Love it or hate it, the Public School is here to stay. I was reflecting on what I actually learned and here is a list of 20 things.

1) That if I got really passionate about any subject, I could do my own research and end up knowing more than the teacher. This used to surprise me during Primary School especially, when I thought of teachers as experts about everything.

2) That some teachers are not above shaming students. I've never forgotten the Yr. 2 teacher who called me useless for being unable to skip properly with a rope, even though she could see how hard I was trying. "Everyone else can do it!"

3) How to "plan" headaches, period pains or sudden accidents a short time before P.E. lessons at High School, so that I had an excuse to sit it out. The trick was to do it only sometimes to make it unpredictable, and to sometimes miss the lesson that came before too, so that it wasn't obvious that I was singling out P.E.

4) How to conform and blend in with a crowd. (Does anyone remember the "buckle bag" craze of the early 1980s? Girls had small vinyl handbags which they'd smother with key rings. My mother bought me one which was not the regular design for a buckle bag, but I decided it'd be better to make the best of it and use that one rather than have no buckle bag. Big mistake! My buckle bag became a laughing stock. I found out it would have been better not to have one at all than having one that wasn't quite "right". This made me a geek and a nerd.)

5) That the human brain is somewhat rigid. Once I earned the reputation of a geek and a nerd, it was stuck fast like Super Glue, no matter what I did.

6) That when you know the right answer, it's sometimes wise not to raise your hand, lest you come across as too much of a geek or a nerd. The teacher will roll her eyes and say, "I can't believe nobody knows that," but at least you haven't given your peer group a fresh reason to pay you out.

7) The meaning of several abusive names and swear words, so that when I was called by them, at least I knew what people were talking about.

8) How to memorise the Times Tables parrot fashion when I was in Yr. 3.

9) How to use my brain like a Sketch-O-Graph. Cram huge slabs of information into my head before a test and clear the slate to get ready for the next one. I remember groaning just before the BIG Yr. 12 exams began. "How can I keep all these facts and figures in here?"

10) That in Yr. 12, teachers tend to overload us with homework from their own subject, forgetting or disregarding the fact that we have 4 other subject teachers doing the same thing.

11) That if a class pass well, the teacher will get credit for being a good teacher, but if many of them fail, it's their own responsibility. (OK, maybe that one is a bit of a generalisation, but I often noticed something like that).

12) That life can throw you curve-balls. Drama, which I'd expected to be a brilliant subject, became a hassle and a drag, while Biology, which I'd just crammed on because I needed a "science" component, was brilliant. (I think this was the best lesson I learned.)

13) Silent reading lessons were never long enough.

14) Einstein's theory on time relativity. 50 minutes would fly for a silent reading session, but every second would pass like a year when I was doing P.E. or Maths.

15) That it felt good to be honoured by receiving an English Award for outstanding subject achievement for 3 years running. Although this one felt nice, it was, perhaps, the worst thing I learned. It led to the conviction that if I wanted to be successful, I'd have to repeat the experience as much as possible. I developed a healthy "Performance Mentality". I'd have to hear good about myself before I gave myself permission to feel good about myself. That I was obligated to do something stunning if I wanted to be liked and appreciated. This one took years to outgrow and still rears its ugly head sometimes.

16) That there would always be better and worse students than myself. There were the "intellectually challenged" stream from the "special" classes who never seemed to twig at anything, and the smug "Dux" type who consistently achieved Distinctions right across the board. That adults tended to shake their head at the first type and smile broadly at the second type.

17) To unconsciously label A-students as "A-people", C students as "C-people" and so on. And that we all found it easy to accept these labels.

18) How to whip up an acceptable essay with a beginning, middle, end and logical thread of argument, even though I loathed every moment of it and would far rather have been reading books.

19) That for some reason, most public schools were built to the same architectural plan, that looked like mental institutions or penitentiaries.

20) That teachers seemed to instinctively know that most students found work a drag, because they'd "punish" us by making us stay in to do more.

Interestingly, although it seems school taught me quite a bit, I don't remember all that much about any subject matter. I did read some good books and learn a few fun games, but these are things I would have done at home anyway. Most of the "lessons" I've listed here from my first 17 years have been a pleasure to try to un-learn throughout my next 19. I know there are some genuinely passionate, well-intentioned teachers out there, but I do think the Public School System is a strange beast which has metamorphosed a life and heart-beat of its own, independent of any individual within it. From what I've seen of my nephews' current experiences, it hasn't changed much in 20 years and I see no reason whatsover to let my kids "learn" these same lessons.