the bus stop. This will leave you being dragged merrily behind the bus, as your classmates and students travelling on the bus laugh helpfully at you. And if you are not lucky enough to be a bus student, there are any number of ways to injure yourself on a bike or on foot, especially while in uniform. Knee-highs and other non-regulation leg wear can be hazardous if suitably worn - try buying size 1 1/2 kneehighs and watch in delight as your legs turn purple and fall off during the day due to the undersize garments cutting off the blood supply to what was once your legs. Although having both legs inadvertantly amputated at the knee is quite a good way to teach yourself a lesson, it can be rather embarrassing to have to ask to be excused from class on the grounds of both legs suddenly becoming detached, and then having to crawl out of the classroom with your ex-limbs inconspicuously sticking out of your bag.

Unfortunately, in the majority of these more drastic solutions for how to educate yourself about school uniform, the line between learning something and killing yourself is often very thin.

There is one last resort, however, which you can always rely on to either mortally offend a member of the staff or to endanger your life - and that is, not tucking your shirt in. To ensure you never accidentally offend anyone by commiting this unforgivable sin, you must strive to learn the hard way the consequences of disobeying the rule. Turn up at school with your shirt as untucked as is humanly possible. There are many things you can do to maximise this effect. Firstly, purchase an extra large sized shirt and graft the bottom of this on to the end of your existing one, or, if this is not possible, attach a four or five metre length of white material to a normal sized one, and wear. Next, borrow your 4-year-old cousin's jersey and put it on over the oversized shirt, so as to exaggerate the effect. Pull out your shirt as far as it will go - try hard to achieve the effect of a walking, talking shower curtain. If this doesn't give the desired effect, try hanging small lead weights from the bottom of your shirt so as to pull it down further.

As you enter the school, one of two things will now happen.

Number one: a staff member notices the condition of your uniform, and overcome with shock and disbelief that any student of MGC would dare to defy the laws of the college, suffers a massive heart attack and dies, but not before giving you a 3-hour lecture on the rights and responsibilities of a 6th-former, expelling you from the school and writing several long and involved letters of complaint to your parents, the principal and the local paper.

Alternatively, your shirt extensions hinder you during your daily bike ride to school, becoming caught in the wheels of a large rubbish truck. Unaware of your accidental attachment, the truck drives all the way to the tip where he unknowingly backs over you in an attempt to dump his rubbish, and then buries you under several tonnes of old tyres and grass clippings. After uncovering yourself and your bike and frantically cycling back to school before 8:40, you realise that you have learnt the greatest lesson of all. Unfortunately, directly after this realisation, you are noticed by a staff member, and process one occurs, painfully yet truthfully proving once and for all that the best lessons in life are learnt the hardest way.

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