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32 “Now-False Facts” That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time When I was in junior high in the mid 80s, our Earth Science textbooks had continental drift, and our teacher said, "Okay, so I need you to ignore all of Chapter 4" (or whatever it was). "Plate tectonics has been the accepted theory taught in colleges for 10 years now, but K-8 textbooks haven't caught up yet."

I feel like the version of plate tectonics I learned was a tiny bit garbled compared to what kids learned 10 years later, but my teacher was directly pulling from college texts and published scientific papers and distilling it down for 6th graders, so more power to her!

AliMcGraw , NASA Report

Final score:

213points

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DennyS (denzoren) 1 year ago

Props to this teacher.

83points

“Just ignore the bullies and they’ll go away”
“You can be anything you want to be when you grow up”

Pure-Contract7101 Report

Final score:

198points

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R.A. Haley 1 year ago

The only bullies I ever saw stop, did so because someone whooped their a**.

13points

StillSilentMajority7 , Unseen Histories Report

32 “Now-False Facts” That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time We were taught that Rosa Parks didn't get up from her seat because "she just got tired one day"; that the entire action was the spontaneous action of a lone woman.

In fact, the entire thing was scripted and choreographed. While Parks was a seamstress, she was also the secretary to the president of the local NAACP chapter.

She was recreating the protest done by Claudette Colvin. The NAACP wanted Parks to recreate it because Colvin was very dark complected, and a single mother.

The NAACP thought Parks, who was lighter skinned, would appeal to white audiences seeing this on TV

Final score:

180points

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David 1 year ago

It was a planned stunt, she tried 3 buses before one had a driver who reacted. It is also why they were able to respond so fast. But sometimes you need to force events to bring progress for a very real issue. And Parks had to be brave, because given the south back then, she is lucky she was not violently assaulted. She was brave even if it was a planned stunt

186points

32 “Now-False Facts” That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time Komodo dragon bites were deadly due to high concentrations of bacteria, not venom. Turns out that they are, in fact, venemous

actual-hakim , Jeffry Surianto Report

Final score:

178points

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Frostfirefox919 1 year ago

In fact, it's both!

9points

32 “Now-False Facts” That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time I’m now under the impression that we did not, in fact, have a nice friendly thanksgiving dinner with the native Americans

witwebolte41 , krakenimages Report

Final score:

176points

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pep Ito 1 year ago

The problem did not arise with the first settlers, who were few in number. The problem arose when the settlers increased in number and began to threaten the territories and way of life of the Indians.

75points

Need_Bacon , Mohammadreza alidoost Report

32 “Now-False Facts” That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time the we wont be walking around with a calculator in our pockets

Final score:

158points

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pep Ito 1 year ago

Then you run out of battery power and you can't even add with your fingers and then it's all crying. ;)

45points

Nenya 1 year ago

Not completely on the subject, but have you ever tried to turn your phone sideways when on the calculator? Blew my mind, never knew all the functions were there😊

6points

Diolla 1 year ago

Oh! Thanks!

1point

Michael Largey 1 year ago

"Is that a calculator in your pocket or just exponential growth?"

4points

Auntriarch 1 year ago

Oo-er!

1point

Miss Frankfurter 1 year ago

I’m beginning to think that the advent of always having access to a calculator on our phones does us no favours to use it constantly to calculate. I think on some level makes our brains lazy. Use it or lose it. Same with phone numbers. If you lost your phone would you know the phone numbers of people in your contact list if you needed to? Probably not. I had my home phone number so drummed into me just in case that I remember it 61 years later. It won’t be in use now so, it was 222-3247. Kids should know their parents’ cellphone numbers, just in case.

3points

Sunny Day 1 year ago

Ours changed a couple times. It was ---2158, then -2348, then -2847 and stayed that for almost 50 years. My grandmother's was 345-4158. She died in 1996.

2points

DrBronxx 1 year ago

This is an odd one. Sure, my maths teachers said this to me, and they did end up being wrong, but who could have reasonably predicted it? It was a valid thing to say. This is different from most of the other "facts" on the list, which were actually wrong at the time of speaking, due to insufficient/unfinished research or being uninformed.

3points

v 1 year ago

This "fact" is low hanging fruit that a significant portion of the populace can easily grab when faced with providing input to a list such as this.

2points

Debby Keir 1 year ago

And I was taught at primary school that there was an adding machine that could also subtract, but that they hadn't figured out multiplication or division yet (let alone square roots etc) Thus we had to use a slide rule at secondary school, and yes we therefore had calculators in our pockets in the 60's.

2points

Gary Geracci 11 months ago

As I counted on the calculators I was born with-Fingers and Toes!

0points

Janet Graham 12 months ago

The essence of the statement is true. You need to have certain knowledge imbedded in your mind to survive.

0points

The Darkest Timeline 1 year ago

At the time, it was true that you wouldn’t have a calculator in your pocket; are we seriously trying to dunk on people for not being able to predict the future and asking you to actually learn stuff?

0points

RavenTheCat 1 year ago

or clocks, or timers, or calendars, or yknow literally anything

0points

marianne eliza 1 year ago

I occasionally balance my bank accounts with pen and paper, just to see if my brain still works.

0points

Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago

I actually keep my phone in my locker at work and do all my math in my head. Our production floor is a dangerous place for consumer electronics.

0points

Roxy222uk 1 year ago

I mentioned this to my mum, and the whole thing was meaningless to her. She's in her eighties and when she was at school there was no such thing as a pocket sized calculator, so no such conversation with teachers.

0points

John Dilligaf 1 year ago

yes, but you shouldn't need a calculator to be able to do basic math, figure basic percentages, etc . There's a short story, "The Feeling of Power", by Asimov, written in 1958, that covers this. It can be found on the internet. Worth the read.

0points

Spittnimage 1 year ago

None of them foretold the future, I guess /s

0points

Display Name 1 year ago

Well to be fair, most of us still don't. We carry a phone in our pocket with a calculator on it.

0points

32 “Now-False Facts” That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time In the early 80’s we were told that soon we would soon use the metric system in the US.
Still waiting .

Low-Argument3170 , Darling Arias Report

Final score:

148points

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Jill Bussey 1 year ago

Everyone else in the world wishes you would.

127points

32 “Now-False Facts” That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time We had lessons on how to get out of quicksand at school.

I have no doubt that the method is valid - but the ‘disproven’ bit for me is the need to know how to get out of quicksand. It really isn’t an issue.

In a similar vein, we had a lot of education about stranger danger. Again - not disproven. But much more valid would have been education about how much child abuse and abduction is committed by someone known to the victim. Australia’s Most Wanted had me petrified to look out the window at night. Turns out the dangerous person wasn’t lurking outside waiting to get in. He was a member of my family.

KetoCurious97 , Clevergrrl Report

Final score:

146points

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Bored Batgirl 1 year ago

Quicksand, spontaneous combustion and the Bermuda Triangle all seemed like things I was going to need to be concerned about in life.

15points

#10

32 “Now-False Facts” That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time The tastebud zones thing.

keepinitrealzs , Don Hassan Report

Final score:

145points

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LizzieBoredom 1 year ago

You are now entering The Tastebud Zone.

57points

marimba79 , Murat Emrullah Aydoğan Report

#11

32 “Now-False Facts” That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time That as a kid, strangers were going to constantly offer you [illegal substances] . Thank you, D.A.R.E. program.

Final score:

138points

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sturmwesen 1 year ago

I am still waiting

114points

#12

32 “Now-False Facts” That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time "putting aboriginal children in schools was okay at the time (I was taught ) and they wanted their children to go. The aboriginals were treated with respect and their traditions and values were protected." - Canada in the 90's, more specifically my social teacher in grade 6 or 7.

Pretty sure now that's not how it went down.

brkuzma , Zakaria HANIF Report

Final score:

134points

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Heffalump 1 year ago

Well done BP: illustrating a bit about the cultural genocide of Canadian First Nations peoples with a picture of an Australian First Nations child. Well done. Brilliant.Just so damn impressive.

7points

#13

32 “Now-False Facts” That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time When I was little, I was taught about the brontosaurus, mighty long-necked plant eater of the dinosaurs.

Later, I was taught that, whoops! They accidentally stuck some random bones together and there was never any such animal.

Later still, I recall hearing that, oh, actually, there was a brontosaurus after all!

Or was there?

To this day, I am still, as a 42-year-old man, unclear on whether or not there was ever such a thing as a brontosaurus.

sosomething , Vaibhav Pixels Report

Final score:

132points

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Donkey boi 1 year ago

To clarify for those wanting to know if it is a Dino or not, (in the simplest terms possible): It was actually Apatosaurus that was mixed up. With the Apatosaurus, they had previously never found a head/skull with rest of it (same with the brontosaurus), so when they found one just metres away, they assumed it was for the same Dino (Spoiler alert: It was not). Because of the mix up, they thought it was a type of Brontosaurus. However some people did not agree and put the head of another completely different Dino on it. They eventually worked it out (in 2015), found the right head, and established that it was not a type of Brontosaurus. So while we've never found a head, the Bronto IS a Dino

113points

#14

32 “Now-False Facts” That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time Eggs are bad because of cholesterol.

Lucius_Funk , Nick Fewings Report

Final score:

130points

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Stephanie Did It 1 year ago

My poor Grandma was restricted to one egg per week by her cardiologist in the 70s, and it was pitiful how much she cherished that egg.

76points

#15

32 “Now-False Facts” That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time Respect those in authority.

The government, your company, your boss have your best interest at heart.

If you work hard and play by the rules, you'll get ahead.

Pour_me_one_more , energepic.com Report

Final score:

129points

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sofacushionfort 1 year ago

Feign respect for those in authority. They may be totally incompetent at running things, but they have a well-crafted chamber of horrors for anyone who displeases them

58points

#16

32 “Now-False Facts” That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time I remember learning that MSG (sodium glutamate) was really bad for you. It was one of those things I heard both at school and in my family to the point where we wouldn’t buy any product that had MSG in the ingredients.

There have been multiple studies showing no evidence of adverse health effects from MSG. There is a subset of people that report hypersensitivity to it. But in double blind experiments, their symptoms tend not to show up when they don’t know they’ve eaten it. Conversely the symptoms DO show up when they think they’ve eaten it but haven’t actually.

Conclusion: MSG is literally just salt and glutamate protein, which is separately in just about everything you eat anyway.

Approximatl , Elina Sazonova Report

Final score:

127points

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Adam Belaire 1 year ago

Uncle Rodger approves of MSG, therefore it's good for you.

60points

#17

32 “Now-False Facts” That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time the food pyramid

loquacious_avenger , Jane Doan Report

Final score:

124points

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Vic 1 year ago

A pizza slice is a food pyramid!!

73points

#18

32 “Now-False Facts” That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time I've got 2 good ones.

I had a social studies teacher tell me that Asian eyes were slanty because it was a defense mechanism for sand blowing in the wind. This was who taught topics like history and geography. She also said some other racist stuff against Asians that I won't repeat here.

That same teacher told us that the city of Buffalo was named by taking the original native American name for the land Belle Fleuve (which is French for beautiful river or something) and "mucking it up". I never questioned why native Americans were giving things French names.

Anyways, in hindsight I now realize she was a terrible teacher.

716green , Antony Trivet Report

Final score:

107points

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Pedantic Panda 1 year ago

I don't think the eyes theory is that far wrong. Current scientific theories point to protection for desert environments and/or high levels of UV light.

49points