Things you were taught in school which aren't true anymore

In the Post a video, enteratin me! thread, farley3k posted a video where a guy talked about things he was taught in school that have been debunked.

It made me think about how I got into an argument about the number of continents because I was taught there were 5 in Canada but in the US it is taught that there are 7. For the record they are Africa, America, Australia, Eurasia and Antarctica.

Please share the ones you have come across.

The old food pyramid, just look at that bottom row.
IMAGE(https://www.thebulletin.be/sites/default/files/styles/big_article/public/gum-infogrpx_food-pyramid.jpg)

When I was at school, Pluto was a planet. Apparently it isn’t now.

I was taught you had to learn math, "Because people don't always have access to a calculator at all times"... looks at phone.

Yeah from what I have heard the food pyramid was compiled by lobbyists but that could be fake as well. Doesn't check out with Mayo Clinic's suggestions that is for sure.

Edit: Whoops, misread the thread name. Nevermind.

The mechanics of novas and supernovas are all different than what I learned. The old thinking was much simpler than the present models... stars got old, ran out of fuel, started to collapse, had a runaway reaction, and then exploded. Supernovas were just big stars doing the same collapse/boom cycle.

The modern explanations have changed completely, and I don't remember them accurately enough to repeat them without going to look them up again. I do remember that novas and supernovas aren't caused by the same things, or in the same way.

All the jingoistic ‘Murcia bullsh*t taught in social studies classes.

Malor wrote:

The mechanics of novas and supernovas are all different than what I learned. The old thinking was much simpler than the present models... stars got old, ran out of fuel, started to collapse, had a runaway reaction, and then exploded. Supernovas were just big stars doing the same collapse/boom cycle.

The modern explanations have changed completely, and I don't remember them accurately enough to repeat them without going to look them up again. I do remember that novas and supernovas aren't caused by the same things, or in the same way.

I don't remember what I was taught about a supernova in school, or if it even was taught in my day, but your "old" explanation is generally correct. A massive star eventually runs out of "fuel" for its fusion, which counterbalances the gravitational force trying to pull in everything towards the center. When that fuel is depleted, that counterbalance is gone, and the star experiences a sudden gravitational collapse, which propels all of the star's matter outward.

Carrots and blue berries are not great for eyesight, this was a lie perpetuated in WW2 to cover for how we were intercepting messages either through the Turing computer or something and we knew where to bomb. This eye sight lie was saying they fed this to pilots and they could see at night.

Going off memory and recent revelations so correct if I am wrong here.

Checks and balances. That sh*t's fake.

Microwave ovens operate at the resonant frequency of water molecules, when they actually work using dielectric heating.

Dr.Incurable wrote:

How to read the hands on a clock.

A short while ago one of our interns at work, a woman in her early 20s, expressed surprise when I was able to read the time on an un-labelled analog clock. In that moment I felt very old.

Hobear wrote:

Carrots and blue berries are not great for eyesight, this was a lie perpetuated in WW2 to cover for how we were intercepting messages either through the Turing computer or something and we knew where to bomb. This eye sight lie was saying they fed this to pilots and they could see at night.

Going off memory and recent revelations so correct if I am wrong here.

The apocryphal version I grew up with was that it was to cover for the invention of radar, which gave pilots information on where the enemy airplanes were.

Jonman wrote:
Hobear wrote:

Carrots and blue berries are not great for eyesight, this was a lie perpetuated in WW2 to cover for how we were intercepting messages either through the Turing computer or something and we knew where to bomb. This eye sight lie was saying they fed this to pilots and they could see at night.

Going off memory and recent revelations so correct if I am wrong here.

The apocryphal version I grew up with was that it was to cover for the invention of radar, which gave pilots information on where the enemy airplanes were.

Yep some Google fu and it was radar.

MeatMan wrote:

I don't remember what I was taught about a supernova in school, or if it even was taught in my day, but your "old" explanation is generally correct. A massive star eventually runs out of "fuel" for its fusion, which counterbalances the gravitational force trying to pull in everything towards the center. When that fuel is depleted, that counterbalance is gone, and the star experiences a sudden gravitational collapse, which propels all of the star's matter outward.

Look up the Wikipedia article on supernovas. That scenario is still possible, but it's like one of a dozen or more possible progenitor events. Nova/supernova explanation has gotten vastly more complex over the last twenty or thirty years.

Why Does the Sun Shine? (The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas)

Why Does the Sun Really Shine? (The Sun is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma)

muttonchop wrote:
Dr.Incurable wrote:

How to read the hands on a clock.

A short while ago one of our interns at work, a woman in her early 20s, expressed surprise when I was able to read the time on an un-labelled analog clock. In that moment I felt very old.

In a couple more years that will happen with cursive writing.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Checks and balances. That sh*t's fake.

Progress is inevitable.

Also, that we are the "good" guys and they're the "bad" guys.

OG_slinger wrote:
muttonchop wrote:
Dr.Incurable wrote:

How to read the hands on a clock.

A short while ago one of our interns at work, a woman in her early 20s, expressed surprise when I was able to read the time on an un-labelled analog clock. In that moment I felt very old.

In a couple more years that will happen with cursive writing.

Actually, I could never learn cursive when my teachers taught it, and I can't read cursive easily. It's already proven to be a PITA when reading historical materials, but I've gotten better the more I've been exposed to it. I am a history major so this is probably my biggest weakness regarding the field.

If you learn to write in cursive, it'll be easier to read.

Mixolyde wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

Checks and balances. That sh*t's fake.

Progress is inevitable.

Also, that we are the "good" guys and they're the "bad" guys.

Fair point. We're the bad guys, and they're the infinitely worse guys.

Christianity is very Christian.

Ugh, everything about astronomy. So, my teacher read that the orbit was elliptical, drew a pulled rubber band of an ellipse, put Earth on one end, and said that's why we have seasons. There's more, but I think the embarrassment of getting it wrong in college wiped it from my memory.

That tongue chart that divided it into sweet, bitter, etc. My teachers decided that you could only taste sweet on the tip of your tongue.

Imperialism and colonization happened because indigenous populations were small and welcomed change and innovation.

Yes, they welcomed us with open arms!*

Oh, by the way, Happy Bartolomé Day tomorrow!

* because we had stolen, at gunpoint, everything they were carrying

Reaper81 wrote:

Imperialism and colonization happened because indigenous populations were small and welcomed change and innovation.

Along those lines, my history lessons didn't cover what the Americas were like prior to colonization by Europeans. There were large and populous civilizations that were mostly wiped out by diseases from early explorers. European forces effectively rolled into a post apocalyptic world and subjugated the survivors.

Over my 12 years in school, only in the last 3, (2nd half of 10, 11th and 12th) were we taught that civil rights were not as cut and clear as the previous 9 years stated, and specifically only my 11th year history teacher actually took time to explain in depth the causes of the civil war, and he always linked them back to slavery. I'm not saying that his explanation was wrong, but all the other classes I took from 1st-10th, and 12th that said that there were more clear cut and easy to understand. Only my 11th grade teacher took the one week we had budgeted for the Civil War during class to try and show how the rest of our education was misleading about this subject, he tried for every topic he taught, and unfortunately we never got past WWII (we were supposed to get to 9/11) but he kept trying to squish out the falsehoods and untruths that we re pounded into us about American History. I should note that we were spending about 1 week per subject in that class, but in trying to get rid of the biases and falsehoods ingrained into us regarding American History for 11 years, he was never able to get past Korea in any of his classes because of how he taught, and he was supposed to cover from The Revolutionary War to 9/11. Definitely an effect of being in one of the wealthiest schools in one of the wealthiest counties in the country around 2010 (I graduated 2012), despite this many of our text books were well over 10 years old. I think the newest textbook I ever used in highschool was the AP Psychology textbook because our teacher always had the college intro to psych books that were printed every couple of years. TL/DR: I had only one history teacher in my entire time in school from grades 1-12 who took the time to try and eliminate falsehoods about minorities, the civil war and other prominent myths in American History, and we only covered ~2/3rds of the material we meant to cover. Despite being in one of the wealthiest schools and one of the 10 wealthiest counties while I was there we still had out of date textbooks for just about every subject except AP Psychology.

Out of curiosity, what were you taught were the causes of the American Civil War in previous years?

The usual stuff that you hear from the south: economics, states right's and slavery were the big ones, in that order of importance. From what I remember they would usually focus on Sherman's march to the sea and focus on how it screwed the people in his path. As we got older they branched out more into explaining some of the "theories" on state's rights and economics, but until 11th grade they really didn't care to touch slavery much, and if it was mentioned before that it was almost always put in (an attempted) neutral light. Stating things that amounted to they didn't have to pay for food and shelter, they wouldn't say that the slaves couldn't do better, but it was implied that this was the best deal they could get if they weren't a free individual. Sometimes the books would mention the slaves' living and working conditions, but most of the time that was pushed into the center of a really dry paragraph in the text book, and usually somewhat deep in the chapter. They didn't go as far as to say that the slaves supported the institution, they did try to say that slavery was bad, but most people I went to school graduated with the belief that slavery was bad, but in the general (to quote Mr.Mackey from South Park), "Slavery is bad, mmmkay?" sense. Another common belief was that the Confederates were just Americans with differing viewpoints but both sides were able to come to amicable agreement after the war, and not traitors who formed another country, this was completely left out. Interchangeably labeling Confederates as Southerners, and they only mentioned the underground railroad once in third grade. In addition many of my peers just didn't care about learning the correct topic. As long as they passed many didn't give a flying f*ck.

The county I live in is weird and probably a big part of this, the location of the school in the county was even weirder looking at it economically. We had our county's version of ghetto, preppy and farmer kids all in the same school. The farmer kids were least numerous of the three, but there were a few from families who owned or sold their farms recently. You were as likely to run into a kid whose family was working-poor as you were middle-class, and even whose parents would buy them a BMW as a first car . If you're familiar with MD, the school was relatively close to both Prince George's County, and Montgomery County, about 15 minutes tops either way, while being in a separate county, which is why there is such a fluctuation of wealth in that specific school. According to friends that have family still going there things have stratified a bit since I was there, but I could walk into any class and find a sizable amount of people from all economic classes when I was there. I still was getting control over my mental illness when I was there, I can't recall specifics (names of textbooks) but I can recall general information such as the shock that he decided to try and correct these beliefs and the push back that occurred. Sorry if this is a bit scatterbrained, I tried to edit as best as possible.

Sheesh. Growing up in Durham, NC in the 1970s and 80s, my history teachers didn't pull any punches regarding the real causes of the American Civil War, what slavery consisted of, and the underground railroad. It's crazy to think we were more progressive there than some places in MD in the 2000s.