People go to school to learn things, so it’s not that crazy to expect them to be correct, right? Well, unfortunately, sometimes they might not be. Some ideas, whether coming from peers, other acquaintances there, or even teachers, tend to be far from reality, and quite a few redditors seemingly learned it firsthand.
Members of the ‘Ask Reddit’ community recently shared the facts they were taught to be true in school, but have been disproven in their lifetime. Their answers covered everything from the food pyramid, to calculators, and even George Washington’s teeth, so scroll down to find them on the list below and see what other topics the false information covered.
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If you don’t do well you’ll end up being a garbage man. F**k you! Garbage men are awesome and make more that teachers. Also, less likely to get shot on the job.
There’s never been a war fought on Australian soil. 1990’s 3rd grade teacher proclaimed it proudly. Indigenous Australians would beg to differ.
Not my lifetime, but my Mom's sister was initially forced to write with her right hand, despite being left-handed. Since they went to Catholic school, it was taught, as fact, that being left-handed was something something Devil.
When my Aunt started Grade 1, my Great-Grandfather died a couple weeks into the school year and bequeathed some money to the church and school. The family would not give it to them unless my Aunt was allowed to be left-handed.
Amazingly enough, the Priest, upon prayer and reflection, determined that being left-handed wasn't a problem anymore. Isn't that something? That's how my now 78 year old Aunt changed science at Blessed Sacrament when she was 5 years old.
My primary school teacher told me our bodies can't make new blood and we're born with all the blood we'll ever have. As someone who got nosebleeds I knew it was bollocks. When I questioned that adults are obviously bigger so have more blood she said it's watered down.
These people teach kids.
That I’d fail in life because I was not good at math.
I always had a hard time with math and physics and chemistry.
Turns out I am just not good with numbers, but succeeded with languages. I have a natural talent for languages. I am a translator and conference interpreter. I work with 5 languages.
My math teacher told my mom I’d never amount to anything if I didn’t master math. I was there and her words scarred me for life. I have been terrified of failure ever since.
People who are into the sciences and maths tend to think those are the only worthy professions and the humanities are a joke. I'm not surprised this teacher said s**t like that.
That while being on your period you'll only loose one spoon of blood! That's such a bs
The average amount is around 50ml, which is 3-4 tablespoons, but it varies a lot between one person's different periods and between individuals.
Pretty much everything about Christopher Columbus.
The United States government prevents abuse of power through a well-engineered system of checks and balances.
A system to prevent the abuse of power has never existed. It is sort of like someone saying, "Make it idiot proof." Can't be done, there is always an idiot that will find a way to mess something up no matter what you do to prevent it. And there will always be people that find a way to abuse power that they have been given.
If you study well and have excellent grades, you will end up with a nice job and lots of money.
Your permanent record will follow you into adulthood
I wish it did. Someone was bullying my friend and threatening to kill people so I reported them and they got suspended and it won't even affect them when they're an adult
Myers Briggs garbage.
I even fought with my professor about it.
Turns out in the end I was right.
In pharmacy school around the turn of the century we were taught that people in legitimate pain don't get addicted to opiates and opioids.
There's an element of truth to this. Sadly the current opioid crisis in the US has lead people to believe that addiction is inevitable, but that's not true either. I used morphine for several months following a major trauma, but slowly reduced the dosage as the pain levels diminished. Not because I was worried about addiction, but because as the pain reduced the feelings it brought of simply not giving a shot about anything are not something I was comfortable with. I knew deep down that I really _should_ give a shot. Some people apparently like this feeling, others like me absolutely do not.
All fat was bad for you, thus fat free foods became a thing for a while.
That George Washington’s teeth were made of wood. No. It’s so much worse
Surgery can be performed on very small infants without anesthesia because pain reception isn't developed yet.
I've covered this on here before. While that may be the outward explanation given....we still, to this day do not understand HOW anesthesia functions. We just know that it does, and the line between "working properly" and "no longer breathing" is very, very fine even in ideal circumstances. An infant, is about as far removed from ideal as you can get, and an infant that REQUIRES surgery is even further removed. At the time, the risk of using anesthesia on an infant, was greater than performing surgery without....but the average person, let alone parent probably isn't going to accept this. Nor would they accept the more blunt rational of "it doesn't matter if they feel it, because they are never, ever going to remember it" Medicine is about risk assessment. All of it comes with risk, always, you could be the 1 in 1,000,000 allergic to that popular OTC med....doctors have the job of finding the LEAST RISKY course of action.
The system/time will take care of putting “bad guys” where they belong.
In America, at least, the federal prison system is so broken that it does more harm than good.
Carrots are good for night vision.
This was a lie the British used to explain how they could spot German bombers during WWII. The truth, that they had broken the German Enigma machine and were decoding secret messages, was kept a secret for decades. The full story was not told until the 1990s.
I consider the Enigma coverup to be the best kept secret in human history.
TBF the push to eat more carrots was real; with most foods rationed they were in plentiful supply and were pushed almost as a sugar substitute. The 'good for the eyes thing was not pure invention, but was picked up and exaggerated by the RAF to possibly help hide the fact that some British planes were starting to be equipped with radar. Carrot cake anyone?
I once asked one of my elementary school teachers what a rainbow was, and she told me scientists hadn't figured it out. I walked around until my early 20s thinking that. Also, I think it was this same teacher who told me Columbus thought the Earth was flat. They were training teachers a different kind of way in the 70s and 80s. It's honestly one of the reasons I'm thankful for the internet, because depending on your teacher or an outdated encyclopedia for answers could be a real roll of the dice.
You only use 10% of your brain each day.
That might actually be true for the people who promulgate this nonsense.
In grade school they told us that the Titanic would never be found. Not exactly a disproven “fact,” but still amusing that technology has advanced so far in such a relatively short amount of time.
Dinosaurs being cold blooded.
ulcers were from stress (most are from bacteria)
Neanderthals were a less evolved human ancestor
Sugar makes kids hyper
But wouldn't stress weaken your immune system, making it easier for harmful bacteria to grow in your body?
It takes 7 years to digest gum
I was told that if I ate apple seeds an apple tree would grow in my stomach.
Blood is blue until exposed to oxygen, then it turns red.
Everyone knows that blood is blue just look at your veins. LOL. A variation of this I have heard is it is red going away from the heart because it is oxygen rich, and blue when returning to the heart because the oxygen has been used up. Nonsense of course, it just looks blue because of the colors that the skin blocks letting only blue to reflect back to our eyes.
I learned tongue taste maps at school. Turns out it’s complete nonsense.
That’s just how science works. They find a theory and then they learn more and realise that their theory was wrong. No doubt it’ll happen again in future.
Using plastic bags will help save the environment
Taking into account that paper bags were previously used, which were practically single-use bags and that to make them it was necessary to cut down trees, it can be said that it served for a time to save the environment as an intermediate step to other types of bag materials.
That male pattern baldness trait passed down from your maternal line. Mom's side loaded with full heads of hair, however found out early I received zero of the genetics promised.
My friend and his younger brother has completely different baldness traits. Younger brother looks a lot like their dad, facial structure and hair line. My friend looks a lot like their mother, facial structure and hair.. younger brother started to loose his hair just after 20 to the point he had to start to shave his head. Older brother has a full head of hair with pretty much the same hairline as 20 years ago at 38.
A little bit before my time and most teachers already knew it was wrong but it was still in my third and fourth grade science books since they were dated to when it was still in vogue in the 70s even though we were told to mostly ignore it, but Global Cooling. I imagined massive ice ages by the time I was an adult since I ignored my teachers and read the passages anyway. I was disappointed to find out how wrong it was. Heh.
Note: this post originally had 39 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
A lot of these weren't lies, but accepted facts based on the evidence at the time. Exoplanets have always existed, but until Kepler was launched, they were nothing more than theoretical, so it wasn't taught as fact.
Need to add, "being taught that Southern slave owners treated their slave like family, and the slaves were happy." That was taught into the 1980s, and is gaining traction again in Florida.
What! You mean that there are some people in the USA who refuse to accept black activist propaganda. How terrible of them.
Load More Replies...
These are mixed with ignorant teachers being mean - this student will be a failure...VS. Science that was thought to be correct at the time. (Not misleading on purpose, just disproven with new facts). Might be best to recognise this before roasting things just for being 'wrong'
A lot of these weren't lies, but accepted facts based on the evidence at the time. Exoplanets have always existed, but until Kepler was launched, they were nothing more than theoretical, so it wasn't taught as fact.
Need to add, "being taught that Southern slave owners treated their slave like family, and the slaves were happy." That was taught into the 1980s, and is gaining traction again in Florida.
What! You mean that there are some people in the USA who refuse to accept black activist propaganda. How terrible of them.
Load More Replies... These are mixed with ignorant teachers being mean - this student will be a failure...VS. Science that was thought to be correct at the time. (Not misleading on purpose, just disproven with new facts). Might be best to recognise this before roasting things just for being 'wrong'
