Most incorrect thing you were taught?

Turtwig

mikemac1 wrote: »

In the nineties it was the Ozone layer
Then it was global warming
Now it's climate change

A new name for every decade

And what happened the Ozone layer anyway, is is fixed?

Actually it was always Anthropogenic Global Warming. And the Ozone layer is totally unrelated to it. That's all for another thread though which would invariably resort to a strong critique of the media and journalists for spreading myth and ignorance.

_LilyRose_

johnt91 wrote: »

Nope, total bull! The blood is darker when it's deoxygenated but it's still red!

Awkward for my Biology teacher...

Coriolanus

I Heart Internet wrote: »

That even if you have plenty of money to buy a new (used) car, its important to get a loan anyway, especially from the credit union, because you can pay it back in no time and then you'll have a great credit history.....and you should do this on your second car too....

I believed/was badgered into it by my parents.

In fact - it's stupid to buy money when you have it (plus additional savings) already.

They were half right. What you should do is get a loan with no penalties for paying earliest. Take the cash, lodge it and go back the next day and pay off in full. You get a smiley face on your credit report that way and it costs you maybe a few cent interest.

Babooshka

...That Holy God is right beside you even if you can't see him. I was so p*ssed off that he wouldn't hold my fruit pastilles for me while I tied my laces when I asked him to and they kept falling on the floor.

I was 6, honest.

wrmwit

I remember our science teacher telling us that our blood was the colour blue, hence our blue vains. It turns red when it reacts with air and light! How mad is that!

stinkle

Like another poster said, our English teacher also pronounced it "hyper-bowl", and didn't know the difference between bass (as in music) and bass (the fish or the drink).

History teacher kept banging on about the "eye-talians" and couldn't pronounce stuff like Luftwaffe and Blitzkrieg when teaching us about WWII. Wouldn't accept she was wrong either, despite the entire class actually knowing how to speak German.

I mostly remember religious crap in primary school, like a teacher going mental around the time of the Divorce Referendum and trying to drill it into us that DIVORCE IS BAD!!!!! We all had to write a little tick beside the words "Separation" and "Annulment" in our copies, and then a big x beside "Divorce". Odd thing to be telling to 10 and 11 year olds.

nicowa

alproctor wrote: »

Pluto is 2300km wide, smaller than the Four Galiliean moons of Jupiter....
:cool:

"A natural satellite or moon is a celestial body that orbits a planet or smaller body, which is called its primary."

Pluto isn't a planet due to it's core, not it's size.

johnt91 wrote: »

Blood is blue, until it touches oxygen.

Pupito wrote: »

Another teacher told us that she knew of a boy who didn't swallow the communion wafer at mass, but took it out and put it in his pocket. He took it out later and tried to cut it with a knife (yeah, likely) at which point it started bleeding Jesus's blood. And Hasn't Stopped Since!

Heard a few different versions of those stories in school.

Wossack wrote: »

that a vomitorium is a room where glutonious Romans went to throw up, so they could eat more

So there isn't? Damn there go some of my best jokes....

What else do I need to re-learn?

I know (from a biologist) that a lot of what we learn in school about the energy cycle is complete bull - they call it "lies for children".

Pherekydes

My son came home from school determined to catch his old Da out:

Him: Dad, which metal is the best conductor?
Me: Silver
Him: Wrong, it's copper.
Me: Who told you that? :eek:
Him: Our science teacher (and she couldn't possibly be wrong about this ****)
Me: She's wrong!

And I proceeded to show him in an encyclopaedia. He got into an argument with said science teacher and became known as a smart alec.

My own education wasn't too bad. I don't remember too much that was later shown to be wrong, other than the religious/God stuff.

languagenerd

prinz wrote: »

I had a teacher who over the course of a number of years continuously corrected the spelling of my name in Irish

Had the same thing happen with my surname (in English) when I was in Senior Infants. The school secretary would take the roll if a teacher was running late or absent, and one morning took it upon herself to tell me that I couldn't spell my own name. Granted, it is one of those names with a couple of alternate spellings and maybe she'd only seen one variant before but... I was a very stubborn five-year-old who knew damn well that I was spelling it right. She refused to back down though. Pfft.

ocallagh

They didn't fish during the famine because fishing rods hadn't been invented.

Conall Cernach

ocallagh wrote: »

They didn't fish during the famine because fishing rods hadn't been invented.

Which brings me neatly to something that was in my first year history book called something like Ireland in the Middle Ages that stated that the staple diet of the Irish people in Norman Ireland was the potato.

Gbear

The food pyramid.

byhookorbycrook

readyletsgo wrote: »

Untrue. I am dyslexic myself. When I was learning cursive I could do it no problem but it never helped with my spelling at all, more so confused my spelling! !!!

Learning support teacher,have 25 years experience and the research of Brendan Culligan to back me up!!I should have said most children with dyslexia. It is also important to recognise that dyslexia is a very broad spectrum, but the multisensory approach has been proven to be vital for people with dyslexia.

Rasmus

In 3rd class I explained to my teacher about evolution. Something along the lines of 'my cousin said that we all descended from apes'.
I was lambasted and made to stand face against the wall. Teacher explained to class that this was completely untrue.

On another day I was screamed at for blowing my nose with the tissue from the bathroom as apparently that was for one thing only.
Irish school-days of yore - sometimes frightening.

Canard

Wossack wrote: »

that a vomitorium is a room where glutonious Romans went to throw up, so they could eat more

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

That's a good one actually and to the best of my knowledge its still been taught on the Junior Cert syllabus as fact.

Its not? I learned that in 2nd/3rd year and I'm only in 6th year now, wow thats weird if its wrong. I always liked that fact.

I just remembered all the things my dad used to tell me :rolleyes: "Theres cows' toenails in jellies" when really he meant gelatine. He told me I could eat them if I wanted but it was my own fault if I got Mad Cow Disease - when I was 10 I woke up with a headache genuinely thinking I'd gotten it

He used to have such silly things, he denies that he ever said them but I remember :P

GLaDOS

Pherekydes wrote: »

My son came home from school determined to catch his old Da out:

Him: Dad, which metal is the best conductor?
Me: Silver
Him: Wrong, it's copper.
Me: Who told you that? :eek:
Him: Our science teacher (and she couldn't possibly be wrong about this ****)
Me: She's wrong!

I could swear I was told gold was the best, could be wrong though.

Edit: Quick wiki does indeed say silver

Al Capwned

nicowa wrote: »

"A natural satellite or moon is a celestial body that orbits a planet or smaller body, which is called its primary."

Pluto isn't a planet due to it's core, not it's size.

.

From UniverseToday.com

Is Pluto a planet? Does it qualify? For an object to be a planet, it needs to meet these three requirements defined by the IAU:

* It needs to be in orbit around the Sun – Yes, so maybe Pluto is a planet.
* It needs to have enough gravity to pull itself into a spherical shape – Pluto…check
* It needs to have “cleared the neighborhood” of its orbit – Uh oh. Here’s the rule breaker. According to this, Pluto is not a planet.


What does “cleared its neighborhood” mean? As planets form, they become the dominant gravitational body in their orbit in the Solar System. As they interact with other, smaller objects, they either consume them, or sling them away with their gravity. Pluto is only 0.07 times the mass of the other objects in its orbit. The Earth, in comparison, has 1.7 million times the mass of the other objects in its orbit.

Here

face1990

I also had an English teacher who thought hyperbole was pronounced hyper-bowl.

Had a french substitute who never heard of accent grave (`) and accent aigu (´) and insisted they were both just called an accent (dunno how she distinguished between the two).

Had an Irish teacher who (in 5th/6th year) wouldn't tell you how any word was actually pronounced. You'd take a stab in the dark, and she'd tell you to continue, even though I know for sure I was butchering the language.

My maths teacher said that in Greece 'pythagoras' is pronounced 'pie-tha-GORE-ass'. Always wondered if he was right. Anyone know?

languagenerd

face1990 wrote: »

My maths teacher said that in Greece 'pythagoras' is pronounced 'pie-tha-GORE-ass'. Always wondered if he was right. Anyone know?

Don't think so - dictionary says "paɪˈθæɡərəs" which would be something like "pie-THAG-uruss" and the emphasis is on the "a" in Spanish too ("Pitágoras").

There is an accent on the "o" in the Greek, but I don't speak/read Greek so I don't know if that's emphasis or not (but it might be where your teacher got it from).


*Phonetics, translation AND maths in one post. Contender for nerdiest post ever? :P

nicowa

alproctor wrote: »

From UniverseToday.com

Here

Sorry I must have read whatever I was reading wrong. But I was mostly saying that pluto wouldn't be a moon simply because it's smaller than a moon of another planet.

saa

Going to the remedial class would mean I was stupid.
I didn't find out until much later I was dyslexic but teachers and parents usually said I wasn't trying hard enough, ayeayeaye.

saa

Gbear wrote: »

The food pyramid.

A carboholics best friend.

efb

rain on wrote: »

Had a substitute teacher in fourth class who insisted that Ireland's smallest bird was the wren and not the goldcrest. I was a total bird nerd as a child and was disgusted at this blatant display of ignorance. It still annoys me now :mad: goldcrests are feckin TINY!

Huh? I thought it was the wren!

rain on

efb wrote: »

Huh? I thought it was the wren!

That's because you weren't a childhood bird nerd.

Wossack

Patchy~ wrote: »

Its not? I learned that in 2nd/3rd year and I'm only in 6th year now, wow thats weird if its wrong. I always liked that fact.

I just remembered all the things my dad used to tell me :rolleyes: "Theres cows' toenails in jellies" when really he meant gelatine. He told me I could eat them if I wanted but it was my own fault if I got Mad Cow Disease - when I was 10 I woke up with a headache genuinely thinking I'd gotten it

He used to have such silly things, he denies that he ever said them but I remember :P

Fraud so

Your story reminded me of another: staying the night in my friends house when I was pretty young. We were going to play Nintendo all night so we set up camp in the front room with our sleeping bags.
Cue my friends dad coming in before he went to bed to warn us to keep a window open all night or the pilot light for the central heating (in the fireplace) would use up all the oxegen in the room and he didn't want to come down in the morning and find 2 dead kids..

Had a great night sleep that night..

Duggys Housemate

Well it does use up oxygen, for sure.

Solair

I'd a teacher who used to correct the correct pronunciation of "Thames" as "the river thay-mez"

Ostrom

We were told that Henry Ford invented the car...

byhookorbycrook

saa wrote: »

Going to the remedial class would mean I was stupid.
I didn't find out until much later I was dyslexic but teachers and parents usually said I wasn't trying hard enough, ayeayeaye.

Awful.

byhookorbycrook

efb wrote: »

Huh? I thought it was the wren!

Huge row at a local quiz one year, pre mobile internet.:D:D:D

efb

rain on wrote: »

That's because you weren't a childhood bird nerd.

Was never big into birds- still not ;-)

efb

The Irish education system is the best in the world... Brainwashed in St Pats much...

The King of Moo

corktina wrote: »

Is that you Stephen Fry?

I wish!

I may have heard that fact on Q.I though. I've always known there were lots of "exceptions," but I'm sure I only found out recently that they outnumber the words that agree with the "rule."

Africa wrote: »

That poetry written many years ago contains relevant and modern themes. BS.

Yeah, what did Shakespeare know about the human condition?

_LilyRose_

My English teacher pronounces 'writhing' with a short 'i', as in 'rid'. She said it a few times while reading this poem, and when another student pronounced the i as in 'ripe', she stopped her and was all, 'WHAT did you say? lol you're wrong!'

Someone please agree that it's 'wriiiiiiithing'!!

AlcatrazLogan

_LilyRose_ wrote: »

Someone please agree that it's 'wriiiiiiithing'!!

That's how I've always pronounced it.

Gone West

Wossack wrote: »

Fraud so

Freud so, or 'Fraid so?

The famed vomitorium does indeed refer to "spewing out", but its in reference to a tunnel and entrance under a stadium, so that the crowds or actors can rapidly enter/leave the stadium.

I'd imagine the only reason its still being taught is because the schools still have the old books for economic reasons.

AngryBollix

The King of Moo wrote: »

That "'I before 'e' except after 'c'" is a rule.

There are more words that break it than there are that conform to it.

Another QI viewer.

Nice

Louche Lad

languagenerd wrote: »

Don't think so - dictionary says "paɪˈθæɡərəs" which would be something like "pie-THAG-uruss" and the emphasis is on the "a" in Spanish too ("Pitágoras").

There is an accent on the "o" in the Greek, but I don't speak/read Greek so I don't know if that's emphasis or not (but it might be where your teacher got it from).


*Phonetics, translation AND maths in one post. Contender for nerdiest post ever? :P

According to Wkipedia, the accent on the 'o' in Πυθαγόρας indicates the 'o' is stressed.

AngryBollix

Jinny Joe Jinny Joe bring me back an easter egg

quickbeam

Jernal wrote: »

Being a huge Space enthusiast these were criminal for me. So much so that my teacher told my parents that I had an obsession with Venus.

At least it wasn't an obsession with Uranus

Some stuff that I remembered while reading this thread:

An English teacher insisted on the book being called Withering Heights - because, you know, there's no such word as Wuthering. I think it was the same teacher who insisted the book was called Far From The Maddening Crowd.

Being told that if you swallowed an apple pip that an apple tree would grow in your stomach and eventually out of your mouth.

That a paragraph had to be at least three sentences long.

Teacher that pronounced "wind" (as in "a strong gust of wind") to rhyme with mind when reading poetry.

We were writing an essay in class and I wanted to talk about somebody with dingy clothes but I wasn't sure how to spell "dingy" so I asked the teacher. I was told there was no such word and to just use the word dirty instead.

A previous poster mentioned this already but I was also taught that birds weren't animals. When listing animals only mammals were accepted.

Not really incorrectly things taught, but a few things that bugged me about school also: we had a choir class in primary school. I couldn't sing for shit so she told me to just mouth the words. I would have thought that the point of school was to teach a subject (ie singing) rather than just allowing those that already knew how to do it to participate.

We were being taught about animals that were cold blooded and warm blooded. Humans, cats, dogs, etc were warm blooded; lizards, frogs, etc were cold blooded. I put up my hand and asked what birds were. My teacher replied sarcastically: "creatures with feathers that fly, har, har", cue a laugh from the class and I was mortified. I thought it was a legitimate question and he never answered it.

I resent the fact that teachers only taught us what interested them. It was only in much later years that I realised that the ciriculums were much broader than we'd been taught, but teacher stuck to one subject on the basis that a question in the exam on that subject was guaranteed to come up. So while we learnt about Bismarck and Garibaldi which bored me, we could have learnt about medievel history which I've grown to learn about and love since leaving school.

Also, being taught things by rote but never actually learning the reasons behind them. So I could solve differential equations but to this day I don't understand at all what their application is about. School was so much about passing an exam than actually imparting interesting knowledge.

The King of Moo

AngryBollix wrote: »

Another QI viewer.

Nice

I never signed the confidentiality agreement viewers are supposed to sign barring them from sharing information they hear on the programme, so it's ok.

Victor

yoda2001 wrote: »

I recently heard that some kids in a primary school told a visitor to the school that penguins could fly. The teacher had told them and they were convinced. The visitor spoke to the 2 teachers afterwards who showed him a BBC video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IPazA9Lxks&feature=related

(a good reason for not having 2 teacher schools).

Penguins can fly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtFUWJzaVds

See 2:00-2:30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56BeRJepJog

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9HzgiXV7KM

Variant on a theme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlkWVkpP59U

Robdude

I was taught that the world would run out of oil by the year 2000.

It wasn't even presented as a 'maybe'...it was 'Unless we immediately stop using oil - we will run out by the late 90s. By the year 2000 there will be no oil.'

I was seven at the time and it was scary as hell. I told my Dad who told me to tell the teacher to 'piss off'. So I did, then I got in trouble at school and had the teacher lecture me *at length* about how she was absolutely correct and SCIENCE PROVED IT.

I wonder if I could find her on Facebook or something. I hate that lady.

rain on

efb wrote: »

Was never big into birds- still not ;-)

We didn't have a telly when I was growing up - it was that or watch the washing machine for entertainment

44leto

Everything I learned in business organisation was totally useless and mostly wrong.

sunflower27

A friend once told me that at shcool one of the nuns said that every word in the dictionary has either a vowel or a 'y'.

I said there must be one without either, and for some unknown reason I thought of the word 'nth' as in to the nth degree, within a matter of minutes.

My friend look at me wide-eyed. I couldn't believe myself either. :D

44leto

I before e except after c.

In a sex ed class in 2nd year I was told that self stimulation makes you a bad lover.

boomkatalog

I asked a teacher in sex ed class what an orgasm was and she tittered, winked and said you'll find out when you're older.

I think surely she could find a better answer to give to an 11 year old than that :S

token101

boomkatalog wrote: »

I asked a teacher in sex ed class what an orgasm was and she tittered, winked and said you'll find out when you're older.

I think surely she could find a better answer to give to an 11 year old than that :S

What did you want her to do? Give you a ****?