When I was in elementary school, teachers told me that Columbus discovered America. When I was in high school – that there are nine planets in the Solar system, including Pluto. After algebra lessons in high school, I knew for sure that Fermat’s Last Theorem had no proof…
Do you know what those all have in common? Yes, that’s right – some time passed, literally several years, and everything that the teacher said turned out to be untrue. More precisely, not even a lie – just science convincingly refuted everything that was considered an indisputable truth earlier. And I’m not alone here – in this thread in the AskReddit community, many netizens share similar stories from their own school years.
More info: Reddit
#1
Hard work will be noticed and rewarded.
Image source: RedSpartan3227, energepic.com
#2
“You’ll never get a job looking out the window!”
I’m an airline pilot.
Image source: PferdBerfl
#3
That Christopher Columbus was a great guy and all the natives rose up in celebration when he came.
Yea, I don’t teach history that way.
Image source: Soundwave-1976, Wellcome Library, London
#4
Plate tectonics. When I was in the 1st grade I saw a map of the world and I told my teacher that it looks like all the continents used to fit together, but they moved apart.
My teacher laughed at me and loudly proclaimed I was an idiot with a wild imagination.
School kids laughed.
Jokes on them.
Image source: LovelyFireCracker, Jon Hanson
#5
“You won’t always have a calculator in your pocket!”
Image source: Plus-Statistician80, Karolina Grabowska
#6
That standardized tests help kids learn better. No, no they did not.
Image source: Coveinant, RM Images
#7
Playing with computers is a waste of time and won’t lead to a career. Said to me by a very old, and bitter teacher. 25 years in IT and counting.
Image source: zerbey, ulricaloeb
#8
I had a teacher in 4^th grade that would force left handed kids to write with their right hand.
she said that it was the normal way to write and would benefit them later in life.
(circa, 1974)
Image source: TrailerParkPrepper, JESHOOTS.com
#9
Late 90’s computer class, “we’ll never have terabyte hard drives in our lifetime, or a need for that much data.”
Heh, now you can get terabyte Micro SD cards, wild.
Image source: abidingyawn, Phillip Stewart
#10
I was always taught Mississippi’s secession from the union in the civil war was to preserve state’s right to be independent and nothing at all to do with slavery. That Confederate heritage was about family and not racism.
[Slavery is mentioned in the very first sentence of the first paragraph of the letter of secession as the primary reason.](https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp) They decided if they couldn’t own humans anymore it would crash the economy.
Image source: pontiacfirebird92, Josh Hild
#11
That people only use 10% of their brains. I mean some do, but that’s not normal
Image source: Constek, DS stories
#12
Are you intentionally trying to get my generation riled up about Pluto again? Lol
Image source: nkiehl, RDNE Stock project
#13
When I was a kid, the Giant Squid had never been captured or photographed, and some people talked about it like it was el chupacabra. My little brother always said he’d be the first person to get footage of one. Sadly, it has since become an ordinary animal that we know exists. RIP the Kraken
Image source: EarthExile, Andrew Kuchling
#14
The USA is the only free country
Image source: OGwalkingman, Pixabay
#15
Cracking your knuckles causes arthritis.
Image source: panda388, Eren Li
#16
That Columbus was the first European to step foot in the new world. Once found an old textbook that stated this. This was prior to the discovery of the Viking settlement in Nfld.
Image source: taskergeng
#17
So many things. The lifetime of facts is shorter than you’d think. Among them:
* You use 10% of your brain (was in a textbook)
* Model of the atom
* What composes a healthy diet
* Various histories from how dinosaurs looked to what life was like in the Middle Ages
* Causes of ulcers, poor vision, acne..
Image source: frank-sarno, MART PRODUCTION
#18
That you’re gonna end up working a minimum wage job if you don’t go to college.
Image source: Johnny_Menace, Sora Shimazaki
#19
Pompeii was buried slowly by falling ash. They pointed out that remnants of people were found, right in the middle of doing things, but didn’t realise this contradicted the burying being slow. It’s now thought that it was buried very quickly by pyroclastic flows – superheated gas travelling over 200mph.
Image source: ablativeyoyo, Qfl247
#20
My f*****g history teacher taught us how great of a president Woodrow Wilson was.
I later learned he was a literal white supremacist who admired the KKK and an overall giant racist even for his time.
Image source: T3CT0N1C_Reid, Katerina Holmes
#21
The American Civil War wasn’t about slavery.
Image source: DanTheTerrible, Karolina Grabowska
#22
Blood is blue until exposed to oxygen
Image source: mwjb86SFW, frankieleon
#23
From an educational filmstrip: “Saturn has four beautiful rings…” The Voyager photos of the thousands of rings had come in like a week before we watched this.
Image source: robaato72, Pavel Shakotko
#24
that microwaves kill all the nutrients in food.
Image source: Amazing-Treat-4388, cottonbro studio
#25
If you throw ANYTHING at ANY speed in ANY direction it will go directly in some kids eye. ALWAYS…. Always .. edit: no just SOMETIMES … always… I’m talking about you can’t even casually toss your fork in the sink without it defying physics and going in the eye of someone who isn’t even in the room
Image source: ShlorpianRooster
#26
Bohrs Atomic Model
Taste buds
We only have 5 senses
Brain cells, once lost, are gone.
Dogs and cats see in black and white.
Wolf packs have alphas. Turns out wolves are a lot like humans and the ‘alphas’ are simply the sire and b***h of the wolf pack (their parents) and they follow them and respect them because they’re the ones who taught them how to hunt and survive.
Image source: Ok-Bus1716
#27
When my mom graduated high school in 1944, the nuns were teaching that the atom could not be split. I think the Manhattan Project was already extant at the time. Correct me if I’m wrong, I did see Oppenheimer twice.
Image source: smipypr, Ville MJ Hyvönen
#28
So many but I’ll start with cold blooded dinosaurs. I was in college when opinions about them changed.
Image source: LifeHappenzEvryMomnt, Mike Bird
#29
Germany would never reunite. The French would never allow it.
Image source: Powerful-Ad9392, Ingo Joseph
#30
Glass is actually a liquid, which is why old windows look droopy.
I was definitely in my 20’s before I learned that wasn’t true.
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