Throughout history, it is pretty widely known that paper money has generally been destroyed due to inflation. Find any ancient society that went to paper money without gold backing that made the grade, and I'll give you some of their money. It just doesn't exist.

Educationally, you would think that the very institution which wizens the economists of the future would know this by now, and especially when it creates its own monetary system.

Now, what follows is a story which really happened. You'll know this because the mascot of our school was the Warriors, something we know was phased out due to political correctness. Our alma mater is now known as the frightening pink bunnies, something which offends no one, because they simply don't exist.

Each teacher in the school was allocated a limited supply of paper money known as the wampum buck. Whenever a student was caught doing a good deed (or their work, which, sometimes, was good enough), they were awarded one of these precious promissory notes. These wampum bucks could then be turned in to the school store for candy or pencils or other such sundries that excited the young mind.

Now, my buddy Joe and I had longed to get our hands on wampum bucks. How we pined for that glorious pretend cash! The problem rested in the incredibly short supply. You see, back in those days copiers were expensive and took a spot in any school roughly the size an Edsel. As such, the stellar student had probably three wampum bucks. The average student may have had one if he was lucky or if his Aunt Edna died and solicited extra sympathy money by crying at the right moments in the classroom and by beginning any strategically important sentence with, "My Dearly Departed Aunt Edna..."

Even though the 'good kids' had most of the money to buy sugary treats at the school store with their earned wampum, to the struggling students without any money, there was an upside: everyone knew that giving sugar to the good students brought everyone down to the same level, and this tended to save the grading curve.

Joe and I usually had no wampum.

Still, while I question the event to this day, it just so happened that one day Joe got his hands on a wampum buck. Instead of spending that newly-acquired monopoly mad money in a school goods make-shift shop, Joe-- who probably didn't score one by being the good citizenship honoree-- went to his dad's place of business which had one of the handful of copiers in town. Over the next few hours, he proceeded to mass-produce wampum bucks by the hundreds, copying them and then cutting them apart as cleanly as he could, considering he was only 10. That afternoon, vast piles of monetary promises issued forth from the Xerox 2, whirling like capitalist lips kissing his third grade cheek.

In fact, so many wampum bucks were manufactured in Joe's impromptu mint that he had to carry them to school in two, overflowing, size 10 EEE Buster Brown boxes. Good thing dad had big feet.

Now, at school, every morning, it could be counted upon that there was always one period called a 15-minute passing period. Originally designed for kids who had clubs to meet for a quick recap, it allowed kids in glee club to discuss things regarding hand bells and still get to class on time. For many others, it was an opportunity to stuff kids into their lockers and make quick visits to the school store with their wampum or loose change.

Joe chose this time to reinforce his knowledge of late night PBS history. More specifically, he had seen that Hitler concocted an idea to bring down the British economy by bombing London with Pound notes. Joe climbed to the top of the immense, 3-story stairway in that cavernous old school, leaned over the edge of the wrought iron railing, and he then proceeded to empty both Buster Brown boxes of wampum bucks down the yawning precipice onto the many unsuspecting heads of the young below.

Chaos immediately ensued. Death, mayhem and maiming commenced. Glee club scattered. The school bully bulldozed kids out of the way to grab money with his fat fists. At the end of the veritable brouhaha, he must have had 50 all to himself (wampum, not fists). Not being the brightest color in the intellectual rainbow of thought, he ambled right away to the school store to cash them in.

When the attendee manning the school store booth saw Bart with dozens of wampum bucks spilling from his pudgy arms rolling towards her with the understatedness of a boulder coming down a precipice, she knew something was suddenly awry. Bart was known neither for his grades nor for his citizenship skills, and everyone knew he had no Aunt named Edna. He probably ate her. Oh, he could have possibly been granted a wampum in a good will gesture for good citizenship or grades -that is, if you count diplomacy on 5 fingers made into a fist and spelled it diplomasee, or considered scholarly aptitude as coloring inside the lines on occasion.

No sooner did Bart make a panting and concerted dive for the school store clerk when the slow-moving mass of excited and sugar-hungry children stampeded. The run was on! The doors were immediately barred shut, the scene eerily resembling the run on the banks of November in 1930, complete with Mrs. Reevy bracing her feet against the door and her back against the wall behind her, hair bun in a muss.

The school called an emergency meeting. Wampum bucks were immediately declared more worthless than Mr. Collins' Corvair.

Sweet Susie Jean, who had labored to save up her wampum bucks over months, cried. Bart kicked Sweet Susie Jean. A hand bell flew 20 feet across the hall way and smacked a cheer club member in the forehead. The majority of us average students who never got any wampum bucks quietly cheered-- mostly because everyone was equal once again, even if the grading curve was about to take a greater flight than the hand bell just did after it successfully connected with Bart's ample foot.

All in all, in the end it's too bad that the school administration missed a stellar educational opportunity to teach the student population about the properties of economic inflation, and how it is dangerous to have a monetary system that is largely unbacked or even how the devaluation could be used as a military tool to overthrow a government.

Or how, when allowed to run rampant, students show what could happen in our own 'grown-up' economy should the same event ever plague our monetary system, and that the time for change to prevent such issues is probably now. It was a tried and true teaching moment, ready to be plucked from the vine of enlightenment.

Instead, in a move which showed about the kind of response one would come to expect from any institution which buckles under its own weight due to a lack of forethought, the administration handled the situation in a way they would towards any young buck who ever challenged the system and did everyone a favor in the process handled it: they paddled Bart.

Joe and I went home to watch more PBS.