30 ‘Facts’ They Taught You In Grade School That Aren’t True At All
"That no matter what, you can achieve anything you put your mind to. Seventeen years later and I'm still not a Jedi."
1. YOU CAN BE ANYTHING YOU WANT
“That no matter what, you can achieve anything you put your mind to. Seventeen years later and I’m still not a Jedi.”
2. AMERICA IS THE ONLY FREE COUNTRY
“That America is the only ‘free’ country. At least, that’s what they told us in the 80s.”
3. THOMAS EDISON INVENTED THE LIGHTBULB
“That Thomas Edison was a great inventor and invented the lightbulb. No, he was a master businessman who took the lightbulb, maybe messed with it a little bit, then published it himself. He didn’t invent it.”
4. HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY
“‘Honesty is the best policy.’ ask the politicians, businessmen, people in power, etc.”
5. EINSTEIN FAILED MATH
“Einstein never failed math. In fact, when he was shown a clipping from Ripley’s Believe It or Not where it claimed that, he responded, ‘I never failed in mathematics. Before I was 15 I had mastered differential and integral calculus.'”
6. EVERYONE’S OPINION IS VALID
“That everyone’s opinion counts just as much as everyone else’s. It’s simply not true. Sometimes opinions are based on easily observable or established evidence, common sense, simple deductive logic, etc. But sometimes, if not often, opinions are baseless and worthy of criticism.
7. IGNORE THE BULLIES
“If you ignore the bullies, they’ll go away.”
8. THE TONGUE HAS ‘TASTE-BUD ZONES’
“The tongue has ‘taste-bud zones’ that are dedicated to specific tastes. At best, this is an incredible oversimplification.”
9. GREAT WALL OF CHINA CAN BE SEEN FROM SPACE
“‘The Great Wall of China is the only man-made object that can be seen from space.’ I know this is not a true statement. I do appreciate the attempts to explain it to me, though.”
10. BERLIN WALL WILL NEVER FALL
“My middle school text books here in Florida still said that the Berlin Wall would likely never fall….I am 21.”
11. ONLY THREE STATES OF MATTER
“That we only have the three states of matter: Solid, liquid and gas.”
12. STRANGERS WILL OFFER YOU DRUGS
“That there will be tons of strangers offering me drugs when I get older. Yep, they lied.”
13. GUM IN YOUR TUM
“That if you swallow gum it will sit in your stomach for seven years.”
14. POISONED HALLOWEEN CANDY
“Razors/Laced/Poisoned Halloween Candy. No one would openly waste their drugs and give them to kids on Halloween.”
15. WHAT ABOUT ‘RECEIVE’?
“I before E except after C. Fucking bullshit, bitch!”
16. SUMMER HAPPENS BECAUSE EARTH IS CLOSER TO THE SUN
“We experience summer because the earth is closer to the sun, and winter because we’re farther away.”
17. ANYTHING TO DO WITH PHYSICS
“Literally anything to do with physics.
Primary School: this is how everything works
Secondary School (yrs 7/8): actually, it’s a bit more complicated…
GCSE: everything we taught you so far was false. Here’s the truth
A-Level: all that stuff you went through hell trying to memorize? It’s all crap. Here’s the real truth
BSc/BA: Well that was sort of right, but not really.
MSc/MA: how’s about we just start over with a clean slate?
PhD: look, we don’t have a clue. We were kinda hoping you could tell us.”
18. THE ICE AGE IS COMING
“In second grade I was taught by a substitute that the rotational spin of the earth is what caused gravity. She even brought in a pail of water and spun it around over her head so that no water fell out to prove her point. I got in trouble for arguing with her about it.
In 4th or 5th grade I was taught that we were all going to freeze to death if we didn’t stop polluting. Pollution was blocking the sun rays from reaching the earth and the world was cooling down.
I was also taught in first or second grade that you CAN’T subtract a larger number from a smaller number.
And then there is the cherry tree.”
19. BULLS DON’T LIKE RED
I see and hear about this common misconception a lot. It is nothing but bullshit.”
20. YOU ONLY USE 10% OF YOUR BRAIN
“That you only use 10% (or some other percentage) of your brain.”
21. IF A NUCLEAR BOMB IS COMING, HIDE UNDER YOUR DESK
“That hiding under a desk actually doesn’t deflect the blast from a nuclear attack and we’d probably all die.”
22. LIGHTNING NEVER STRIKES TWICE IN THE SAME PLACE
“That lightning never strikes twice in the same place.
In fact, it does.”
23. WE ONLY HAVE FIVE SENSES
“We only have five senses. We actually have quite a few more than five. I do understand why they only taught the five senses, much like several other comments it’s simplified to a level children will understand, but it still frustrates me that they made such a big deal about the five senses when that’s not all we have.”
24. THERE ARE NO NUMBERS BELOW ZERO
“‘There can’t be any numbers below zero.’ ‘Negative numbers don’t exist…'”
25. VAN GOGH CUT OFF HIS EAR AND SENT IT TO A WOMAN
“That Van Gogh cut his ear off in a fit of madness and mailed it to a woman to prove his love. Actually his ear was cut off by his friend and fellow artist Paul Gauguin, in a duel. NPR source . The duel it seems was related to Van Gogh’s madness, but the two never pursued charges against one another.”
26. WITCHES WERE BURNED AT THE STAKE IN SALEM
“Witches were burned at the stake during the Salem witch trials.
Actual number of ‘witches’ burned at the stake: 0.”
27. THE PILGRIMS AND THE NATIVES WERE FRIENDLY TO ONE ANOTHER
“That the Pilgrims showed up and became immediate friends with the Native Americans and everyone lived happily ever after.”
28. AFRICAN SLAVES WERE KIDNAPPED BY EUROPEANS
“That African slaves were just kinda stolen off of the continent. In reality, they were an export of Africa. Europeans bought them or traded them for other goods (most often they would trade slaves for the things slaves produced).”
29. When you cheat, you only cheat yourself
“When you cheat, you only cheat yourself.”
30. YOU CAN BE ANYTHING YOU WANT
“That no matter what, you can achieve anything you put your mind to. Seventeeen years later and I’m still not a Jedi.”
