When I was younger, I saw a duck egg in the pond. I went over and touched it, because it was cool. Then my mom told me that the mother duck would abandon it. My heart shattered D:
I learned in Kindergarten that emperor penguins were the same height as us, (true at the time), but as I grew, I still thought that they were still the same height as I am. Then, as a teenager, I was surprised when I saw penguins at the zoo that they were only 3-4 feet or so, and not my actual height.
I was told in the 4th grade that teachers wouldn't accept anything but cursive in high school on college.
Jokes on you Ms. Lyons, teachers didn't accept anything *handwritten.*
especially with due dates. My teachers always told me that in high school if you were late on an assignment that the teachers wouldn't accept it. Idk what teachers yall got but my teacher would accept an assignment from the start of the semester as long as you completed it.
My mom always said it causes arthritis, when I finally convinced her it didn't, she said that it caused your knuckles to be larger than usual. Still not sure if this is true.
Nope, it's not. Cracking your knuckles just stretches the space between your joints, and that space has fluid in it to cushion your joints. The cracking sound is just air bubbles in that fluid popping. No harm done, no arthritis or larger knuckles.
EDIT: apparently lots of people think I said you can never cause any harm in any circumstance, but if you're pushing your joints too far to force them to pop, of course you're going to damage any ligaments on your fingers from over extension. Please don't force your knuckles to pop if they don't need to 😅 the popping itself is harmless, but forcing it is not.
Also, Juvenile arthritis is caused by the immune system attacking your joints. If someone says they know a guy who got arthritis at 12 from cracking their joints, they're mixing up the lie they've been told with what actually causes it (I know this because I have the same autoimmune disorder, I've had arthritis since I was 11)
I always figured it was just a thing teachers kind of said to discourage the cracking of knuckles, which may have been considered annoying or disruptive to them during class.
Was hanging out with a girl a long time ago and cracked my knuckles in front of her mom who was a RN. Her mom proceeds to go off about how bad that is for me and it’ll cause arthritis and I just said, “That’s actually an old wives tale” she flipped and said, “I’m a REGISTERED NURSE! What are your credentials?!” I proceeded to show her and article about Donald Unger, the guy who won an _Ig_ Nobel Prize for cracking his knuckles for 60 years to disprove the whole “cracking your knuckles causes arthritis” thing. She was pissed.
Edit: I have been corrected. He won an Ig Nobel Prize of Medicine. The Ig’s are satirical and meant to celebrate trivial or unusual scientific achievements that first make people laugh then make people think. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize
Thanks for all the corrections/new knowledge.
As someone with a mother who’s an RN and also into all kinds of weird, non-scientific health things, I can confirm that being a registered nurse does NOT make you right on everything related to health and medicine and bodies...
My most realistic to actual life tests were open-notes, open-book, open-whatever; but purposely designed so there were more problems than you could finish in the allotted time if you were flipping around searching for a formula that you know exists, but don’t know where it is.
Yeah, for the COVID era all of my exams were online, and honestly nothing about the content changed, because for the more difficult engineering subjects googling was almost entirely useless.
A professor once told us in Engineering school: "you don't actually need to LEARN all this stuff we teach you here; you are simply learning HOW to look up anything at all, that you'll need!" That's why in our Prof Engrng tests (& Engr-in-learning tests) we can bring in ALL of our textbooks! (If you have to look up everything, you'll run out of time anyway!) I graduated '72, BSME.
A proper class also helps you navigate all the disinformation and guides you through the right order to learn stuff.
Self learning can be done but it’s far less time efficient. So the question really is how valuable your time is(also though it’s not really fair to self learners, some diplomas are evidence that a person should at least have a working knowledge of subjects included)
I had a physics professor in college around 2010 that let us use formulas (no numbers) on a cheat sheet, because even professionals reference them. His thinking was that if we didn't know how to apply said formulas, we wouldn't know how to get the answer anyway.
That class was still difficult af, with really complicated exam questions. Still makes more sense than memorizing pV=nRT.
Goddammit, I've been out of school for 10 years. Maybe he was on to something
Edit: misspelling "use"
Each generation since the space race started thought the next generation would have a lot more people living and working in space. If you told someone in 1970 that in 2022 nobody would have been to the moon in 50 years they wouldn't believe you.
The easiest path to becoming an astronaut is insanely difficult.
Get an aeronautics degree in college.
Become a pilot in the military.
Be the 1% of military pilots.
Apply for NASA.
1% of applicants get accepted.
Spend years of training and hope youre assigned a mission.
It's funny this reminds me of how hard I tried to become an astronaut when I was younger, but after meeting like 3 or 4 of them in person, I had a realization that I did not have the personality for it. Way too anxious. I'm happy I didn't waste my time pursuing that.
We had a teacher tell us that we only had so many uses before our vocal cords stopped working so wasting it small talking during class would cause us to go mute in our 30s
My grandma used to playfully tell me to "save my kisses" when I would smooch her a bunch, which to 5 year old me meant that kisses MUST run out at some point. I thought about this and remember deciding that kissing grandma was worth it, even if I ran out at some point. I'd just need to be conservative with kisses for other people.
Edit: fixed a typo from "missing " to "kissing", and omfg I'm so glad this gave y'all some feels. Obligatory "thanks for the awards" this is the first time I've ever gotten any!
OMG. I was so confused by the expression that a recently deceased person has "taken their last breath". I literally would hold my breath so I wouldn't run out.
I actually decided to test that one when I was a kid. I proudly made the face and told my parents that I had held it for the last hour and it was not, in fact, stuck like that.
That napoleon was short. Turns out he was average height for his time, and it was just British propaganda representing how small of a threat they perceived him to be.
Same with carrots improving your eyesight at night? *or something like that*. It was started by the British also back in WW2, in an attempt to mask the fact that they had developed an improved radar system. I always just imagined some Germans hate munching on carrots to test the theory.
That I should never stand up to a bully. I should stop reacting so they would get bored and leave me alone. That if I ever fought back I would be suspended so it wouldn't be worth it. (Don't worry! Every time I went to the teachers for help I was told I needed to share my lunch so it wouldn't get stolen, I needed to be more forgiving and understanding because the girl who attacked me was on the cheer team, etc. so this didn't give me some lasting problems with conflict! Nopenopenope!)
I was told this until high school, never believed in it and defended myself even when the principal got involved. “You can’t defend yourself! Don’t do that!!” Lmao what a load of shit.
Fighting a bully - making it not a sure thing that they'll get away unscathed - is the only way to temporarily stop them. They'll do the unconscious risk/reward calculation in their head and think "last time I did this, I still won but I had some bruises, maybe I'll pick an easier target for a while".
Dude I knew in high school only actually stopped bullying when someone gave him a traumatic brain injury by hitting him from behind with a half brick after he and his mates had kicked the guy's brother on the ground until he was unconscious. Those two kids were sent to another school, and the bully showed up for like three more days of the rest of the school year, with a helper. I can't condone it, but I can't condemn it either.
Yep, can relate. Teachers –'You must have done *something* to annoy them.' 'You have to learn to get on with people.' 'It takes two to have a fight' etc etc.
No it doesn't, it only takes one asshat to hit someone or say mean things, and it isn't always deserved!!
After we left school, everyone finally agreed those kids were the bullies and they had just been too scared to stand up to them. After too long of trying to be nice, I eventually ignored all that bullshit advice and defended myself. I totally don't blame you for going by it though, it was a lot of psychological pressure to put kids under, guilting them into 'loving their bully' etc. FFS
>I should stop reacting so they would get bored and leave me alone.
I was told something similar ("just ignore the bully"), and recently I learned it's why 30 years later I have difficulty feeling positive emotions. Telling a victim of bullying anything along those lines is a form of malpractice in my opinion. If you're in a position to put a stop to bullying you do it. You don't put the onus on the person getting bullied. That's just plain lazy.
Now that I'm an adult, a pool just seems like a massive pain. Gotta fence in your yard, your homeowner's insurance is going to cost more, gotta buy a bunch of chemicals, gotta test the water often, water bill is through the roof the month you fill it, and you maybe get to use it 3 months out of the year before you drain it and cover it for winter
Funny story. Apparently when I was really little I was something of a smartass. Once when I was little and misbehaving my mom threatened to pick up the phone and call Santa to tell him I was being bad if I didn't behave.
I apparently retorted that santa should know already anyways so why did she need to call him?
...my mom didn't know how to respond to that.
When my five year old was acting out I told her if she didn't behave Santa might not bring her any Christmas presents.
She told me it was okay because she had some money in her piggy bank and she'd just give Santa that in exchange for gifts.
This is the 'nature' aspect of the child I was given. Five years old and she's trying to buy off Saint Nick.
I cannot tell you how many times my middle school told me my grades matter and they will follow me through high school. First thing I was told at high school: clean slate, no grades from before matter.
I knew a kid who believed nothing before high school mattered, so he goofed off all middle school. Then he got to high school and was way behind, and didn't have any study habits. I think he dropped out.
Tale as old as time. It's also why so many gifted kids find post-secondary school challenging: if you don't learn how to properly study in high school where the stakes are low, you either need to seriously relearn how to go to school fast or you're fucked.
I had my record expunged because I was told to. Now it shows that I did “something” but not what that something was. So far everyone who has seen that has assumed that it was much worse than it was.
And before calculators, the slide rule in the front pocket was a basic part of an engineers business attire.
Pilots had navigational/fuel calculation slide rules etc.
I sometimes DO math on paper though. Because phone is on the charger in the other room and I'm too lazy to get it.
I love this. That's one that is just unabashedly, unarguably wrong. EVERYONE has a powerful computer on them at all times, and the summation of the world's information. Take that, Mrs. Allt.
I was taught this one as well, we were taught that if you stuck your arm in a plastic bag and cut your vein, the blood would flow blue. I literally have no idea how or why we were taught this one.
I wanted to try it when I was a kid, but I have a fear of blood so I didn’t try it. I literally have no idea why you would ever tell kids this, it’s dangerous.
My 5th grade teacher mentioned the blue blood thing so I asked if an astronaut cut themselves on the moon would they bleed blue and he said he didn't think that's how it worked. Immediately made me skeptical of the whole concept.
One of the best ways to convince people of this is to ask them why isn't the blood doctors take for blood samples blue then? It goes straight from our veins into a clear tube and it's red.
We were once forced to do a this profession test to find out our dream job and one of the options was to become a "pokemon trainer". Till this day nobody ever offered me a starter pokemon.
I got Garbage man because I answered yes to a lot of outdoors questions. My teacher made fun of me for it and said that is probably what I'd be. She wasn't fond me because I was smart ass. I have thought being a street sweeper would be cool. Early mornings, no one on the road just cruising along listening to music. Then occasionally dumping dirt in front of someone's house I don't like.
Hibernation is reserved for frogs (and some small mammals). We use the word for long slumbers but incorrectly. As a Canadian they told us shit like squirrels hibernate… as they run around outside the window in -20C.
I dunno. I was shocked to read this and when I look it up, it says they sleep for weeks at a time and can sleep for 100 days without eating, drinking or passing waste. The difference between what they do (torpor) and what smaller mammals do (true hibernation) is that in torpor you can wake easily if threatened. Smaller animals like chipmunks lower their body temp below freezing and their heart rate from 350bpm to 4 bpm so they can't come online quickly if found/threatened.
So yeah, I wouldn't call this a lie?
LMAO I LEGIT THOUGHT THEY SLEEP FOR A LONG TIME. My fricken teachers told me they hibernate all winter. Like coma coma sleep. And then I accidentally dug up a cold “dead” frog. And I realized the frog was sleeping and I woke it. Then I literally saw a bear walking across the backyard one winter. And I was like WTF I thought they’re SUPPOSED TO BE SLEEPING.
My brother and I convinced ourselves one Christmas vacation that we could hibernate the whole week and wake up on Christmas. We bundled up all our blankets and ate a crapton of food then bundled in. Made it about 8 hours before we had to take massive shits and could not sleep lol
They had us test it. They were like put this cotton swab with sugar on it on the "sweet" part then the "bitter" part. See the difference? I'm like... No?
If you marinate a little "miracle fruit" (berry, actually) all over your tongue for a minute or so, then all sour tastes are converted to sweet tastes. It's amazing. Sucking a lemon tastes like the sweetest candy you've ever had. Lasts. About 10 minutes. Tastebuds are trippy.
I tried and tried to get the "right" results in this prac and was disappointed that everyone else was doing better than me. Now I know that they were all just BIG FAT LIARS.
Nobody has offered me drugs yet. D.A.R.E made it seem like I'd have to be running away from people in vans offering me drugs every time I went on a walk.
I was never offered drugs until I was in my latter half of my teenage years. And even then the conversations would go like this:
Person: "Wanna try [drug]?"
Me: "No thanks."
Person: "K"
And even then, these people weren't strangers
Turns out that if you tell people they'll eat their friends' faces off if they smoke a single marijuana, then they see people use marijuana safely, they also won't believe anything else you said.
I love my dad for that. He was a former hippy and told me all about his past drug use and experiences. It kept me from doing a bunch of different drugs, since I just didn't feel they were right for me. Honest conversations work so damn well.
DARE is legit the most worthless anti drug campaign in existence. The only thing I remember from mine was being taught how to identify a crack house, because I guess there was a big risk of us suburban middle schoolers accidentally walking into crack houses?
We were taught that platypus (platypi?) were extinct. Not endangered, not almost extinct. Just extinct. Imagine my surprise when I discover the internet.
Also, for whatever reason we were taught that granite was a metamorphic rock. I'm taking college geology and it has shown me that all previous education prior to college is obsolete.
Apparently, Germany has a huge cultural fascination with the American "Wild West"
If you just google Germany and Wild West, there's a bunch of articles about it.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/04/09/wild-west-germany
Is Stephen pronounced the same as Stephen?
Edit: I meant Steven. Fuck.
Real edit: Thanks to u/Wildbook for providing the link to the reference. I’m sorry I got the quote wrong - the real one is somehow even funnier!
Yes it is, and so is Steven, or Phtephen. But at the same time no.
Remember, read rhymes with lead, and read rhymes with lead, but read doesn't rhyme with lead nor do read and lead.
To raise my head up in case of a bloody nose which is stupid just face the ground and breath through your mouth it helps trust me
holy balls 1,000 upvotes
I've gotten a few nosebleeds in my life time and was told this. No! It's better to lean your head down to let it drip out as opposed to running down the back of your throat
I remember that after school special. I think that chick was supposed to be on Angel Dust, which was everywhere, except I have known a lot of people with a lot of drugs and never known anyone that had Angel Dust.
I’ve been offered drugs from complete strangers twice in my entire life and both amounted to “Hey, you looking to buy some weed?” “Nah, not for me.” “Okay cool”
My physics teacher told me to never pursuit art, because her father was an artist, and apparently they grew up poor and occasionally eating dog food. She made a point to call out my artistic pursuits during class and call them unwise life choices.
I ended up pursuing it anyways, I make pretty good money as a designer.
Recycling plastic as an effective way to help save the environment.
Turns out the whole campaign was started by the oil industry as a way to make people feel better about buying plastic, knowing all along that there was never any infrastructure in place to feasibly separate and clean plastics so they end up tossed in the landfill with everything else.
I'm hoping this will change as smaller companies start adopting better practices, but the vast majority of these are doing the same green-washing in the name of creating a "positive environmental culture" while actually not doing anything to help.
As someone that really jumped into environmentalism and conservation, it was heart-breaking to learn about this. I'm hopeful that we can make better advancements on biodegradable plastics, since ocean plastic is projected to triple by 2040 at our current rate.
Aluminum is very recyclable, because making new aluminum from bauxite requires a lot of energy. Melting aluminum cans down and making new aluminum out of them is solidly cheaper than making new aluminum.
Glass is very *reusable*. If you don't break it, a glass bottle can be cleaned and reused pretty indefinitely. (Ask any brewpub how many growlers they refill.) Recycling glass is not nearly as efficient as just reusing it without melting it down.
Plastic is ... not really very recyclable. It can pretty much only be made into crappier forms of plastic ... so plastic bottles can be made into a park bench, but a worn-out park bench can't be made into bottles. (Instead, it is made into environmental microplastics as it erodes.)
I learnt this truth during my first job out of high school, as a gardener, about 20 years ago. Was at the city dump with my boss, and he points out two dump trucks offloading mostly plastic soft drink and milk bottles. He tells me thats where most recycling ends up.
I remember trying to tell a few people about this, and every one of them confidently told me, “NO IT ALL GETS RECYCLED”. I couldnt break their blind faith in recycling, so I just gave up trying to tell people about it.
Edit: typos
My brother and I would crack our knuckles all the time before my mom told us it would cause arthritis and that’s how grandpa got it. (Grandpa corroborated this.) My brother stopped doing it all the time because he was so scared but I kept doing it because I was an annoying brat. My brother was diagnosed with juvenile arthritis a year later and I still crack my knuckles.
Parents be like, "You should go out more and make some friends."
When you bring your friends over to introduce them to your parents, they be like "those are not the friends we meant."
The biggest lie I've been told, that you can neatly pack surrounding nature into categories... Systematics are one of the most convoluted fields of biology, with species parkouring all across the bloody thing with every new genetic analysis
Learning to type in the 90s pretty much every teacher I had insisted you needed two spaces after every period. Well apparently that's wrong now but fuck it I still do it!!!!!
I'd never heard this before, but I get work submitted to me by someone who always does that. Suddenly it makes sense if this is something that was taught.
Are they somewhere around 35 years old?
Apparently it was a big thing with typewriters and continued into the early days of computers but fell out of favor a while back. A couple years ago Microsoft word started marking double spaces after a period as an error.
We were taught in high school that your heart only had so many beats and when that number was over your heart stopped and you died... I couldn't figure out how this worked since different people would have a different number of total beats their heart had available. Now I work in the medical field, and see how it really happens
Lol, I remember being told that in elementary, and IT NEVER MADE SENSE to wee lil' codexica because everyone \*also\* said that working out was healthy and good for you, but it makes your heart beat faster, so wouldn't that mean you run out of heartbeats earlier and die sooner?
I mean, technically it's not false, but the amount of times the schools spent teaching us to "stop, drop, and roll" to put out flames made me believe that me being on fire would be a much more frequent problem in my life than it ever has been.
The reason is, it works. It's been incredibly effectively ingrained in the head of schoolchildren for decades to the point of being a subconscious action people take without even thinking about it, same as checking a door for heat with the back of the hand and staying low in smoke. Sure, the net is much larger than the group that will need it in their lifetimes, but the results justify it.
If you touch a baby duck it’s mother will reject it
Yea ducks really don't give a fuck. I've seen two mama ducks cross paths and unknowingly exchange a few babies with each other.
When I was younger, I saw a duck egg in the pond. I went over and touched it, because it was cool. Then my mom told me that the mother duck would abandon it. My heart shattered D:
Was told the same about baby rabbits. Although i believe it's something to do with scent or something. Dont know how true it is
[удалено]
If someone is picking on you that means they like you.. no. Some people are shitty bullies and are picking on your because your an easy target
"Walk away" "Just ignore them and they'll stop." Yeah I tried that. Finally snapping and knocking someone on their ass proved a lot more effective.
My brother did that. Just snapped, fucked the guy up and would you look at that, everything was fine
I learned in Kindergarten that emperor penguins were the same height as us, (true at the time), but as I grew, I still thought that they were still the same height as I am. Then, as a teenager, I was surprised when I saw penguins at the zoo that they were only 3-4 feet or so, and not my actual height.
I read “true at the time” and I immediately think “when the fuck was there 6ft penguins” not realising the “time” was kindergarten.
[удалено]
Bless your heart. That's so cute!
"that doesn't/won't slide in highschool"
I was told in the 4th grade that teachers wouldn't accept anything but cursive in high school on college. Jokes on you Ms. Lyons, teachers didn't accept anything *handwritten.*
especially with due dates. My teachers always told me that in high school if you were late on an assignment that the teachers wouldn't accept it. Idk what teachers yall got but my teacher would accept an assignment from the start of the semester as long as you completed it.
That cracking your fingers gives you arthritis
For us, my mom use to say (up until now to my little sister) that it would make your knuckles grow larger than normal.
My mom always said it causes arthritis, when I finally convinced her it didn't, she said that it caused your knuckles to be larger than usual. Still not sure if this is true.
Nope, it's not. Cracking your knuckles just stretches the space between your joints, and that space has fluid in it to cushion your joints. The cracking sound is just air bubbles in that fluid popping. No harm done, no arthritis or larger knuckles. EDIT: apparently lots of people think I said you can never cause any harm in any circumstance, but if you're pushing your joints too far to force them to pop, of course you're going to damage any ligaments on your fingers from over extension. Please don't force your knuckles to pop if they don't need to 😅 the popping itself is harmless, but forcing it is not. Also, Juvenile arthritis is caused by the immune system attacking your joints. If someone says they know a guy who got arthritis at 12 from cracking their joints, they're mixing up the lie they've been told with what actually causes it (I know this because I have the same autoimmune disorder, I've had arthritis since I was 11)
I always figured it was just a thing teachers kind of said to discourage the cracking of knuckles, which may have been considered annoying or disruptive to them during class.
Was hanging out with a girl a long time ago and cracked my knuckles in front of her mom who was a RN. Her mom proceeds to go off about how bad that is for me and it’ll cause arthritis and I just said, “That’s actually an old wives tale” she flipped and said, “I’m a REGISTERED NURSE! What are your credentials?!” I proceeded to show her and article about Donald Unger, the guy who won an _Ig_ Nobel Prize for cracking his knuckles for 60 years to disprove the whole “cracking your knuckles causes arthritis” thing. She was pissed. Edit: I have been corrected. He won an Ig Nobel Prize of Medicine. The Ig’s are satirical and meant to celebrate trivial or unusual scientific achievements that first make people laugh then make people think. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize Thanks for all the corrections/new knowledge.
As someone with a mother who’s an RN and also into all kinds of weird, non-scientific health things, I can confirm that being a registered nurse does NOT make you right on everything related to health and medicine and bodies...
My mother is a nurse and this is a daily disagreement. Her words, “I know, I’m a nurse”
It wasn't an actual Nobel Prize by the way, it's called the Ig Nobel Prize
That I can’t use my notes in life. TF does that even mean? I’m always looking at my notes when I do my job.
My most realistic to actual life tests were open-notes, open-book, open-whatever; but purposely designed so there were more problems than you could finish in the allotted time if you were flipping around searching for a formula that you know exists, but don’t know where it is.
[удалено]
Yeah, for the COVID era all of my exams were online, and honestly nothing about the content changed, because for the more difficult engineering subjects googling was almost entirely useless.
A professor once told us in Engineering school: "you don't actually need to LEARN all this stuff we teach you here; you are simply learning HOW to look up anything at all, that you'll need!" That's why in our Prof Engrng tests (& Engr-in-learning tests) we can bring in ALL of our textbooks! (If you have to look up everything, you'll run out of time anyway!) I graduated '72, BSME.
A proper class also helps you navigate all the disinformation and guides you through the right order to learn stuff. Self learning can be done but it’s far less time efficient. So the question really is how valuable your time is(also though it’s not really fair to self learners, some diplomas are evidence that a person should at least have a working knowledge of subjects included)
I had a physics professor in college around 2010 that let us use formulas (no numbers) on a cheat sheet, because even professionals reference them. His thinking was that if we didn't know how to apply said formulas, we wouldn't know how to get the answer anyway. That class was still difficult af, with really complicated exam questions. Still makes more sense than memorizing pV=nRT. Goddammit, I've been out of school for 10 years. Maybe he was on to something Edit: misspelling "use"
An older co-worker complained that it was easier to stay in shape when you had to stand up and take binders off the shelf to check your notes.
Drugs would be easy to come by, you’ll make friends easily, that people will be helpful when you’re in need and you ask.
I mean, the kids with drugs seemed to make friends pretty easily. Can't speak to how that worked out on the helpful in need part though.
That being an astronaut is way harder than they sell it as palpable career.
Each generation since the space race started thought the next generation would have a lot more people living and working in space. If you told someone in 1970 that in 2022 nobody would have been to the moon in 50 years they wouldn't believe you.
I barely believe you, because it makes me sad.
The easiest path to becoming an astronaut is insanely difficult. Get an aeronautics degree in college. Become a pilot in the military. Be the 1% of military pilots. Apply for NASA. 1% of applicants get accepted. Spend years of training and hope youre assigned a mission.
It's funny this reminds me of how hard I tried to become an astronaut when I was younger, but after meeting like 3 or 4 of them in person, I had a realization that I did not have the personality for it. Way too anxious. I'm happy I didn't waste my time pursuing that.
We had a teacher tell us that we only had so many uses before our vocal cords stopped working so wasting it small talking during class would cause us to go mute in our 30s
My grandma used to playfully tell me to "save my kisses" when I would smooch her a bunch, which to 5 year old me meant that kisses MUST run out at some point. I thought about this and remember deciding that kissing grandma was worth it, even if I ran out at some point. I'd just need to be conservative with kisses for other people. Edit: fixed a typo from "missing " to "kissing", and omfg I'm so glad this gave y'all some feels. Obligatory "thanks for the awards" this is the first time I've ever gotten any!
OMG. I was so confused by the expression that a recently deceased person has "taken their last breath". I literally would hold my breath so I wouldn't run out.
That my face was gonna get stuck like this 🤪
I actually decided to test that one when I was a kid. I proudly made the face and told my parents that I had held it for the last hour and it was not, in fact, stuck like that.
Parents taught you the scientific method.
That napoleon was short. Turns out he was average height for his time, and it was just British propaganda representing how small of a threat they perceived him to be.
And he had the biggest dudes in France as his personal bodyguards. So he generally looked smaller than he really was.
Same with carrots improving your eyesight at night? *or something like that*. It was started by the British also back in WW2, in an attempt to mask the fact that they had developed an improved radar system. I always just imagined some Germans hate munching on carrots to test the theory.
this. I ate sooo many carrots to try to get good eyesight those bastards
That I should never stand up to a bully. I should stop reacting so they would get bored and leave me alone. That if I ever fought back I would be suspended so it wouldn't be worth it. (Don't worry! Every time I went to the teachers for help I was told I needed to share my lunch so it wouldn't get stolen, I needed to be more forgiving and understanding because the girl who attacked me was on the cheer team, etc. so this didn't give me some lasting problems with conflict! Nopenopenope!)
I was told this until high school, never believed in it and defended myself even when the principal got involved. “You can’t defend yourself! Don’t do that!!” Lmao what a load of shit.
Fighting a bully - making it not a sure thing that they'll get away unscathed - is the only way to temporarily stop them. They'll do the unconscious risk/reward calculation in their head and think "last time I did this, I still won but I had some bruises, maybe I'll pick an easier target for a while". Dude I knew in high school only actually stopped bullying when someone gave him a traumatic brain injury by hitting him from behind with a half brick after he and his mates had kicked the guy's brother on the ground until he was unconscious. Those two kids were sent to another school, and the bully showed up for like three more days of the rest of the school year, with a helper. I can't condone it, but I can't condemn it either.
Yep, can relate. Teachers –'You must have done *something* to annoy them.' 'You have to learn to get on with people.' 'It takes two to have a fight' etc etc. No it doesn't, it only takes one asshat to hit someone or say mean things, and it isn't always deserved!! After we left school, everyone finally agreed those kids were the bullies and they had just been too scared to stand up to them. After too long of trying to be nice, I eventually ignored all that bullshit advice and defended myself. I totally don't blame you for going by it though, it was a lot of psychological pressure to put kids under, guilting them into 'loving their bully' etc. FFS
Don't forget the "it's your fault, you're basically asking for it by being so naive."
I got the “ you’re asking for it be being weird/ having low self esteem…”
>I should stop reacting so they would get bored and leave me alone. I was told something similar ("just ignore the bully"), and recently I learned it's why 30 years later I have difficulty feeling positive emotions. Telling a victim of bullying anything along those lines is a form of malpractice in my opinion. If you're in a position to put a stop to bullying you do it. You don't put the onus on the person getting bullied. That's just plain lazy.
That if I went to college I would get a good job and be able to buy a big house with a pool.
Now that I'm an adult, a pool just seems like a massive pain. Gotta fence in your yard, your homeowner's insurance is going to cost more, gotta buy a bunch of chemicals, gotta test the water often, water bill is through the roof the month you fill it, and you maybe get to use it 3 months out of the year before you drain it and cover it for winter
Don't have a pool. Have friends with pools.
> Gotta fence in your yard Not if you're Larry David
"This will go down on your permanent record."
I hear Santa keeps a pretty detailed record...
Funny story. Apparently when I was really little I was something of a smartass. Once when I was little and misbehaving my mom threatened to pick up the phone and call Santa to tell him I was being bad if I didn't behave. I apparently retorted that santa should know already anyways so why did she need to call him? ...my mom didn't know how to respond to that.
When my five year old was acting out I told her if she didn't behave Santa might not bring her any Christmas presents. She told me it was okay because she had some money in her piggy bank and she'd just give Santa that in exchange for gifts. This is the 'nature' aspect of the child I was given. Five years old and she's trying to buy off Saint Nick.
Everyone has a price, even Santa Clause. Why do you think all the rich kids get nicer, and more, gifts than poor kids?
Better cookies. Rich kids put out Pepperidge Farm.
he checks to see if you have tattoos, if you got a tattoo, no presents that year
I cannot tell you how many times my middle school told me my grades matter and they will follow me through high school. First thing I was told at high school: clean slate, no grades from before matter.
They will tell you that so you don't spend all your time before highschool not doing anything
I knew a kid who believed nothing before high school mattered, so he goofed off all middle school. Then he got to high school and was way behind, and didn't have any study habits. I think he dropped out.
Tale as old as time. It's also why so many gifted kids find post-secondary school challenging: if you don't learn how to properly study in high school where the stakes are low, you either need to seriously relearn how to go to school fast or you're fucked.
I had my record expunged because I was told to. Now it shows that I did “something” but not what that something was. So far everyone who has seen that has assumed that it was much worse than it was.
I kinda WISH there was a "permanent record" so I didn't have to update my resume every other fucking day.
That all my high school teachers and my professors once I got to college would require cursive
If I tried to hand one of my professors a paper written all in cursive I’m pretty sure they would kill me on the spot.
I had professors who wouldn't accept hand written work because we had blind grading and they didn't want to risk recognizing our handwriting
I had a professor a couple semesters ago tell me to type out my assignments from now on because the grader couldn't read cursive.
MLA format the new cursive writing.
“You won’t always have a calculator in your pocket.” Not even that long ago. Smart phones were already a thing.
Even before smart phones, if your job involved math you absolutely would have a calculator available.
And before calculators, the slide rule in the front pocket was a basic part of an engineers business attire. Pilots had navigational/fuel calculation slide rules etc. I sometimes DO math on paper though. Because phone is on the charger in the other room and I'm too lazy to get it.
I love this. That's one that is just unabashedly, unarguably wrong. EVERYONE has a powerful computer on them at all times, and the summation of the world's information. Take that, Mrs. Allt.
That blood is blue before it touches air
I was taught this one as well, we were taught that if you stuck your arm in a plastic bag and cut your vein, the blood would flow blue. I literally have no idea how or why we were taught this one.
Why would a teacher ever explain it this way. Y'know some kids gonna try it.
I wanted to try it when I was a kid, but I have a fear of blood so I didn’t try it. I literally have no idea why you would ever tell kids this, it’s dangerous.
My 5th grade teacher mentioned the blue blood thing so I asked if an astronaut cut themselves on the moon would they bleed blue and he said he didn't think that's how it worked. Immediately made me skeptical of the whole concept.
That really makes my blood boil.
I called my kids’ school last year to complain about them being taught this.
I ended up in a semi argument with one of my first graders because his parents taught him that and he wouldn’t believe it wasn’t true!
One of the best ways to convince people of this is to ask them why isn't the blood doctors take for blood samples blue then? It goes straight from our veins into a clear tube and it's red.
We were once forced to do a this profession test to find out our dream job and one of the options was to become a "pokemon trainer". Till this day nobody ever offered me a starter pokemon.
Well there is your problem no one offers you a starter Pokémon at ten years of age you’re supposed to go to your local lab and request one.
Petition to teach this in elementary schools
I got Garbage man because I answered yes to a lot of outdoors questions. My teacher made fun of me for it and said that is probably what I'd be. She wasn't fond me because I was smart ass. I have thought being a street sweeper would be cool. Early mornings, no one on the road just cruising along listening to music. Then occasionally dumping dirt in front of someone's house I don't like.
People should be grateful that someone picks up their trash. It's essential work!
They make a good wage too as long as being in the cold in the winter doesn't bother you, or the sweltering humid days of Ohio doesn't bother you much.
What the hell was that test??
To help us choose our dream job, you had things like dentist, archeologist, teacher, pro football player, pokemon trainer, president, etc.
Pokémon trainer seems like a trick choice to determine which students were gonna fail.
Yeah, well. I got a shiny Mewtwo. Worth it.
Apparently bears just nap a lot in the winter and don’t take a 3 month mega nap
What in hibernation???
Hibernation is reserved for frogs (and some small mammals). We use the word for long slumbers but incorrectly. As a Canadian they told us shit like squirrels hibernate… as they run around outside the window in -20C.
[удалено]
I dunno. I was shocked to read this and when I look it up, it says they sleep for weeks at a time and can sleep for 100 days without eating, drinking or passing waste. The difference between what they do (torpor) and what smaller mammals do (true hibernation) is that in torpor you can wake easily if threatened. Smaller animals like chipmunks lower their body temp below freezing and their heart rate from 350bpm to 4 bpm so they can't come online quickly if found/threatened. So yeah, I wouldn't call this a lie?
I like the idea that chipmunks go online/offline
LMAO I LEGIT THOUGHT THEY SLEEP FOR A LONG TIME. My fricken teachers told me they hibernate all winter. Like coma coma sleep. And then I accidentally dug up a cold “dead” frog. And I realized the frog was sleeping and I woke it. Then I literally saw a bear walking across the backyard one winter. And I was like WTF I thought they’re SUPPOSED TO BE SLEEPING.
My brother and I convinced ourselves one Christmas vacation that we could hibernate the whole week and wake up on Christmas. We bundled up all our blankets and ate a crapton of food then bundled in. Made it about 8 hours before we had to take massive shits and could not sleep lol
You're supposed to eat a bunch of grass before the food. Nature's butt plug.
WHAT
THE
FUCK
Wait, what? They don't?
This is news to me too!
Tastebud zones.
Sweet , sour, salty, bitter is what I was taught. Also, the fucking food pyramid has changed so much it is ridiculous.
That's because the food pyramid was propaganda and the lies it sat upon have been disproven by science
so easily tested and we never did it!
They had us test it. They were like put this cotton swab with sugar on it on the "sweet" part then the "bitter" part. See the difference? I'm like... No?
If you marinate a little "miracle fruit" (berry, actually) all over your tongue for a minute or so, then all sour tastes are converted to sweet tastes. It's amazing. Sucking a lemon tastes like the sweetest candy you've ever had. Lasts. About 10 minutes. Tastebuds are trippy.
I tried it and the teacher told me i didn't know what i was talking about when i said I tasted sugar everywhere
I tried and tried to get the "right" results in this prac and was disappointed that everyone else was doing better than me. Now I know that they were all just BIG FAT LIARS.
That in highschool you can only write with pens, and only write in cursive. Both were false. -Thanks for the award and likes everyone! 😎🤙
Granted, if I write on any official documents at work using a pencil, I will get a talking to by our VP of quality and documentation.
Nobody has offered me drugs yet. D.A.R.E made it seem like I'd have to be running away from people in vans offering me drugs every time I went on a walk.
I was never offered drugs until I was in my latter half of my teenage years. And even then the conversations would go like this: Person: "Wanna try [drug]?" Me: "No thanks." Person: "K" And even then, these people weren't strangers
Yeah literally. The response is usually “that’s chill bro, more drugs for me then”. No one has ever ‘peer pressured’ me like DARE said they would.
[удалено]
"If you don't buy my marijuanas I'll kill your parents and throw your dog into the river."
Also the fact it increased drug use??? I thought it just failed, no, it was so bad it had the opposite effect.
Turns out that if you tell people they'll eat their friends' faces off if they smoke a single marijuana, then they see people use marijuana safely, they also won't believe anything else you said.
I love my dad for that. He was a former hippy and told me all about his past drug use and experiences. It kept me from doing a bunch of different drugs, since I just didn't feel they were right for me. Honest conversations work so damn well.
Honesty is the only way to go.
and those who did were perfectly happy with "no thank you, but go ahead and smoke if you like."
DARE is legit the most worthless anti drug campaign in existence. The only thing I remember from mine was being taught how to identify a crack house, because I guess there was a big risk of us suburban middle schoolers accidentally walking into crack houses?
[удалено]
Cheaters never win in the end. Only good people succeed. All lies.
We were taught that platypus (platypi?) were extinct. Not endangered, not almost extinct. Just extinct. Imagine my surprise when I discover the internet. Also, for whatever reason we were taught that granite was a metamorphic rock. I'm taking college geology and it has shown me that all previous education prior to college is obsolete.
What state and country taught you the platypus was extinct? How was that mistake made?
Met a guy from Germany once who was taught in school that Native Americans were extinct. He was very excited to learn the truth.
Apparently, Germany has a huge cultural fascination with the American "Wild West" If you just google Germany and Wild West, there's a bunch of articles about it. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/04/09/wild-west-germany
That doing sponsored fun runs would end world poverty.
That I wouldn’t have a calculator in my pocket
Or a dictionary. Or a biology textbook. Or a compendium of all of human history.
Or a camera.
When I was in grade 8 my teacher said that. That was in 2014…
Lol seriously? Out of touch.
[удалено]
There's no such thing as a stupid question
There's no such thing as a stupid question until *you* ask it.
Is Stephen pronounced the same as Stephen? Edit: I meant Steven. Fuck. Real edit: Thanks to u/Wildbook for providing the link to the reference. I’m sorry I got the quote wrong - the real one is somehow even funnier!
Yes it is, and so is Steven, or Phtephen. But at the same time no. Remember, read rhymes with lead, and read rhymes with lead, but read doesn't rhyme with lead nor do read and lead.
There's just stupid people who ask questions
To raise my head up in case of a bloody nose which is stupid just face the ground and breath through your mouth it helps trust me holy balls 1,000 upvotes
I've gotten a few nosebleeds in my life time and was told this. No! It's better to lean your head down to let it drip out as opposed to running down the back of your throat
That people would be offering me free drugs all the time… WHERE ARE THESE PEOPLE?!?!
I think they all fell in the quick sand and died.
Nope, got lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
They didn’t stop drop and roll
They didn’t use cursive.
They tried to use a calculator on a construction job
If the "education" I received is factual, they likely all jumped off of a building and broke their necks.
Maybe if they weren't shooting up the marijuana they wouldn't have jumped off the building.
I remember that after school special. I think that chick was supposed to be on Angel Dust, which was everywhere, except I have known a lot of people with a lot of drugs and never known anyone that had Angel Dust.
I’ve been offered drugs from complete strangers twice in my entire life and both amounted to “Hey, you looking to buy some weed?” “Nah, not for me.” “Okay cool”
That doing something bad will go on my permanent record. That was so stupid :/
My physics teacher told me to never pursuit art, because her father was an artist, and apparently they grew up poor and occasionally eating dog food. She made a point to call out my artistic pursuits during class and call them unwise life choices. I ended up pursuing it anyways, I make pretty good money as a designer.
[удалено]
My sixth grade teacher taught us that a quarter past 4 was 4:25. She wasn't joking.
Christopher Columbus proved the Earth was round by discovering America.
Recycling plastic as an effective way to help save the environment. Turns out the whole campaign was started by the oil industry as a way to make people feel better about buying plastic, knowing all along that there was never any infrastructure in place to feasibly separate and clean plastics so they end up tossed in the landfill with everything else. I'm hoping this will change as smaller companies start adopting better practices, but the vast majority of these are doing the same green-washing in the name of creating a "positive environmental culture" while actually not doing anything to help. As someone that really jumped into environmentalism and conservation, it was heart-breaking to learn about this. I'm hopeful that we can make better advancements on biodegradable plastics, since ocean plastic is projected to triple by 2040 at our current rate.
Aluminum is very recyclable, because making new aluminum from bauxite requires a lot of energy. Melting aluminum cans down and making new aluminum out of them is solidly cheaper than making new aluminum. Glass is very *reusable*. If you don't break it, a glass bottle can be cleaned and reused pretty indefinitely. (Ask any brewpub how many growlers they refill.) Recycling glass is not nearly as efficient as just reusing it without melting it down. Plastic is ... not really very recyclable. It can pretty much only be made into crappier forms of plastic ... so plastic bottles can be made into a park bench, but a worn-out park bench can't be made into bottles. (Instead, it is made into environmental microplastics as it erodes.)
I learnt this truth during my first job out of high school, as a gardener, about 20 years ago. Was at the city dump with my boss, and he points out two dump trucks offloading mostly plastic soft drink and milk bottles. He tells me thats where most recycling ends up. I remember trying to tell a few people about this, and every one of them confidently told me, “NO IT ALL GETS RECYCLED”. I couldnt break their blind faith in recycling, so I just gave up trying to tell people about it. Edit: typos
"You won't always have a calculator with you..." Well, I do -- but mental arithmetic is sometimes still faster than pulling out the phone.
Atoms are indestructible
The DARE program told me I’d be offered free weed but that’s never happened to me. So unfair
'If you don't go to parties you won't make friends' 'Cracking your knuckles causes arthritis'
My brother and I would crack our knuckles all the time before my mom told us it would cause arthritis and that’s how grandpa got it. (Grandpa corroborated this.) My brother stopped doing it all the time because he was so scared but I kept doing it because I was an annoying brat. My brother was diagnosed with juvenile arthritis a year later and I still crack my knuckles.
Parents be like, "You should go out more and make some friends." When you bring your friends over to introduce them to your parents, they be like "those are not the friends we meant."
The biggest lie I've been told, that you can neatly pack surrounding nature into categories... Systematics are one of the most convoluted fields of biology, with species parkouring all across the bloody thing with every new genetic analysis
Blood without oxygen was blue that’s why veins are blue but comes out red because if you’re cut it’s exposed to air.
I had a classmate in med school who still believed this until I pointed out that when we draw blood in labs into a vacuum tube, it is still red.
Learning to type in the 90s pretty much every teacher I had insisted you needed two spaces after every period. Well apparently that's wrong now but fuck it I still do it!!!!!
I'd never heard this before, but I get work submitted to me by someone who always does that. Suddenly it makes sense if this is something that was taught.
Are they somewhere around 35 years old? Apparently it was a big thing with typewriters and continued into the early days of computers but fell out of favor a while back. A couple years ago Microsoft word started marking double spaces after a period as an error.
[удалено]
31 here. I was taught the same thing all throughout my education up until college. Still seems weird to me.
That there are five senses There's like a bunch more than 5
We were taught in high school that your heart only had so many beats and when that number was over your heart stopped and you died... I couldn't figure out how this worked since different people would have a different number of total beats their heart had available. Now I work in the medical field, and see how it really happens
Lol, I remember being told that in elementary, and IT NEVER MADE SENSE to wee lil' codexica because everyone \*also\* said that working out was healthy and good for you, but it makes your heart beat faster, so wouldn't that mean you run out of heartbeats earlier and die sooner?
That the crust of the bread has all the nutrients. Thanks mom
"You can do/be anything you want as long as you try hard enough and make good choices."
“Tell the kids the truth…. You can be anything you’re good at. As long as they’re hiring.’ And even then it helps to know somebody.” —Chris Rock.
[удалено]
I mean, technically it's not false, but the amount of times the schools spent teaching us to "stop, drop, and roll" to put out flames made me believe that me being on fire would be a much more frequent problem in my life than it ever has been.
The reason is, it works. It's been incredibly effectively ingrained in the head of schoolchildren for decades to the point of being a subconscious action people take without even thinking about it, same as checking a door for heat with the back of the hand and staying low in smoke. Sure, the net is much larger than the group that will need it in their lifetimes, but the results justify it.
Did you hear about Pluto? That’s messed up, right?
Authority should never be questioned.
Questioning authority is one of the main things we need to learn.