this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2025
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[–] flicker@lemmy.dbzer0.com 142 points 1 week ago (4 children)

"You need to learn this because you won't always have a calculator on you!"

[–] Moobythegoldensock@lemm.ee 45 points 1 week ago (4 children)

That wasn’t so much a β€œfact” told in school as it was a prediction, and it was true for them. Some people carried pocket calculators, but most people didn’t. Some supermarkets has calculators built into their carts, but most didn’t.

Failing to predict society’s norms in 20 years isn’t the same as teaching a false fact.

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[–] itsworkthatwedo@sh.itjust.works 27 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Basic mathematical literacy is a prerequisite to being able to use a calculator.

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[–] treadful@lemmy.zip 118 points 1 week ago (10 children)

That I was a republican. The teacher gave out this political alignment quiz that was incredibly biased asking things like "do you like lower taxes or higher taxes?" and "do you like more freedom or less freedom?" All the questions basically lead you to the same answers. So the entire class basically had the same result.

This was in middle school so I wasn't even politically engaged yet. I didn't realize how crazy this was until years later.

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 95 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That tastes have specific regions on the tongue. We actually had to protest when that shit was taught at our son's elementary school. Don't know if it came up for our younger daughter.

Poor kids at school had old atlases where Germany was still separated. But I guess that's just obsolete and not false knowledge.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 42 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Yeah, I remember that one. We even did an experiment to "prove" it. I was like, "I kinda taste it everywhere". I don't remember what the punishment for that one was exactly, but it was pretty severe, and I didn't do anything wrong.

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[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 90 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

The United States operates on the principle of three co-equal branches of government, which check and balance each others power.

[–] multifariace@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago

This is painful.

[–] Captain_Baka@feddit.org 81 points 1 week ago

Trickle down economics (well, it's not like there was a time when it was true)

[–] will_a113@lemmy.ml 65 points 1 week ago (3 children)

That humans came out of Africa once and then settled the rest of the world. In reality there was a constant migration of humans in and out of Africa for millennia while the rest of the world was being populated (and of course it hasn’t ever stopped since).

I love how much DNA analysis has completely upended so much β€œknown” archaeology and anthropology from even just a couple decades ago.

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[–] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 59 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Taste buds are arranged by flavor in four sections of the tongue. Complete load of horseshit.

Multiplication tables (I still know them mostly). I have a calculator on damn near every device now.

Things will always get better <-- this one is the biggest lie of them all

[–] itsworkthatwedo@sh.itjust.works 34 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The multiplication table is still fact even if you have a calculator.

[–] mosiacmango@lemm.ee 17 points 1 week ago (4 children)

6 x 6 mothefuckers. Y'all tell me that didn't immediately form "36" in your brain.

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[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 56 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That America is the best and most free country in the world.

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[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 49 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Study and work hard will make you successful.

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[–] bonegakrejg@lemmy.ml 48 points 1 week ago (6 children)

I would say "cursive is how adults write, you'll need to know it", but that wasn't true then either.

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[–] lordnikon@lemmy.world 47 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (12 children)
[–] Una@europe.pub 35 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)
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[–] YesButActuallyMaybe@lemmy.ca 43 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Trickle down economics are an effective way to redistribute wealth

[–] turnip@sh.itjust.works 0 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Did we conclude that, I thought its still heavily debated.

Some argue in the 50s and 60s the US was spending Europe's gold to build highways and infrastructure, gifting Americans the wealth with a continuation of the new deal, they then defaulted in 1971 as inflation eroded foreign debt owed.

Some feel some form of debt accrual is how we derive such a consumption focused standard of living, which is misallocated capital that ends in someone holding the bag when it can't realistically be paid back, or when population doesn't grow fast enough like in Japan or most of the developed countries.

[–] callouscomic@lemm.ee 42 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I was chucked into Christian school.

So... a lot of it.

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[–] 2ugly2live@lemmy.world 37 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

"Those bullies will be working at a gas station while you'll be the boss!"

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[–] Walican132@lemmy.today 35 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I was taught the Philippines was a US territory. I just learned last night that hasn’t been true since 1946. I went to school in the 90s.

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[–] Hyphlosion@lemm.ee 34 points 1 week ago (2 children)
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[–] Kacarott@aussie.zone 33 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That blood is actually blue until it gets in contact with air

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[–] lukecooperatus@lemmy.ml 30 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Basically everything I can recall being told in D.A.R.E program classes (war on drugs era propaganda taught in public schools in the USA) was utter nonsense and fabricated bullshit. After actually having personal experience with most of the substances they vilified, none of the effects - good or ill - are what I was taught in that ridiculous program.

On the contrary, some of the fear tactics they used made me curious to investigate on my own. The breathlessly scared rural teacher describing the mind bending effects that "magic mushrooms" was supposed to have sounded fascinating to teenage me. In reality, they are very fun and therapeutic to use, but nothing like the wild Alice in Wonderland mind journey they made it sound like it would be.

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[–] Flubo@feddit.org 29 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Not only in School, even at university I was taught the DNA structure was solved by Watson und Crick. But they stole data from Rosalind franklin and even openly admitted it years later.

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[–] hddsx@lemmy.ca 27 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

-Coequal branches of government

-Separation of Church and State

-Life terms for SCOTUS ensures political impartiality

-The second amendment was so that we could defend ourselves (see: redcoats)

-Bohr system

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[–] Gerudo@lemm.ee 25 points 1 week ago

Going to college was guaranteed success in life.

[–] thezeesystem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 25 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Haven't seen anybody post this but how gender and sexuality is, schools are so fucking about straight mom and dad only relationship and nothing else. Man and wife bullshit when there's infinite amounts of gender and sexuality and diversity out there. Fuck I hate Amerikkka

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[–] RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 25 points 1 week ago (6 children)

We don't know what the appendix does, the whole pluto thing, I think the Oxford comma is going out of style, and cursive in general.

But I love cursive, mine was "very nice" according to my teachers.

[–] Alpacalypse@crazypeople.online 46 points 1 week ago (2 children)
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[–] BreadOven@lemmy.world 19 points 1 week ago

Thank you for your continued support of the Oxford comma.

[–] SoulWager@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 week ago

Eh, Pluto isn't really something proven false, just that we found more objects like Pluto that made more sense in their own category. It's classification, like there weren't always separate categories for feature films and short films, there wasn't a separate category for dwarf planets when it was just Pluto.

Oxford comma is useful. I think what's getting popular is just complete disregard for spelling and grammar.

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[–] datavoid@lemmy.ml 24 points 1 week ago (14 children)

My favourite one was that the earth is 6000 years old

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[–] js346235476@lemmy.world 23 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That CO2 makes up 0.03% of the atmosphere. But it was true then.

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[–] MurrayL@lemmy.world 22 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was seen as just one of several possible theories, rather than accepted fact.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 22 points 1 week ago

A huge number of aspects of the US's geopolitical enemies, and its own mythologization of the Founding Fathers and early settlers.

There was also a really bad political test with liberalism on the left and conservativism on the right, and we had to take a test and put what we got in front of everyone, which was very strange.

[–] AlligatorBlizzard@sh.itjust.works 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The appendix is a vestigial organ that doesn't actually do anything in humans. (It might still fit the definition of vestigial, but it's far from useless and we keep learning more about how valuable gut health is.)

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[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 week ago (6 children)
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[–] Meron35@lemmy.world 21 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Physical Vs chemical changes.

It was typically taught that physical changes are differentiated from chemical changes because they could be "undone" or that they had "no chemical reaction." Which was very confusing, because you can't uncut paper, and dissolving stuff in water clearly results in different chemicals being produced, yet both were examples of physical changes (actually the latter is sometimes taught as a chemical change). Furthermore, most chemical changes are actually reversible.

It has since been recognised that this classification is BS, and most changes actually exist on a continuum.

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[–] rabber@lemmy.ca 18 points 1 week ago (12 children)

My sysadmin professor told me to not learn about tape backups because they are going away soon

Like 3 years later ransomware was invented

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[–] oliver@lemmy.godforsaken.eu 16 points 1 week ago

Making grimaces and being told that your face may remain that way if you don’t stop making them… 🀑

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I was taught that Jupiter had 17 moons, Saturn has 12 and Pluto has 1. Many more have been discovered since.

Then there's the whole "different areas on your tongue taste different flavors." Like you only taste sweet with the tip of your tongue, the middle tastes salty, etc. I remember being given various substances by my fifth grade teacher like sugar, coffee, lemon juice, table salt etc. and we tried putting them on different areas of our tongues and we were like "...no, we taste everything everywhere."

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[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Supersize me was fake and tonsils are not a useless byproduct of evolution.

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